Official firmware build system for the Mono Gateway development kit, an LS1046A-based device with 3 gigabit ports and 2 10-gigabit SFP+ ports. Contains Yocto recipes and configuration to build the complete firmware from source.

Install dependencies (Debian/Ubuntu):

sudo apt-get install build-essential chrpath cpio debianutils diffstat file gawk gcc git iputils-ping libacl1 liblz4-tool locales python3 python3-git python3-jinja2 python3-pexpect python3-pip python3-subunit socat texinfo unzip wget xz-utils zstd pipx

pipx install kas
pipx ensurepath
source ~/.bashrc

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/we-are-mono/meta-mono.git
cd meta-mono

Configure your build environment:

cp site.example.conf site.conf
# Edit site.conf - ensure DL_DIR and SSTATE_DIR exist with proper permissions

Build recovery and firmware images:

kas build

This uses .config.yaml (the kas default) which builds both recovery-image (BusyBox initramfs) and firmware-image (NOR/eMMC flash images). Build artifacts are placed in ./dist/.

See Flashing Firmware for instructions.

The 32MB NOR flash image layout:

The eMMC memory map is identical, but RCW+BL2 starts at a 4KB offset because the CPU boots from that offset on eMMC to avoid the partition table region.

Current Yocto release: Wrynose (Yocto 6.0 LTS)

All four BSP components track NXP Linux Factory upstream directly; our Gateway-DK changes are carried as patches under recipes-{bsp,kernel}/*/files/. SRCREVs and the LF tag live in conf/include/nxp-base.inc.

NXP uses Linux kernel minor version numbers for development of their firmware components (RCW, U-Boot, ATF) and Linux kernel. Their branches are prefixed with lf- and suffixed with -y (without patch numbers), e.g., lf-6.12.y. Stable releases are tagged with the full kernel version plus an internal SDK version, e.g., lf-6.12.49-2.2.0.

We pin all four components to the same NXP LF tag (currently lf-6.12.49-2.2.0) via conf/include/nxp-base.inc, and carry our Gateway-DK additions as patches in the relevant recipes-*/files/ directories. Bumping to a newer NXP LF release means editing one include file and refreshing any patches that no longer apply — see CLAUDE.md for the procedure.

Firmware images follow CalVer: YYYY.MM.N (e.g., 2026.03.1), set via FIRMWARE_VERSION in conf/machine/gateway-dk.conf.

Warning: Frame Manager Microcode

All devices ship with a special build of Frame Manager microcode (fman-ucode) pre-flashed at offset 0x400000 (4MB) on NOR flash.

Because this binary is proprietary to NXP, we cannot distribute it via GitHub. The default recipe builds a generic version.

Before flashing new firmware, back up the 4-5MB region from your NOR flash to preserve your microcode:

dd if=/dev/mtd4 of=/tmp/fman-ucode-backup.bin