docs(datacenter): describe what the lab can actually do - #1241
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The page explained how to get in but never what is on the other side. A maintainer reading it could not tell whether the lab reflashes boards, whether it can cut power, or whether anything is measured. Add a highlights section covering clean flashing, switched power, per-board power sampling, serial console capture, per-interface iperf3, wireless and Bluetooth checks, and the benchmark/thermal suite -- with a note that coverage varies by how each bench is wired, and links to the published result pages. Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
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Included review availability: Your plan provides up to 2 included reviews per hour; 0 remain after this review. WalkthroughAdded a “What the lab can do” section to the Datacenter documentation. It describes remote flashing, NFS boot, switched power, power measurement, serial console access, network throughput testing, wireless and Bluetooth checks, benchmarks, and thermal readings. It also states that coverage depends on bench wiring and identifies the pages where results are published. Priority: ⬇️ Low Estimated code review effort: 1 (Trivial) | ~3 minutes Change: Other Merge Risk: ⚪ Minimal · up to This change adds documentation about existing lab capabilities without an identified production or workflow risk, so it is mergeable. 🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5✅ Passed checks (5 passed)
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Clean flashing is not what the lab does today. What exists is the mechanism -- SD-card switcher and Rockchip maskrom -- not a fresh image on every run, and the page already warns that reflashing is experimental. Split it into remote flashing (with that caveat, pointing at the existing note) and NFS boot, which is the other supported path and was missing entirely. Also name the serial console capability after what provides it: a serial console server. Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
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Corrected in dc8da0b. Clean flashing was overclaiming. The mechanism exists (SD-card switcher, Rockchip maskrom) but a fresh image on every run is not what happens today — and the page already carries a warning that reflashing is experimental, which the bullet contradicted. Split into two:
Worth noting for anyone reading the fleet table: all 70 boards are currently Serial console renamed to serial console server, after the thing that actually provides it. |
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Inline comments:
In `@docs/contribute/datacenter.md`:
- Around line 25-28: Update the NFS boot capability description to explicitly
state that all 70 boards currently use local boot, while retaining the
explanation that NFS boot is an available alternative.
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docs/contribute/datacenter.md
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Review noted a reader could take NFS boot for the fleet default. State that boards boot locally unless switched over, and point at the boards table for which is which rather than freezing a count into prose -- the number moved from 73 to 70 while this PR was open. Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
Partially automated, and the vendor USB recovery path covers Rockchip, MediaTek and Qualcomm. Everything else is still flashed by hand. Drops the SD-card switcher from the list: only the Rockchip maskrom path is wired up in the fleet tooling, so naming a switcher overstated it. Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
It is used, just on a handful of benches. Listed alongside the vendor USB recovery path with both marked experimental and covering a minority of the fleet, rather than dropped or overstated. Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
A throughput number only means something if the board was not bottlenecked by the port it was plugged into. Boards go to a switch matching their NIC -- 2.5 GbE to 2.5 GbE -- and multi-interface boards normally have every interface connected. Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
The 2.5G switch is currently away on RMA, so 'every board is cabled at its full link speed' is not true at this moment. State the wiring as the intent it is, and say plainly that a board can temporarily run below what its bench is wired for -- rather than dating the page with one outage that someone then has to remember to delete. Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
Temporary situation, not worth documenting. Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
The lab iperf3 server runs several daemons, one test each, so throughput runs do not queue behind a single slot. No count stated: the number of daemons is a runner variable, currently three (5201 plus 5202,5203), and prose restating a config value goes stale silently. Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
Four iperf3 daemons, one test each. The number is not arbitrary: 4 x 2.5 GbE is exactly what the server's 10 GbE uplink carries, so parallel measurements do not compete for bandwidth and skew each other. Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
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32 console ports, so most operational boards are reachable but not the whole fleet. Says so rather than implying every bench has one. Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
Does not depend on how the operational/broken split moves. Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
The page is about getting VPN access and reaching boards; the photo of the rack showed the reader nothing they act on, and at 283 KB it was the largest asset on a text page. The two screenshots further down stay — those show the actual sign-in screens a reader has to recognise. Signed-off-by: Igor Pecovnik <igor@armbian.com>
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TL;DR
docs.armbian.com/contribute/datacenter explains how to get into the lab but never says what is on the other side. Adds a highlights section so a maintainer can tell what the hardware is actually capable of before going through the VPN dance.
What was missing
The page goes straight from "we run a hardware lab" to "request team membership". Nothing on it answers: does the lab reflash boards, can it cut power, is anything measured, is there a serial console.
What the section covers
Each point is drawn from what the fleet tooling actually does today, not from intent:
It closes by saying coverage varies with how each bench is wired — the honest caveat, since these are per-bench capabilities rather than fleet-wide guarantees — and links the three published result pages.
No links to private repositories: everything referenced is a public docs page.
Placed between the rack photo and "Requesting access", so the reader learns what the lab is before being asked to join a team to use it.
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