practical learning - where to start from?!

alright. thanks bodhi! yes, my etc/network/interfaces uses DHCP. what i did now is:

- gave static IP leases using my router's DHCP server, to two namesakes for the same MAC addr., ie, for the same MAC addr. of the dock, i gave two IPs as:

aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff --> Debian --> 192.168.1.50
aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff --> GFH --> 192.168.1.60

so now, when i boot the dock, even though i have mapped two different static IPs with different client-names, but since they are bound to the same dock-MAC addr., the router is assigning just one IP to both the clients, just 192.168.1.50 to both. it sees 'Debian' as the active-client (and 'GFH' as still in the pool of DHCP-clients, but not active, and even to that, it has assigned the same static IP, ie, 192.168.1.50, contrary to what i had assigned, 192.168.1.60). so i suppose this issue gets taken care of this way.



- however, am still not able to run the command:

nc -lup 6666 192.168.1.50 6666

whereupon, the Ubuntu cmd-terminal throws the error:

nc: cannot assign requested address

i remember, that the first time i had run NC a day ago, this was the cmd i had used, and it was successful. however, no luck since then. does this mean that i won't be able to send inputs to the dock now during its booting? or can i still send, by interrupting/halting the boot-process in the NC by hitting any key? i don't understand what the cmd-terminal is trying to convey by the above error.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/31/2014 04:18PM by InfoScav.

InfoScav,

> nc -lup 6666 192.168.1.50 6666
> nc: cannot assign requested address

nc has many variations on different platforms, so check the man page on Ubuntu to see if the command options are the same as on Debian wheezy. You might need to change the command above.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)

hurrah! done! thanks bodhi! your reply set me thinking again. in one of my earlier posts (where i had posted the boot-process output), if you see again, the prompt used to display the following message upon typing the 'nc' cmd:

This is nc from the netcat-openbsd package. An alternative nc is available
in the netcat-traditional package.

now i thought to check this netcat-traditional package. after a while of looking, (apt-get) installed it in Ubuntu, and changed the syntax of the 'nc' cmd from:

nc -lup 6666 192.168.1.50 6666

to:

nc.traditional -lup 6666 192.168.1.50 6666

now, no 'nc: cannot assign requested address' error/prompt! straightaway boot-process output-display! :)

root@ohtiam-virtual-machine:~# nc.traditional -lup 6666 192.168.1.50 6666

U-Boot 2011.12 (Apr 18 2012 - 23:08:20)
Seagate GoFlexNet
arm-none-linux-gnueabi-gcc (Sourcery G++ Lite 2009q3-67) 4.4.1
GNU ld (Sourcery G++ Lite 2009q3-67) 2.19.51.20090709
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0 
(Re)start USB...
USB:   Register 10011 NbrPorts 1
USB EHCI 1.00
scanning bus for devices... 2 USB Device(s) found
       scanning bus for storage devices... 1 Storage Device(s) found
Loading file "/rescueme" from usb device 0:1 (usbda1)
** File not found /rescueme
reading /rescueme.txt

** Unable to read "/rescueme.txt" from usb 0:1 **
Creating 1 MTD partitions on "nand0":
0x000002500000-0x000010000000 : "mtd=3"
UBI: attaching mtd1 to ubi0
UBI: physical eraseblock size:   131072 bytes (128 KiB)
UBI: logical eraseblock size:    129024 bytes
UBI: smallest flash I/O unit:    2048
UBI: sub-page size:              512
UBI: VID header offset:          512 (aligned 512)
UBI: data offset:                2048
UBI error: validate_ec_hdr: bad VID header offset 2048, expected 512
UBI error: validate_ec_hdr: bad EC header
UBI error: ubi_io_read_ec_hdr: validation failed for PEB 0
UBI error: ubi_init: cannot attach mtd1
UBI error: ubi_init: UBI error: cannot initialize UBI, error -22
UBI init error 22
Loading file "/boot/uImage" from usb device 0:1 (usbda1)
1 bytes read
Found bootable drive on usb 0:1
Loading file "/boot/uImage" from usb device 0:1 (usbda1)
2461416 bytes read
Loading file "/boot/uInitrd" from usb device 0:1 (usbda1)
6362802 bytes read
## Booting kernel from Legacy Image at 00800000 ...
   Image Name:   Linux-3.14.0-kirkwood-tld-1
   Image Type:   ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
   Data Size:    2461352 Bytes = 2.3 MiB
   Load Address: 00008000
   Entry Point:  00008000
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
## Loading init Ramdisk from Legacy Image at 01100000 ...
   Image Name:   initramfs-3.14.0-kirkwood-tld-1
   Image Type:   ARM Linux RAMDisk Image (gzip compressed)
   Data Size:    6362738 Bytes = 6.1 MiB
   Load Address: 00000000
   Entry Point:  00000000
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
   Loading Kernel Image ... OK
OK

Starting kernel ...

hope this here is fine now. :)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE:

hello bodhi! i installed webmin & logitech media server today successfully. :)
now i have attached a seagate HDD to the SATA port of the dock. do i need to follow any step to make debian recognise the HDD?

if am correct, SATA is enabled in uboot by default. but the HDD is not being recognised via SATA. its a freeagent goflex model. i'll check with USB hub now. any disadvantage in connecting an HDD via USB hub? my purpose for using an ext. HDD is only for audio-video storage and sharing (and its ext4 formatted).

here's the dmesg output:

