The ComfilePi OS is COMFILE Technology's operating system image for ComfilePi panel PCs. It is derived from Raspberry Pi OS and customized for ComfilePi hardware, with model-specific configuration, utilities, example programs, a dedicated data partition, read-only file system support, and access to convenient software package repositories.

The OS is intended to provide a practical starting point for developing and deploying ComfilePi-based industrial solutions, using familiar Windows, Linux, and Raspberry Pi tooling to install packages, configure services, and develop applications.

Existing Solutions: For solutions already deployed on an older OS release, it is recommended to no upgrade to at later OS unless there is a compelling reason to do so. Prior releases are available in the OS archive.

New Solutions: For new development, using the latest ComfilePi OS release is recommended.

The ComfilePi Trixie OS contains several improvements and changes over prior releases. Please see the ComfilePi Trixie OS for more information.

In general, to install the OS, simply download the OS image and use an disk imaging utility to write the OS image to the ComfilePi's boot device (e.g. the SD card). Any of the following OS imaging utilities should work:

• Rufus
• Raspberry Pi Imager (Select “Use Custom” in the OS selection)
• Balena Etcher
• Win32DiskImager
• dd (Linux)

IMPORTANT! - After installing the OS image to the ComfilePi's storage device, and prior to booting for the first time, you MUST replace the config.txt file with the model-specific config.txt file in the bootfs partition. For example, for the CPi-J070WR panel PC, overwrite config.txt with the cpi-j070wr_config.txt file. Some models will not boot, or will not function correctly, without the correct config.txt file.

The Trixie OS has adopted cloud-init for first boot initialization, and the latest Raspberry Pi imager has removed the ability to customize custom OS images. Therefore, to customize the OS prior to booting (e.g. changing the default userid/password, adding authorized SSH keys, etc.) please edit the user-data file according the the instructions in the cloud-init documentation.

When booting the OS for the first time, it will perform some initialization work (expand the last partition, generate unique SSH keys, etc) and reboot. Please allow it at least 5 minutes to boot for the first time to the desktop. After booting to the desktop, you can optionally update the software packages to the most recent releases of the day by running the following commands in a terminal.

sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade

The CPi-C/G/J/S panel PCs can boot from a USB drive. Therefore, it is possible to boot from a ComfilePi OS installed on a USB drive, and from there, flash the SD Card/eMMC/NVME drive locally. This method is much faster than writing the OS image to the ComfilePi over a USB cable.

Procedure:

1. From a workstation PC, use a disk imaging utility to write the ComfilePI OS to a USB drive. Be sure to update the /boot/firmware/config.txt file with the model-specific one in the bootfs partition.
2. If the ComfilePi already has an existing OS installed, make it unbootable using one of the following methods:
   • If the ComfilePi boots from an SD card, simply eject the SD card.
   • If the ComfilePi boots from an eMMC, move the files in the bootfs partition to a backup folder on the bootfs partition, so the bootloader can't find them.
   • If using a CPi-J panel PC, simply configure the boot DIP switch to USB boot mode.
   • For the CPi-C/G/S panel PCs it is also possible change the bootloader's configuration to try booting from the USB drive first, before booting from the SD Card/eMMC, but it is recommended to keep the default bootloader configuration.
3. Boot from the USB drive, and wait for it to fully initialize and boot to the desktop.
4. Once booted from the USB drive, enable SSH.
5. Copy the OS image you wish to write to the ComfilePi's boot device to a directory on the USB drive using one of the following methods:
   • Use scp or a utility like FileZilla to copy the OS image from a desktop computer to the ComfilePi.
   • If the OS image is stored on a web server, use a utility like curl or wget to download the OS to a directory on the USB drive.
   • Use a second USB drive to store your source OS image(s) and connect it to the ComfilePi after it has been booted from the first USB drive.
   • Prior to booting from the first USB drive, you can add a 4th partition to the USB drive to copy OS images to.
6. Open the Backup/Restore application form the ComfilePi menu.
7. Select the Restore option.
8. Select your source OS image.
9. Select the destination boot device.
10. Press the “Start Restore” button to begin writing the OS image to the destination disk.
11. After it is finished you'll be prompted with a dialog to select the CPi model. If the source OS image is an unmodified ComfilePi OS image, select the the CPi model so the OS will be configured with the correct config.txt file. If the source OS image is already configured, select the “Retain existing config.txt file” option.

Important: Although it is possible to configure a Compute Module 3 for USB booting by modifying the OTP memory, that has an unfortunate side effect of disabling it's ability to boot into the USB device mode for programming the eMMC. So please do not attempt to modify the Compute Module 3's OTP memory to enable USB booting, or you may not be able to program the eMMC again and will need to replace the Compute Module. Use the USB cable method instead.

1. Obtain a USB-Type-A-to-USB-Type-A cable and connect it between the CPi panel PC and your desktop PC using the “USB Device” port.
2. Turn on the CPi-xxxx panel PC. Due to the USB cable being plugged into the USB Device port, it will automatically boot into a special mode allowing the eMMC to be flashed. Nothing will appear on the screen though. If it boots into the desktop, something is wrong. If that happens check to ensure the cables are properly connected.
3. Once the ComfilePi is powered on, download and install the rpi_boot program.
4. Once installed, from the start menu, run “rpi-boot-CM4-CM5 - Mass Storage Gadget” for the CPi-C/G/S panel PCs or “rpiboot-CM-CM2-CM3” for the CPi-A/B panel PCs. It will detect the ComfilePi and mount the eMMC as if it were an SD card (e.g. as a removable drive).
5. Once the eMMC is mounted as a removable drive, follow the normal procedure for flashing or backing up an OS image.

See the Raspberry Pi eMMC Flashing Instructions for more information.

CPi-J panel PCs do not have a USB device port for programming the eMMC. Use the method to boot from a USB drive instead.

For all OS releases, the default user is pi and the default password is raspberry.

To replace the pi user and/or password prior to booting for the first time, after installing the OS the storage device, edit the user-data file on the bootfs partition to customize the default username and password. See the cloud-init documentation for more information.

To configure passwordless SSH authentication, configure the ssh_authorized_keys field as described in this cloud-init documentation.

The latest Raspaberry Pi Imager program removed the ability to customize custom OS images, so you will need to use v1.9.6 or earlier to configure first boot initialization.

To replace the pi user and/or password, use the Raspberry Pi Imager v1.9.6, press the gear icon and set a new username and password in the Advance Options screen before writing the OS to the SD card or eMMC.

After customizing an OS by changing settings, adding/remove software, etc. you may want to create a clone of the OS to provision additional panel PCs. If using a Windows PC, consider using Win32DiskImager to Read the SD card or eMMC disk to an image file (.img), and then use that resulting image file to provision additional ComfilePi panel PCs.

It is also possible to boot the ComfilePi OS from a USB drive and then use the included Backup/Restore application to backup, clone, and/or restore additional ComfilePi panel PCs.

The backup procedure uses sgdisk and fsarchiver to backup the partition table and partitions respectively, and package them into a .tar archive. One advantage of this method is that it is possible to untar the .tar archive, and manually edit the partition table backup file to change the size or layout of the partitions.

Using the Backup/Restore application to restore the .tar archive also provides the ability change the disk UUIDs, reinitialize the machine ID (e.g. to recreate unique SSH keys), and offer a final dialog to select the appropriate config.txt file (e.g. if clone from one ComfilePi model to another).

ComfilePi - Industrial Raspberry Pi Panel PC