Linaro Automation Appliance

A fully integrated embedded device testing appliance. One box to automate them all.

What is the Linaro Automation Appliance?

The Linaro Automation Appliance (LAA) is one box that automates embedded device testing, from firmware to user-space, on your own hardware. Drop in a new Device Under Test (DUT) and wire it into LAVA, Labgrid, or your CI in minutes.

A Standard Interface Board (SIB) is the compute engine and reaches the cloud over HTTPS. A Mechanical Interface Board (MIB) gives a robust, solder-free coupling to your board. Share any DUT with remote users and customers, without exposing your lab network.

Key capabilities

Plug-and-test integration: Stable mechanical connectors replace fragile hand-wiring. Raspberry Pi, Dragonboard, and Ampere boards work out of the box, and custom MIBs are cheap to make.

One appliance, every workflow: Run the same LAA as a LAVA worker , a GitLab or GitHub CI runner, or a KernelCI pull-lab , all configured remotely from LMS.

Secure device sharing: Give collaborators full SSH or locked-down, API-only access to the DUT, never to your network. Each DUT sits on its own isolated test network.

Complete hardware automation: Managed power rails, a USB hub with mass-storage emulation, dual Ethernet, serial console, virtual buttons, and thermal probes, all driven by CLI, REST API, or web.

Linaro Automation Appliance screenshots

LAA components

Managed power rails, a managed USB hub, USB mass-storage emulation, serial console, and virtual buttons.

Click image to view full screenshot

Features

Complete Hardware Automation

The Standard Interface Board (SIB) packs everything most automation tasks need:

  • managed 1.8 V/3.3 V/5 V/12 V power rails
  • managed USB hub with USB-C PD
  • USB mass-storage emulation
  • two Ethernet ports (one private for an isolated test network)
  • virtual buttons
  • thermal probes
  • DUT power monitoring

A standardized 96-pin connector exposes expansion GPIO, I2C, SPI, and UART.

Reliable by Design

Hand-wiring is fragile: loose cables, rack vibration, and slight board movement make labs unreliable over time.

The Mechanical Interface Board (MIB) swaps ad-hoc wiring for stable mechanical connectors. Choose from a growing catalogue, or build a custom MIB economically to cover an entire family of boards.

Managed Fleet & Security

Every appliance connects outbound over HTTPS to the LMS fleet-management service, which handles registration, access control, workflow configuration, and OTA updates. No inbound firewall rules required.

The platform is PSA Certified Level 1, the DUT lives on a separate isolated network, and access scopes range from full SSH down to a restricted per-device API.

Technical Overview

Architecture diagram: inside your lab, a DUT connects through a MIB to the SIB; the SIB makes egress-only HTTPS connections across the firewall to LMS fleet management, LAVA, KernelCI, and GitLab or GitHub in the cloudYOUR LAB · BEHIND THE FIREWALLLinaro Automation ApplianceSIBcompute enginepower · USB · seriallaacli · REST API96-pinMIBper-boardDUTisolated test network (private Ethernet)Remote users: SSH or API-only DUT access, never your networkegress-only HTTPSno inbound portsCLOUD SERVICESLMS Fleet Managementconfig · access · OTA updatesManaged LAVA Serverjob scheduling & resultsKernelCIpull-lab APIGitLab / GitHubCI runner with HW access

Ready to get started?

Contact Linaro to add Linaro Automation Appliances to your lab, or read the LAA User Guide , from QuickStart to device-type enablement.