root@debian:~# dmesg
[    0.000000] Booting Linux on physical CPU 0x0
[    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuset
[    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpu
[    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuacct
[    0.000000] Linux version 3.14.0-kirkwood-tld-1 (root@tldDebian) (gcc version                                                                                                                                                       4.6.3 (Debian 4.6.3-14) ) #1 PREEMPT Tue Apr 1 22:54:58 PDT 2014
[    0.000000] CPU: Feroceon 88FR131 [56251311] revision 1 (ARMv5TE), cr=0005397                                                                                                                                                      7
[    0.000000] CPU: VIVT data cache, VIVT instruction cache
[    0.000000] Machine: Seagate GoFlex Net
[    0.000000] Memory policy: Data cache writeback
[    0.000000] On node 0 totalpages: 32768
[    0.000000] free_area_init_node: node 0, pgdat c06d7f18, node_mem_map c7efb00                                                                                                                                                      0
[    0.000000]   DMA zone: 256 pages used for memmap
[    0.000000]   DMA zone: 0 pages reserved
[    0.000000]   DMA zone: 32768 pages, LIFO batch:7
[    0.000000] pcpu-alloc: s0 r0 d32768 u32768 alloc=1*32768
[    0.000000] pcpu-alloc: [0] 0
[    0.000000] Built 1 zonelists in Zone order, mobility grouping on.  Total pag                                                                                                                                                      es: 32512
[    0.000000] Kernel command line: console=ttyS0,115200 root=LABEL=rootfs rootd                                                                                                                                                      elay=10 rootfstype=ext3 mtdparts=orion_nand:1M(u-boot),4M(uImage),32M(rootfs),-(                                                                                                                                                      data)
[    0.000000] PID hash table entries: 512 (order: -1, 2048 bytes)
[    0.000000] Dentry cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
[    0.000000] Inode-cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
[    0.000000] Memory: 116244K/131072K available (4779K kernel code, 352K rwdata                                                                                                                                                      , 1644K rodata, 213K init, 424K bss, 14828K reserved)
[    0.000000] Virtual kernel memory layout:
[    0.000000]     vector  : 0xffff0000 - 0xffff1000   (   4 kB)
[    0.000000]     fixmap  : 0xfff00000 - 0xfffe0000   ( 896 kB)
[    0.000000]     vmalloc : 0xc8800000 - 0xff000000   ( 872 MB)
[    0.000000]     lowmem  : 0xc0000000 - 0xc8000000   ( 128 MB)
[    0.000000]     modules : 0xbf000000 - 0xc0000000   (  16 MB)
[    0.000000]       .text : 0xc0008000 - 0xc064df14   (6424 kB)
[    0.000000]       .init : 0xc064e000 - 0xc0683444   ( 214 kB)
[    0.000000]       .data : 0xc0684000 - 0xc06dc3c4   ( 353 kB)
[    0.000000]        .bss : 0xc06dc3c4 - 0xc074665c   ( 425 kB)
[    0.000000] Preemptible hierarchical RCU implementation.
[    0.000000] NR_IRQS:114
[    0.000011] sched_clock: 32 bits at 200MHz, resolution 5ns, wraps every 21474                                                                                                                                                      836475ns
[   17.973632] Console: colour dummy device 80x30
[   17.973664] Calibrating delay loop... 1191.11 BogoMIPS (lpj=5955584)
[   18.063405] pid_max: default: 32768 minimum: 301
[   18.063512] Security Framework initialized
[   18.063576] Mount-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[   18.063595] Mountpoint-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[   18.064185] Initializing cgroup subsys devices
[   18.064209] Initializing cgroup subsys freezer
[   18.064222] Initializing cgroup subsys net_cls
[   18.064232] Initializing cgroup subsys blkio
[   18.064308] CPU: Testing write buffer coherency: ok
[   18.064699] Setting up static identity map for 0x485fa0 - 0x485fdc
[   18.066819] devtmpfs: initialized
[   18.069430] prandom: seed boundary self test passed
[   18.073530] prandom: 100 self tests passed
[   18.073546] pinctrl core: initialized pinctrl subsystem
[   18.073928] regulator-dummy: no parameters
[   18.074262] NET: Registered protocol family 16
[   18.074692] DMA: preallocated 256 KiB pool for atomic coherent allocations
[   18.075482] cpuidle: using governor ladder
[   18.075498] cpuidle: using governor menu
[   18.075608] Kirkwood: MV88F6281-A0, TCLK=200000000.
[   18.075629] Feroceon L2: Enabling L2
[   18.075668] Feroceon L2: Cache support initialised.
[   18.076076] initial MPP regs: 01111111 11113322 00001111 00100000 00000000 00                                                                                                                                                      000000 00000000
[   18.076105]   final MPP regs: 01111111 11113322 00001111 00000000 00000000 00                                                                                                                                                      000000 00000000
[   18.080932] bio: create slab <bio-0> at 0
[   18.081387] vgaarb: loaded
[   18.081680] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs
[   18.081757] usbcore: registered new interface driver hub
[   18.081875] usbcore: registered new device driver usb
[   18.082607] Switched to clocksource orion_clocksource
[   18.107348] NET: Registered protocol family 2
[   18.108003] TCP established hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[   18.108028] TCP bind hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[   18.108049] TCP: Hash tables configured (established 1024 bind 1024)
[   18.108118] TCP: reno registered
[   18.108134] UDP hash table entries: 256 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[   18.108156] UDP-Lite hash table entries: 256 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[   18.108350] NET: Registered protocol family 1
[   18.108676] RPC: Registered named UNIX socket transport module.
[   18.108688] RPC: Registered udp transport module.
[   18.108695] RPC: Registered tcp transport module.
[   18.108702] RPC: Registered tcp NFSv4.1 backchannel transport module.
[   18.108715] PCI: CLS 0 bytes, default 32
[   18.108958] Unpacking initramfs...
[   18.638258] Freeing initrd memory: 6208K (c1101000 - c1711000)
[   18.638371] NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.97 (double precision)
[   18.638925] futex hash table entries: 256 (order: -1, 3072 bytes)
[   18.639078] audit: initializing netlink subsys (disabled)
[   18.639135] audit: type=2000 audit(0.650:1): initialized
[   18.639811] bounce pool size: 64 pages
[   18.639879] zbud: loaded
[   18.640063] VFS: Disk quotas dquot_6.5.2
[   18.640117] Dquot-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order 0, 4096 bytes)
[   18.640419] NFS: Registering the id_resolver key type
[   18.640482] Key type id_resolver registered
[   18.640492] Key type id_legacy registered
[   18.640510] nfs4filelayout_init: NFSv4 File Layout Driver Registering...
[   18.640520] Installing knfsd (copyright (C) 1996 okir@monad.swb.de).
[   18.640675] jffs2: version 2.2. (NAND) (SUMMARY)  \xffffffc2\xffffffa9 2001-2                                                                                                                                                      006 Red Hat, Inc.
[   18.640957] msgmni has been set to 239
[   18.641076] Key type big_key registered
[   18.642951] alg: No test for stdrng (krng)
[   18.643043] Block layer SCSI generic (bsg) driver version 0.4 loaded (major 2                                                                                                                                                      52)
[   18.643054] io scheduler noop registered
[   18.643062] io scheduler deadline registered
[   18.643093] io scheduler cfq registered (default)
[   18.643350] mv_xor mv_xor.0: Marvell shared XOR driver
[   18.682671] mv_xor mv_xor.0: Marvell XOR: ( xor cpy )
[   18.722664] mv_xor mv_xor.0: Marvell XOR: ( xor cpy )
[   18.722785] mv_xor mv_xor.1: Marvell shared XOR driver
[   18.762672] mv_xor mv_xor.1: Marvell XOR: ( xor cpy )
[   18.802670] mv_xor mv_xor.1: Marvell XOR: ( xor cpy )
[   18.802969] Serial: 8250/16550 driver, 2 ports, IRQ sharing disabled
[   18.823622] serial8250.0: ttyS0 at MMIO 0xf1012000 (irq = 33, base_baud = 125                                                                                                                                                      00000) is a 16550A
[   19.371085] console [ttyS0] enabled
[   19.375673] nand: device found, Manufacturer ID: 0x2c, Chip ID: 0xda
[   19.382056] nand: Micron MT29F2G08AAD
[   19.385764] nand: 256MiB, SLC, page size: 2048, OOB size: 64
[   19.391454] Scanning device for bad blocks
[   19.405327] Bad eraseblock 92 at 0x000000b80000
[   19.615747] 4 cmdlinepart partitions found on MTD device orion_nand
[   19.622039] Creating 4 MTD partitions on "orion_nand":
[   19.627224] 0x000000000000-0x000000100000 : "u-boot"
[   19.632502] 0x000000100000-0x000000500000 : "uImage"
[   19.637782] 0x000000500000-0x000002500000 : "rootfs"
[   19.643081] 0x000002500000-0x000010000000 : "data"
[   19.648961] libphy: Fixed MDIO Bus: probed
[   19.664940] libphy: orion_mdio_bus: probed
[   19.669150] mv643xx_eth: MV-643xx 10/100/1000 ethernet driver version 1.4
[   20.753526] mv643xx_eth_port mv643xx_eth_port.0 eth0: port 0 with MAC address                                                                                                                                                       00:10:75:28:25:ce
[   20.762457] ehci_hcd: USB 2.0 'Enhanced' Host Controller (EHCI) Driver
[   20.769041] ehci-pci: EHCI PCI platform driver
[   20.773580] ehci-orion: EHCI orion driver
[   20.777672] orion-ehci orion-ehci.0: EHCI Host Controller
[   20.783135] orion-ehci orion-ehci.0: new USB bus registered, assigned bus num                                                                                                                                                      ber 1
[   20.790892] orion-ehci orion-ehci.0: irq 19, io mem 0xf1050000
[   20.812640] orion-ehci orion-ehci.0: USB 2.0 started, EHCI 1.00
[   20.818760] usb usb1: New USB device found, idVendor=1d6b, idProduct=0002
[   20.825599] usb usb1: New USB device strings: Mfr=3, Product=2, SerialNumber=                                                                                                                                                      1
[   20.832873] usb usb1: Product: EHCI Host Controller
[   20.837776] usb usb1: Manufacturer: Linux 3.14.0-kirkwood-tld-1 ehci_hcd
[   20.844522] usb usb1: SerialNumber: orion-ehci.0
[   20.849722] hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
[   20.853548] hub 1-0:1.0: 1 port detected
[   20.858034] mousedev: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
[   20.864032] rtc-mv rtc-mv: rtc core: registered rtc-mv as rtc0
[   20.869972] i2c /dev entries driver
[   20.874723] hidraw: raw HID events driver (C) Jiri Kosina
[   20.880422] drop_monitor: Initializing network drop monitor service
[   20.886932] TCP: cubic registered
[   20.890262] NET: Registered protocol family 17
[   20.894853] Key type dns_resolver registered
[   20.899620] registered taskstats version 1
[   20.904232] regulator-dummy: incomplete constraints, leaving on
[   20.910522] rtc-mv rtc-mv: setting system clock to 2014-09-01 19:33:18 UTC (1                                                                                                                                                      409599998)
[   20.920211] Freeing unused kernel memory: 212K (c064e000 - c0683000)
[   20.993327] udevd[54]: starting version 175
[   21.142506] SCSI subsystem initialized
[   21.172744] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 2 using orion-ehci
[   21.213579] libata version 3.00 loaded.
[   21.215531] sata_mv sata_mv.0: version 1.28
[   21.215613] sata_mv sata_mv.0: cannot get optional clkdev
[   21.221133] sata_mv sata_mv.0: slots 32 ports 2
[   21.278749] scsi0 : sata_mv
[   21.293804] scsi1 : sata_mv
[   21.296847] ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 irq 21
[   21.300965] ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 irq 21
[   21.335533] usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=1b1c, idProduct=1ab1
[   21.342287] usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[   21.349550] usb 1-1: Product: Voyager
[   21.353253] usb 1-1: Manufacturer: Corsair
[   21.357366] usb 1-1: SerialNumber: 000000025B8F8B
[   21.379344] usb-storage 1-1:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[   21.385867] scsi2 : usb-storage 1-1:1.0
[   21.391327] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
[   21.672652] ata1: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl F300)
[   22.042649] ata2: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl F300)
[   22.383634] scsi 2:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Corsair  Voyager          0.00 PQ                                                                                                                                                      : 0 ANSI: 2
[   22.421090] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] 15773696 512-byte logical blocks: (8.07 GB/7.52                                                                                                                                                       GiB)
[   22.429438] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[   22.434398] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 00 00 00
[   22.434805] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Asking for cache data failed
[   22.440334] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through
[   22.451054] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Asking for cache data failed
[   22.456640] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through
[   22.464926]  sda: sda1 sda2
[   22.471055] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Asking for cache data failed
[   22.476611] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through
[   22.482789] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI removable disk
[   22.498929] sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
[   32.163498] EXT3-fs (sda1): recovery required on readonly filesystem
[   32.169901] EXT3-fs (sda1): write access will be enabled during recovery
[   35.379549] kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
[   35.646712] EXT3-fs (sda1): recovery complete
[   35.651093] EXT3-fs (sda1): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode
[   36.841167] random: nonblocking pool is initialized
[   36.853277] udevd[242]: starting version 175
[   41.458690] alg: hash: Test 1 failed for mv-hmac-sha1
[   41.467883] 00000000: 0c aa 9f d5 37 c3 79 3a 91 d9 21 5f 42 2b 2c 24
[   41.480344] 00000010: b7 c3 16 0c
[   41.496174] orion_wdt: Initial timeout 21 sec
[   42.696495] EXT3-fs (sda1): using internal journal
[   46.801854] NET: Registered protocol family 10
[   48.005715] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready
[   50.233119] mv643xx_eth_port mv643xx_eth_port.0 eth0: link up, 1000 Mb/s, ful                                                                                                                                                      l duplex, flow control disabled
[   50.243041] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth0: link becomes ready

additionally, would it be wise to ditch the flash-drive, and use this HDD instead for debian & booting and all other purposes, connected to the USB port? its a portable HDD after all, with 500GB capacity.



Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/2014 02:06PM by InfoScav.

UPDATE: attaching the boot flash-drive to the USB-hub not working. the hub is anyway a non-powered one. can't fathom why attaching the HDD to the SATA port is not working.

InfoScav,

> UPDATE: attaching the boot flash-drive to
> the USB-hub not working. the hub is anyway a
> non-powered one. can't fathom why attaching the
> HDD to the SATA port is not working.

USB flash boot drive should work with the hub (it does not matter power or not). Look at netconsole output for the USB drive detection, see if anything strange during boot.

[   21.672652] ata1: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl F300)
[   22.042649] ata2: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl F300)

Your HDD was not recognized, is that a Seagate GoFlex portable that fits in the slot? or connected outside as typical for other external HDD? if it is a Seagate GoFlex, then plug it in the right port. You are running older U-Boot so it does have some limitation. Once you've done enough playing with this plug :), i.e. feel more experienced, you can consider install my U-boot image and get more flexibilty and new capability.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)

* debian is not booting up even if only the boot flash-drive is connected to the USB-hub. here's the netconsole output of that:

root@ohtiam-virtual-machine:~# nc.traditional -lup 6666 192.168.1.50 6666

U-Boot 2011.12 (Apr 18 2012 - 23:08:20)
Seagate GoFlexNet
arm-none-linux-gnueabi-gcc (Sourcery G++ Lite 2009q3-67) 4.4.1
GNU ld (Sourcery G++ Lite 2009q3-67) 2.19.51.20090709
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0 
(Re)start USB...
USB:   Register 10011 NbrPorts 1
USB EHCI 1.00
scanning bus for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found
       scanning bus for storage devices... 0 Storage Device(s) found
** Block device usb 0 not supported

** Invalid boot device **
Creating 1 MTD partitions on "nand0":
0x000002500000-0x000010000000 : "mtd=3"
UBI: attaching mtd1 to ubi0
UBI: physical eraseblock size:   131072 bytes (128 KiB)
UBI: logical eraseblock size:    129024 bytes
UBI: smallest flash I/O unit:    2048
UBI: sub-page size:              512
UBI: VID header offset:          512 (aligned 512)
UBI: data offset:                2048
UBI error: validate_ec_hdr: bad VID header offset 2048, expected 512
UBI error: validate_ec_hdr: bad EC header
UBI error: ubi_io_read_ec_hdr: validation failed for PEB 0
UBI error: ubi_init: cannot attach mtd1
UBI error: ubi_init: UBI error: cannot initialize UBI, error -22
UBI init error 22
** Block device usb 0 not supported
** Block device usb 1 not supported
** Block device usb 2 not supported
** Block device usb 3 not supported
** Block device usb 0 not supported
** Block device usb 0 not supported
Wrong Image Format for bootm command
ERROR: can't get kernel image!
stopping USB..

NAND read: device 0 offset 0x100000, size 0x400000
 4194304 bytes read: OK
## Booting kernel from Legacy Image at 00800000 ...
   Image Name:   Linux-2.6.32.18-dockstar
   Image Type:   ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
   Data Size:    3236180 Bytes = 3.1 MiB
   Load Address: 00008000
   Entry Point:  00008000
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
   Loading Kernel Image ... OK
OK

Starting kernel ...

i can only log in to the rescue system this way. removing the hub and reconnecting the boot flash-drive to the dock's USB port returns debian-booting back to normal.



* yes, the HDD is a FreeAgent Goflex 500GB portable drive; this model:

http://www.tonyjiang.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/goflex_contents.jpg

am plugging it on the SATA connector on my goflex home (only one such connector on the dock).

if i remember it correct, i was able to access this HDD once, using my earlier flash-drive, but don't remember whether it was connected to the SATA port or to the USB port via a USB-hub.

P.S. - i had tried to update the uboot using (Jeff's or davy's) script sometime back. got the prompt that you have the latest version (though yes, its from 2011/12). your uboot is from 2014 it seems. will try to update it. but only if it can assuredly make the SATA port work. risky stuff. can it? :P



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/2014 04:14AM by InfoScav.

InfoScav,

Yeah, I forgot that you have the GoFlex Home! only one available SATA port (there are 2 supported by the SoC). But it should work with the U-Boot that you are running without problem. You are actually running the GoFlex Net version, not the GFHome version (work the same for booting, but not exactly support GH Home specifics in Debian kernel).

You could interrupt netconsole and try to start the disk, see if it does anything:

ide reset

> scanning bus for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found
> scanning bus for storage devices... 0
> Storage Device(s) found

This indicated that the USB hub was not recognized by the GFHome. Could be either the hub, or U-Boot. Most likely if you replace with another better hub (e.g. Belkin or Sabrent worked for me) it will work.

> will try to update it. but only if it can assuredly make the SATA port work.
>. risky stuff. can it? :P

:) Best if you get a serial console and make sure you can boot with UART (described in U-boot thread). The GFHome has a serial header already, so there is no need to solder anything. The risk is small (typo, power outage,…), but if you can boot with UART first, the risk is alleviated to close to none.

The safe approach is we don't do upgrade unless there is a good reason to do so: boot with Ext4, boot with >2TB HDD,… If you want to upgrade u-boot, I would get a serial console first. But it's really up to each person to decide the risk to take!

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/2014 04:50AM by bodhi.

i overlooked the fact that the uboot am presently using is for the goflex net! thanks for reminding that! it makes sense that perhaps may be that's why the HDD is not showing up. don't know.

i tried interrupting the boot-process when it gives the prompt 'hit any key to stop autoboot', but it doesn't have any effect! the countdown just goes on, and the boot-process moves ahead, regardless of how many times i have pressed a key.

the hub i used is from Targus. will source a Belkin one later.

anyway, i was doing a 'dry-run' of flashing the new uBoot.

1. copied the goflex home uboot tar file in the 'root' folder of my rootfs partition of the debian flash-drive.

2. everything till step 3 of your guide was fine for me, i checked. at step 3, i was left wondering about your instruction 'be sure to save your current uBoot image in mtd0'. could you please tell how to achieve this?

3. also, i checked dmesg for bad blocks. got the following. is it fine? how to know if it is beyond the first 1M of the NAND?

root@debian:~# dmesg | grep -i 'bad'
[   16.658961] Scanning device for bad blocks
[   16.672834] Bad eraseblock 92 at 0x000000b80000

thanks!



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/2014 08:36AM by InfoScav.

InfoScav,

> that! it makes sense that perhaps may be that's
> why the HDD is not showing up. don't know.

Not likely the reason. The GFNet u-boot works fine for GFHome. It's only different in other minor thing specific to GFHome such as LEDs.

>
> i tried interrupting the boot-process when it
> gives the prompt 'hit any key to stop autoboot',
> but it doesn't have any effect! the countdown just
> goes on, and the boot-process moves ahead,
> regardless of how many times i have pressed a key.
>

This indicated your netconsole still has not worked properly. Try 2 commands like in Jeff's instruction instead of the combined one. This is important to get working, especiialy if you are going to change u-boot envs in any way.

> 2. everything till step 3 of your guide was fine
> for me, i checked. at step 3, i was left wondering
> about your instruction 'be sure to save your
> current uBoot image in mtd0'. could you please
> tell how to achieve this?

Dump it to a file named mtd0 like this, and keep your log so in the future you can restore it if needed:

nanddump -nf mtd0 /dev/mtd0

>
> 3. also, i checked dmesg for bad blocks. got the
> following. is it fine? how to know if it is beyond
> the first 1M of the NAND?
>

This 0x000000b80000 is the byte address in hex, so if you convert it to decimal, it will come out very large, way out in upper area of NAND.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)

alright. thanks! i had tried Jeff's commands too y'day. they worked only once, and the one time they worked (ie, when i was able to successfully interrupt the boot-process), i was asked to download and install 'ide' by Ubuntu. after i did that, the commands worked no more. will re-try today, and then move forward from there only.

UPDATE: ok. so i tried this time with the following commands:

nc -klu 6666
nc -u 192.168.1.50

the following is what came up after i typed 'ide reset':

U-Boot 2011.12 (Apr 18 2012 - 23:08:20)
Seagate GoFlexNet
arm-none-linux-gnueabi-gcc (Sourcery G++ Lite 2009q3-67) 4.4.1
GNU ld (Sourcery G++ Lite 2009q3-67) 2.19.51.20090709
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0 
GoFlexNet> ide reset
ide reset

Reset IDE: ide_preinit failed
GoFlexNet>

should i move to flashing the new uboot now? :)
or can something more be done about this ide reset?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/03/2014 01:42AM by InfoScav.

should i attempt booting from SATA rootfs, after editing the uboot env variables?

A GLEEFUL UPDATE!:

i tested a spare laptop HDD with the SATA port on my GFH. got detected just fine! please have a look.

'fdisk' output:

root@debian:~# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 8076 MB, 8076132352 bytes
249 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1021 cylinders, total 15773696 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00057b1e

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048    13676543     6837248   83  Linux
/dev/sda2        13676544    15773695     1048576   82  Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders, total 156301488 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xcb362d72

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1            2048   156301311    78149632   83  Linux

'dmesg' outputs:

root@debian:~# dmesg
[    0.000000] Booting Linux on physical CPU 0x0
[    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuset
[    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpu
[    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuacct
[    0.000000] Linux version 3.14.0-kirkwood-tld-1 (root@tldDebian) (gcc version 4.6.3 (Debian 4.6.3-14) ) #1 PREEMPT Tue Apr 1 22:54:58 PDT 2014
[    0.000000] CPU: Feroceon 88FR131 [56251311] revision 1 (ARMv5TE), cr=00053977
[    0.000000] CPU: VIVT data cache, VIVT instruction cache
[    0.000000] Machine: Seagate GoFlex Net
[    0.000000] Memory policy: Data cache writeback
[    0.000000] On node 0 totalpages: 32768
[    0.000000] free_area_init_node: node 0, pgdat c06d7f18, node_mem_map c7efb000
[    0.000000]   DMA zone: 256 pages used for memmap
[    0.000000]   DMA zone: 0 pages reserved
[    0.000000]   DMA zone: 32768 pages, LIFO batch:7
[    0.000000] pcpu-alloc: s0 r0 d32768 u32768 alloc=1*32768
[    0.000000] pcpu-alloc: [0] 0
[    0.000000] Built 1 zonelists in Zone order, mobility grouping on.  Total pages: 32512
[    0.000000] Kernel command line: console=ttyS0,115200 root=LABEL=rootfs rootdelay=10 rootfstype=ext3 mtdparts=orion_nand:1M(u-boot),4M(uImage),32M(rootfs),-(data)
[    0.000000] PID hash table entries: 512 (order: -1, 2048 bytes)
[    0.000000] Dentry cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
[    0.000000] Inode-cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
[    0.000000] Memory: 116244K/131072K available (4779K kernel code, 352K rwdata, 1644K rodata, 213K init, 424K bss, 14828K reserved)
[    0.000000] Virtual kernel memory layout:
[    0.000000]     vector  : 0xffff0000 - 0xffff1000   (   4 kB)
[    0.000000]     fixmap  : 0xfff00000 - 0xfffe0000   ( 896 kB)
[    0.000000]     vmalloc : 0xc8800000 - 0xff000000   ( 872 MB)
[    0.000000]     lowmem  : 0xc0000000 - 0xc8000000   ( 128 MB)
[    0.000000]     modules : 0xbf000000 - 0xc0000000   (  16 MB)
[    0.000000]       .text : 0xc0008000 - 0xc064df14   (6424 kB)
[    0.000000]       .init : 0xc064e000 - 0xc0683444   ( 214 kB)
[    0.000000]       .data : 0xc0684000 - 0xc06dc3c4   ( 353 kB)
[    0.000000]        .bss : 0xc06dc3c4 - 0xc074665c   ( 425 kB)
[    0.000000] Preemptible hierarchical RCU implementation.
[    0.000000] NR_IRQS:114
[    0.000011] sched_clock: 32 bits at 200MHz, resolution 5ns, wraps every 21474836475ns
[   17.974017] Console: colour dummy device 80x30
[   17.974048] Calibrating delay loop... 1191.11 BogoMIPS (lpj=5955584)
[   18.063790] pid_max: default: 32768 minimum: 301
[   18.063897] Security Framework initialized
[   18.063962] Mount-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[   18.063980] Mountpoint-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[   18.064569] Initializing cgroup subsys devices
[   18.064593] Initializing cgroup subsys freezer
[   18.064607] Initializing cgroup subsys net_cls
[   18.064617] Initializing cgroup subsys blkio
[   18.064693] CPU: Testing write buffer coherency: ok
[   18.065083] Setting up static identity map for 0x485fa0 - 0x485fdc
[   18.067204] devtmpfs: initialized
[   18.069814] prandom: seed boundary self test passed
[   18.073913] prandom: 100 self tests passed
[   18.073929] pinctrl core: initialized pinctrl subsystem
[   18.074309] regulator-dummy: no parameters
[   18.074644] NET: Registered protocol family 16
[   18.075073] DMA: preallocated 256 KiB pool for atomic coherent allocations
[   18.075855] cpuidle: using governor ladder
[   18.075872] cpuidle: using governor menu
[   18.075983] Kirkwood: MV88F6281-A0, TCLK=200000000.
[   18.076005] Feroceon L2: Enabling L2
[   18.076043] Feroceon L2: Cache support initialised.
[   18.076451] initial MPP regs: 01111111 11113322 00001111 00100000 00000000 00000000 00000000
[   18.076480]   final MPP regs: 01111111 11113322 00001111 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
[   18.081299] bio: create slab <bio-0> at 0
[   18.081753] vgaarb: loaded
[   18.082046] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs
[   18.082122] usbcore: registered new interface driver hub
[   18.082240] usbcore: registered new device driver usb
[   18.082970] Switched to clocksource orion_clocksource
[   18.107700] NET: Registered protocol family 2
[   18.108351] TCP established hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[   18.108377] TCP bind hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[   18.108397] TCP: Hash tables configured (established 1024 bind 1024)
[   18.108466] TCP: reno registered
[   18.108482] UDP hash table entries: 256 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[   18.108504] UDP-Lite hash table entries: 256 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[   18.108696] NET: Registered protocol family 1
[   18.109013] RPC: Registered named UNIX socket transport module.
[   18.109025] RPC: Registered udp transport module.
[   18.109032] RPC: Registered tcp transport module.
[   18.109039] RPC: Registered tcp NFSv4.1 backchannel transport module.
[   18.109051] PCI: CLS 0 bytes, default 32
[   18.109298] Unpacking initramfs...
[   18.638592] Freeing initrd memory: 6208K (c1101000 - c1711000)
[   18.638705] NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.97 (double precision)
[   18.639262] futex hash table entries: 256 (order: -1, 3072 bytes)
[   18.639416] audit: initializing netlink subsys (disabled)
[   18.639472] audit: type=2000 audit(0.650:1): initialized
[   18.640144] bounce pool size: 64 pages
[   18.640213] zbud: loaded
[   18.640395] VFS: Disk quotas dquot_6.5.2
[   18.640450] Dquot-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order 0, 4096 bytes)
[   18.640750] NFS: Registering the id_resolver key type
[   18.640812] Key type id_resolver registered
[   18.640822] Key type id_legacy registered
[   18.640841] nfs4filelayout_init: NFSv4 File Layout Driver Registering...
[   18.640851] Installing knfsd (copyright (C) 1996 okir@monad.swb.de).
[   18.641005] jffs2: version 2.2. (NAND) (SUMMARY)  \xffffffc2\xffffffa9 2001-2006 Red Hat, Inc.
[   18.641287] msgmni has been set to 239
[   18.641408] Key type big_key registered
[   18.643287] alg: No test for stdrng (krng)
[   18.643380] Block layer SCSI generic (bsg) driver version 0.4 loaded (major 252)
[   18.643392] io scheduler noop registered
[   18.643399] io scheduler deadline registered
[   18.643430] io scheduler cfq registered (default)
[   18.643690] mv_xor mv_xor.0: Marvell shared XOR driver
[   18.683033] mv_xor mv_xor.0: Marvell XOR: ( xor cpy )
[   18.723028] mv_xor mv_xor.0: Marvell XOR: ( xor cpy )
[   18.723148] mv_xor mv_xor.1: Marvell shared XOR driver
[   18.763034] mv_xor mv_xor.1: Marvell XOR: ( xor cpy )
[   18.803033] mv_xor mv_xor.1: Marvell XOR: ( xor cpy )
[   18.803331] Serial: 8250/16550 driver, 2 ports, IRQ sharing disabled
[   18.823985] serial8250.0: ttyS0 at MMIO 0xf1012000 (irq = 33, base_baud = 12500000) is a 16550A
[   19.371443] console [ttyS0] enabled
[   19.376038] nand: device found, Manufacturer ID: 0x2c, Chip ID: 0xda
[   19.382423] nand: Micron MT29F2G08AAD
[   19.386131] nand: 256MiB, SLC, page size: 2048, OOB size: 64
[   19.391820] Scanning device for bad blocks
[   19.405709] Bad eraseblock 92 at 0x000000b80000
[   19.616133] 4 cmdlinepart partitions found on MTD device orion_nand
[   19.622423] Creating 4 MTD partitions on "orion_nand":
[   19.627607] 0x000000000000-0x000000100000 : "u-boot"
[   19.632887] 0x000000100000-0x000000500000 : "uImage"
[   19.638168] 0x000000500000-0x000002500000 : "rootfs"
[   19.643464] 0x000002500000-0x000010000000 : "data"
[   19.649340] libphy: Fixed MDIO Bus: probed
[   19.665274] libphy: orion_mdio_bus: probed
[   19.669491] mv643xx_eth: MV-643xx 10/100/1000 ethernet driver version 1.4
[   20.753858] mv643xx_eth_port mv643xx_eth_port.0 eth0: port 0 with MAC address 00:10:75:28:25:ce
[   20.762788] ehci_hcd: USB 2.0 'Enhanced' Host Controller (EHCI) Driver
[   20.769374] ehci-pci: EHCI PCI platform driver
[   20.773912] ehci-orion: EHCI orion driver
[   20.778004] orion-ehci orion-ehci.0: EHCI Host Controller
[   20.783474] orion-ehci orion-ehci.0: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
[   20.791278] orion-ehci orion-ehci.0: irq 19, io mem 0xf1050000
[   20.813004] orion-ehci orion-ehci.0: USB 2.0 started, EHCI 1.00
[   20.819119] usb usb1: New USB device found, idVendor=1d6b, idProduct=0002
[   20.825964] usb usb1: New USB device strings: Mfr=3, Product=2, SerialNumber=1
[   20.833231] usb usb1: Product: EHCI Host Controller
[   20.838134] usb usb1: Manufacturer: Linux 3.14.0-kirkwood-tld-1 ehci_hcd
[   20.844880] usb usb1: SerialNumber: orion-ehci.0
[   20.850078] hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
[   20.853906] hub 1-0:1.0: 1 port detected
[   20.858392] mousedev: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
[   20.864390] rtc-mv rtc-mv: rtc core: registered rtc-mv as rtc0
[   20.870330] i2c /dev entries driver
[   20.875082] hidraw: raw HID events driver (C) Jiri Kosina
[   20.880782] drop_monitor: Initializing network drop monitor service
[   20.887292] TCP: cubic registered
[   20.890628] NET: Registered protocol family 17
[   20.895220] Key type dns_resolver registered
[   20.899982] registered taskstats version 1
[   20.904592] regulator-dummy: incomplete constraints, leaving on
[   20.910886] rtc-mv rtc-mv: setting system clock to 2014-09-03 09:28:41 UTC (1409736521)
[   20.920570] Freeing unused kernel memory: 212K (c064e000 - c0683000)
[   20.993690] udevd[54]: starting version 175
[   21.168935] SCSI subsystem initialized
[   21.173136] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 2 using orion-ehci
[   21.229746] libata version 3.00 loaded.
[   21.231687] sata_mv sata_mv.0: version 1.28
[   21.231762] sata_mv sata_mv.0: cannot get optional clkdev
[   21.260711] sata_mv sata_mv.0: slots 32 ports 2
[   21.296792] scsi0 : sata_mv
[   21.310098] scsi1 : sata_mv
[   21.318653] ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 irq 21
[   21.322794] ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 irq 21
[   21.335916] usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=1b1c, idProduct=1ab1
[   21.342670] usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[   21.349913] usb 1-1: Product: Voyager
[   21.353626] usb 1-1: Manufacturer: Corsair
[   21.357742] usb 1-1: SerialNumber: 000000025B8F8B
[   21.379538] usb-storage 1-1:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[   21.386059] scsi2 : usb-storage 1-1:1.0
[   21.391519] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
[   22.384022] scsi 2:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Corsair  Voyager          0.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
[   22.421475] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] 15773696 512-byte logical blocks: (8.07 GB/7.52 GiB)
[   22.430079] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[   22.435042] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 00 00 00
[   22.435443] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Asking for cache data failed
[   22.440970] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through
[   22.451690] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Asking for cache data failed
[   22.457269] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through
[   22.465562]  sda: sda1 sda2
[   22.471941] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Asking for cache data failed
[   22.477500] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through
[   22.483679] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI removable disk
[   24.293018] ata1: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl F300)
[   24.313106] ata1.00: ATA-7: HTS541080G9SA00, MB4OC60P, max UDMA/100
[   24.319404] ata1.00: 156301488 sectors, multi 0: LBA48
[   24.363095] ata1.00: configured for UDMA/100
[   24.383335] scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      HTS541080G9SA00  MB4O PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[   24.392619] sd 0:0:0:0: [sdb] 156301488 512-byte logical blocks: (80.0 GB/74.5 GiB)
[   24.401490] sd 0:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[   24.406339] sd 0:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[   24.406467] sd 0:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[   24.446038]  sdb: sdb1
[   24.450058] sd 0:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
[   24.743027] ata2: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl F300)
[   24.792837] sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
[   24.805045] sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0
[   35.234629] EXT3-fs (sda1): recovery required on readonly filesystem
[   35.241032] EXT3-fs (sda1): write access will be enabled during recovery
[   38.302690] kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
[   38.617723] EXT3-fs (sda1): recovery complete
[   38.622102] EXT3-fs (sda1): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode
[   38.885054] random: nonblocking pool is initialized
[   39.790724] udevd[248]: starting version 175
[   44.302050] alg: hash: Test 1 failed for mv-hmac-sha1
[   44.309351] 00000000: 0c aa 9f d5 37 c3 79 3a 91 d9 21 5f 42 2b 2c 24
[   44.323115] 00000010: b7 c3 16 0c
[   44.333897] orion_wdt: Initial timeout 21 sec
[   45.985253] EXT3-fs (sda1): using internal journal
[   50.112793] NET: Registered protocol family 10
[   51.335225] mv643xx_eth_port mv643xx_eth_port.0 eth0: link down
[   51.341316] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready
[   53.569695] mv643xx_eth_port mv643xx_eth_port.0 eth0: link up, 1000 Mb/s, full duplex, flow control disabled
[   53.579637] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth0: link becomes ready

root@debian:~# dmesg | grep sata
[   21.231687] sata_mv sata_mv.0: version 1.28
[   21.231762] sata_mv sata_mv.0: cannot get optional clkdev
[   21.260711] sata_mv sata_mv.0: slots 32 ports 2
[   21.296792] scsi0 : sata_mv
[   21.310098] scsi1 : sata_mv

in webmin:

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/XWmg0rv.jpg[/IMG]


can't fathom why the freeagent goflex drive is so arrogantly refusing recognition! will need to break my head on that some more.

also, i have a few options with me, please help me select the most appropriate out of them:

***1. update uboot or/and update kernel (after first figuring out the 'RESET: ide_printid failed' error reason) --> this step seems mandatory anyway to me.

2. use an HDD on SATA for rootfs/debian-booting, and an HDD connected to the USB-port of the GFH for media-storage & occasional downloads (more HDD-spins, reduced lifespan?).

3. use an HDD on SATA for rootfs/debian-booting, as well as use that same HDD on SATA for media-storage & occasional downloads (more HDD-spins, reduced lifespan?).

4. use a flash-drive for rootfs/debian-booting, and an HDD on SATA for media-storage & occasional downloads.

5. just use an HDD for rootfs/debian-booting, connected to the USB port, and use it for media-storage & occasional downloads as well (more HDD-spins, reduced lifespan?).

having rootfs on HDD could mean the HDD not spinning down, while using the HDD only for media-storage & some downloads would mean that the HDD can spin down when not in use, though the frequency & duration of which may depend in the type of the HDD. please correct me if am wrong.

if what i've written in parentheses in points no. 2, 3 & 5 above are true, then obviously point no. 4 will be the best option! what do you say?!

P.S. - my uses will be:

- media (audio-video)-storage on the HDD, for sharing with TV and media-player
- setting up and using logitech media server (presently i've installed it on my flash-drive)
- some http/torrent downloads

can't think of any other use at the moment.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 09/03/2014 10:11AM by InfoScav.

congrats bodhi! freeagent goflex too successfully recognised! :D

after testing the laptop-HDD and writing the above post, i suddenly had an inkling to try and remove the freeagent drive's jacket and then try to mount it on the dock. but did a few tests afterwards. however, tried that thing now, pried open the enclosure of the freeagent HDD, mounted it on the dock, and voila! drive recognised. :)

now will try to mount it again using just its caddy, and then later again with its enclosure, and check why it wasn't being recognised with the enclosure first. will work backwards, as now i know that its anyway being recognised now, atleast without its enclosure, so no worries. :)

just for the sake of info, here're the fdisk, dmesg, and webmin outputs for the freeagent HDD:

fdisk:

root@debian:~# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000b2848

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1            2048   976773119   488385536   83  Linux

Disk /dev/sda: 8076 MB, 8076132352 bytes
249 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1021 cylinders, total 15773696 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00057b1e

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048    13676543     6837248   83  Linux
/dev/sda2        13676544    15773695     1048576   82  Linux swap / Solaris

dmesg:

root@debian:~# dmesg
[    0.000000] Booting Linux on physical CPU 0x0
[    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuset
[    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpu
[    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuacct
[    0.000000] Linux version 3.14.0-kirkwood-tld-1 (root@tldDebian) (gcc version                                                                                                                                                      4.6.3 (Debian 4.6.3-14) ) #1 PREEMPT Tue Apr 1 22:54:58 PDT 2014
[    0.000000] CPU: Feroceon 88FR131 [56251311] revision 1 (ARMv5TE), cr=0005397                                                                                                                                                     7
[    0.000000] CPU: VIVT data cache, VIVT instruction cache
[    0.000000] Machine: Seagate GoFlex Net
[    0.000000] Memory policy: Data cache writeback
[    0.000000] On node 0 totalpages: 32768
[    0.000000] free_area_init_node: node 0, pgdat c06d7f18, node_mem_map c7efb00                                                                                                                                                     0
[    0.000000]   DMA zone: 256 pages used for memmap
[    0.000000]   DMA zone: 0 pages reserved
[    0.000000]   DMA zone: 32768 pages, LIFO batch:7
[    0.000000] pcpu-alloc: s0 r0 d32768 u32768 alloc=1*32768
[    0.000000] pcpu-alloc: [0] 0
[    0.000000] Built 1 zonelists in Zone order, mobility grouping on.  Total pag                                                                                                                                                     es: 32512
[    0.000000] Kernel command line: console=ttyS0,115200 root=LABEL=rootfs rootd                                                                                                                                                     elay=10 rootfstype=ext3 mtdparts=orion_nand:1M(u-boot),4M(uImage),32M(rootfs),-(                                                                                                                                                     data)
[    0.000000] PID hash table entries: 512 (order: -1, 2048 bytes)
[    0.000000] Dentry cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
[    0.000000] Inode-cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
[    0.000000] Memory: 116244K/131072K available (4779K kernel code, 352K rwdata                                                                                                                                                     , 1644K rodata, 213K init, 424K bss, 14828K reserved)
[    0.000000] Virtual kernel memory layout:
[    0.000000]     vector  : 0xffff0000 - 0xffff1000   (   4 kB)
[    0.000000]     fixmap  : 0xfff00000 - 0xfffe0000   ( 896 kB)
[    0.000000]     vmalloc : 0xc8800000 - 0xff000000   ( 872 MB)
[    0.000000]     lowmem  : 0xc0000000 - 0xc8000000   ( 128 MB)
[    0.000000]     modules : 0xbf000000 - 0xc0000000   (  16 MB)
[    0.000000]       .text : 0xc0008000 - 0xc064df14   (6424 kB)
[    0.000000]       .init : 0xc064e000 - 0xc0683444   ( 214 kB)
[    0.000000]       .data : 0xc0684000 - 0xc06dc3c4   ( 353 kB)
[    0.000000]        .bss : 0xc06dc3c4 - 0xc074665c   ( 425 kB)
[    0.000000] Preemptible hierarchical RCU implementation.
[    0.000000] NR_IRQS:114
[    0.000011] sched_clock: 32 bits at 200MHz, resolution 5ns, wraps every 21474                                                                                                                                                     836475ns
[   17.984386] Console: colour dummy device 80x30
[   17.984417] Calibrating delay loop... 1191.11 BogoMIPS (lpj=5955584)
[   18.074159] pid_max: default: 32768 minimum: 301
[   18.074265] Security Framework initialized
[   18.074329] Mount-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[   18.074348] Mountpoint-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[   18.074938] Initializing cgroup subsys devices
[   18.074962] Initializing cgroup subsys freezer
[   18.074975] Initializing cgroup subsys net_cls
[   18.074986] Initializing cgroup subsys blkio
[   18.075061] CPU: Testing write buffer coherency: ok
[   18.075452] Setting up static identity map for 0x485fa0 - 0x485fdc
[   18.077572] devtmpfs: initialized
[   18.080183] prandom: seed boundary self test passed
[   18.084282] prandom: 100 self tests passed
[   18.084298] pinctrl core: initialized pinctrl subsystem
[   18.084678] regulator-dummy: no parameters
[   18.085013] NET: Registered protocol family 16
[   18.085442] DMA: preallocated 256 KiB pool for atomic coherent allocations
[   18.086224] cpuidle: using governor ladder
[   18.086241] cpuidle: using governor menu
[   18.086352] Kirkwood: MV88F6281-A0, TCLK=200000000.
[   18.086373] Feroceon L2: Enabling L2
[   18.086412] Feroceon L2: Cache support initialised.
[   18.086819] initial MPP regs: 01111111 11113322 00001111 00100000 00000000 00                                                                                                                                                     000000 00000000
[   18.086849]   final MPP regs: 01111111 11113322 00001111 00000000 00000000 00                                                                                                                                                     000000 00000000
[   18.091668] bio: create slab <bio-0> at 0
[   18.092122] vgaarb: loaded
[   18.092415] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs
[   18.092491] usbcore: registered new interface driver hub
[   18.092609] usbcore: registered new device driver usb
[   18.093339] Switched to clocksource orion_clocksource
[   18.118070] NET: Registered protocol family 2
[   18.118722] TCP established hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[   18.118748] TCP bind hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[   18.118769] TCP: Hash tables configured (established 1024 bind 1024)
[   18.118838] TCP: reno registered
[   18.118854] UDP hash table entries: 256 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[   18.118876] UDP-Lite hash table entries: 256 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[   18.119068] NET: Registered protocol family 1
[   18.119389] RPC: Registered named UNIX socket transport module.
[   18.119401] RPC: Registered udp transport module.
[   18.119407] RPC: Registered tcp transport module.
[   18.119414] RPC: Registered tcp NFSv4.1 backchannel transport module.
[   18.119427] PCI: CLS 0 bytes, default 32
[   18.119673] Unpacking initramfs...
[   18.649068] Freeing initrd memory: 6208K (c1101000 - c1711000)
[   18.649181] NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.97 (double precision)
[   18.649735] futex hash table entries: 256 (order: -1, 3072 bytes)
[   18.649890] audit: initializing netlink subsys (disabled)
[   18.649947] audit: type=2000 audit(0.650:1): initialized
[   18.650621] bounce pool size: 64 pages
[   18.650691] zbud: loaded
[   18.650874] VFS: Disk quotas dquot_6.5.2
[   18.650929] Dquot-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order 0, 4096 bytes)
[   18.651231] NFS: Registering the id_resolver key type
[   18.651293] Key type id_resolver registered
[   18.651302] Key type id_legacy registered
[   18.651321] nfs4filelayout_init: NFSv4 File Layout Driver Registering...
[   18.651330] Installing knfsd (copyright (C) 1996 okir@monad.swb.de).
[   18.651486] jffs2: version 2.2. (NAND) (SUMMARY)  \xffffffc2\xffffffa9 2001-2                                                                                                                                                     006 Red Hat, Inc.
[   18.651767] msgmni has been set to 239
[   18.651887] Key type big_key registered
[   18.653756] alg: No test for stdrng (krng)
[   18.653849] Block layer SCSI generic (bsg) driver version 0.4 loaded (major 2                                                                                                                                                     52)
[   18.653861] io scheduler noop registered
[   18.653868] io scheduler deadline registered
[   18.653899] io scheduler cfq registered (default)
[   18.654157] mv_xor mv_xor.0: Marvell shared XOR driver
[   18.693402] mv_xor mv_xor.0: Marvell XOR: ( xor cpy )
[   18.733396] mv_xor mv_xor.0: Marvell XOR: ( xor cpy )
[   18.733515] mv_xor mv_xor.1: Marvell shared XOR driver
[   18.773403] mv_xor mv_xor.1: Marvell XOR: ( xor cpy )
[   18.813401] mv_xor mv_xor.1: Marvell XOR: ( xor cpy )
[   18.813697] Serial: 8250/16550 driver, 2 ports, IRQ sharing disabled
[   18.834352] serial8250.0: ttyS0 at MMIO 0xf1012000 (irq = 33, base_baud = 125                                                                                                                                                     00000) is a 16550A
[   19.381825] console [ttyS0] enabled
[   19.386416] nand: device found, Manufacturer ID: 0x2c, Chip ID: 0xda
[   19.392796] nand: Micron MT29F2G08AAD
[   19.396496] nand: 256MiB, SLC, page size: 2048, OOB size: 64
[   19.402184] Scanning device for bad blocks
[   19.416058] Bad eraseblock 92 at 0x000000b80000
[   19.626469] 4 cmdlinepart partitions found on MTD device orion_nand
[   19.632763] Creating 4 MTD partitions on "orion_nand":
[   19.637946] 0x000000000000-0x000000100000 : "u-boot"
[   19.643223] 0x000000100000-0x000000500000 : "uImage"
[   19.648498] 0x000000500000-0x000002500000 : "rootfs"
[   19.653793] 0x000002500000-0x000010000000 : "data"
[   19.659670] libphy: Fixed MDIO Bus: probed
[   19.675653] libphy: orion_mdio_bus: probed
[   19.679865] mv643xx_eth: MV-643xx 10/100/1000 ethernet driver version 1.4
[   20.764233] mv643xx_eth_port mv643xx_eth_port.0 eth0: port 0 with MAC address                                                                                                                                                      00:10:75:28:25:ce
[   20.773163] ehci_hcd: USB 2.0 'Enhanced' Host Controller (EHCI) Driver
[   20.779747] ehci-pci: EHCI PCI platform driver
[   20.784287] ehci-orion: EHCI orion driver
[   20.788377] orion-ehci orion-ehci.0: EHCI Host Controller
[   20.793849] orion-ehci orion-ehci.0: new USB bus registered, assigned bus num                                                                                                                                                     ber 1
[   20.801649] orion-ehci orion-ehci.0: irq 19, io mem 0xf1050000
[   20.823372] orion-ehci orion-ehci.0: USB 2.0 started, EHCI 1.00
[   20.829493] usb usb1: New USB device found, idVendor=1d6b, idProduct=0002
[   20.836339] usb usb1: New USB device strings: Mfr=3, Product=2, SerialNumber=                                                                                                                                                     1
[   20.843613] usb usb1: Product: EHCI Host Controller
[   20.848516] usb usb1: Manufacturer: Linux 3.14.0-kirkwood-tld-1 ehci_hcd
[   20.855261] usb usb1: SerialNumber: orion-ehci.0
[   20.860458] hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
[   20.864287] hub 1-0:1.0: 1 port detected
[   20.868776] mousedev: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
[   20.874782] rtc-mv rtc-mv: rtc core: registered rtc-mv as rtc0
[   20.880721] i2c /dev entries driver
[   20.885474] hidraw: raw HID events driver (C) Jiri Kosina
[   20.891179] drop_monitor: Initializing network drop monitor service
[   20.897692] TCP: cubic registered
[   20.901029] NET: Registered protocol family 17
[   20.905619] Key type dns_resolver registered
[   20.910382] registered taskstats version 1
[   20.915021] regulator-dummy: incomplete constraints, leaving on
[   20.921313] rtc-mv rtc-mv: setting system clock to 2014-09-03 15:25:24 UTC (1                                                                                                                                                     409757924)
[   20.931005] Freeing unused kernel memory: 212K (c064e000 - c0683000)
[   21.004065] udevd[54]: starting version 175
[   21.175346] SCSI subsystem initialized
[   21.183505] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 2 using orion-ehci
[   21.242502] libata version 3.00 loaded.
[   21.244524] sata_mv sata_mv.0: version 1.28
[   21.244600] sata_mv sata_mv.0: cannot get optional clkdev
[   21.250123] sata_mv sata_mv.0: slots 32 ports 2
[   21.308127] scsi0 : sata_mv
[   21.321170] scsi1 : sata_mv
[   21.327115] ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 irq 21
[   21.331256] ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 irq 21
[   21.346288] usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=1b1c, idProduct=1ab1
[   21.353036] usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[   21.360274] usb 1-1: Product: Voyager
[   21.363991] usb 1-1: Manufacturer: Corsair
[   21.368107] usb 1-1: SerialNumber: 000000025B8F8B
[   21.389796] usb-storage 1-1:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[   21.396311] scsi2 : usb-storage 1-1:1.0
[   21.401758] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
[   21.843387] ata1: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl F300)
[   22.203419] ata1.00: ATA-8: ST9500325AS, 0002BSM1, max UDMA/133
[   22.209370] ata1.00: 976773168 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32)
[   22.393459] ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133
[   22.398517] scsi 2:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Corsair  Voyager          0.00 PQ                                                                                                                                                     : 0 ANSI: 2
[   22.413454] scsi: waiting for bus probes to complete ...
[   22.419476] scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      ST9500325AS      0002 PQ                                                                                                                                                     : 0 ANSI: 5
[   22.450772] sd 0:0:0:0: [sdb] 976773168 512-byte logical blocks: (500 GB/465                                                                                                                                                      GiB)
[   22.458709] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] 15773696 512-byte logical blocks: (8.07 GB/7.52                                                                                                                                                      GiB)
[   22.467836] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[   22.472655] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 00 00 00
[   22.472801] sd 0:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[   22.477732] sd 0:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[   22.477813] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Asking for cache data failed
[   22.483325] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through
[   22.489653] sd 0:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, does                                                                                                                                                     n't support DPO or FUA
[   22.505436] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Asking for cache data failed
[   22.510964] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through
[   22.520057]  sda: sda1 sda2
[   22.525358]  sdb: sdb1
[   22.529687] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Asking for cache data failed
[   22.535379] sd 0:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
[   22.540080] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through
[   22.546261] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI removable disk
[   22.783379] ata2: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl F300)
[   22.832867] sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
[   22.844036] sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0
[   33.324757] EXT3-fs (sda1): recovery required on readonly filesystem
[   33.331167] EXT3-fs (sda1): write access will be enabled during recovery
[   39.399336] random: nonblocking pool is initialized
[   40.025554] kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
[   40.144466] EXT3-fs (sda1): recovery complete
[   40.148849] EXT3-fs (sda1): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode
[   41.322504] udevd[249]: starting version 175
[   45.679469] alg: hash: Test 1 failed for mv-hmac-sha1
[   45.690061] 00000000: 0c aa 9f d5 37 c3 79 3a 91 d9 21 5f 42 2b 2c 24
[   45.700510] 00000010: b7 c3 16 0c
[   45.709357] orion_wdt: Initial timeout 21 sec
[   47.125380] EXT3-fs (sda1): using internal journal
[   51.263915] NET: Registered protocol family 10
[   52.486107] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready
[   56.450219] mv643xx_eth_port mv643xx_eth_port.0 eth0: link up, 1000 Mb/s, ful                                                                                                                                                     l duplex, flow control disabled
[   56.460143] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth0: link becomes ready

root@debian:~# dmesg | grep sata
[   21.244524] sata_mv sata_mv.0: version 1.28
[   21.244600] sata_mv sata_mv.0: cannot get optional clkdev
[   21.250123] sata_mv sata_mv.0: slots 32 ports 2
[   21.308127] scsi0 : sata_mv
[   21.321170] scsi1 : sata_mv

webmin:

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/utFXNtk.jpg[/IMG]


now just awaiting your reply on what option to choose, from my previous post. :)


UPDATE: caught the culprit(s) of the freeagent drive! they're the front part of the drive enclosure, and two clips inside the enclosure, which probably didn't allow the contacts to be seated on the SATA port fully & properly. have removed them, and the drive is now seated properly, with only the back-cover of the enclosure on it. the HDD is being recognised as sda, and the boot flash-drive as sdb.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 09/03/2014 01:35PM by InfoScav.

InfoScav,

If the main use is general purpose and perhaps involved with compiling sources code then I would use the HDD rootfs. OTOH, I would choose option 4 for media-storage & occasional downloads. All my media NAS servers boot from USB flash, this has many advantages over a single HDD drive: easier to backup rootfs image, portable HDD drive that you can unplug and carry. And I have a single common rootfs for all NAS.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)

thanks a lot bodhi for that! clears it up well for me. option no. 4 it is for me then!

and i just took the risk & flashed the new uBoot too successfully! :)

i saw that you uploaded new rootfs and kernel images. tempted to try those too; although there's no real need to do that i suppose, but just itchy fingers of a learning neophyte; then i'll have 3 debian boot flash-drives with 3 different versions of your rootfs each, respectively, contrary to your single common rootfs for all your debianboot flash-drives. :) may be on a new flash-drive, a couple of which am going to place order for soon. thanks again! :) :)



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/03/2014 04:22PM by InfoScav.

InfoScav Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> thanks a lot bodhi for that! clears it up well for
> me. option no. 4 it is for me then!
>
> and i just took the risk & flashed the new uBoot
> too successfully! :)

Excellent!

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)

thanks!

now am stuck at one more (i presume 'trivial') point. LoL. now that the HDD is being detected, arises the issue of mounting and using it, or specifically, WHERE to mount it.

i installed and set-up samba y'day, using the short and good guide from 'petergunn' here:

http://forum.doozan.com/read.php?2,2340,2351#msg-2351

so now, i have created a folder named 'files' inside the 'home' directory of debian. had installed web-client for samba too, as well as mapped drive in Windows. all's fine. now where should i mount the HDD (ie, /dev/sdb1) is what am not sure about. y'day, just for a test, i mounted it in /mnt/HDD (a custom-created directory), but while unmounting it, it wasn't unmounting, citing 'process busy' sort of error. had to reboot the GFH to unmount it.

my dilemma is:

- i want to store audio-video files in the HDD for sharing with other devices, as well for logitech media server, and also store my downloads there. i don't want to use something like 'automount', because, if i replace the HDD with some other, the designation of the HDD changes. for instance, if i connect the freeagent HDD to the dock, it is designated as /dev/sda, but if i connect the laptop-HDD, it gets designated as /dev/sdb. so if i use automount for HDD, it could result in a conflict if i replace the HDD at any time and then boot up the GFH.

- another option is creating an entry in fstab. so that a conflict doesn't arise if i replace the HDD with some other (as mentioned above), i guess i will have to create an entry using UUID then? but what should the entry look like, am not sure, particularly about the last 2 entries, ie, 'dump' and the last one (forgot its name).

so, to summarise:

want to know where to mount an HDD, so that can use it through samba, as well as a storage device, and be able to myself control mounting-unmounting of it whenever i boot the GFH.

anyone, bodhi or anyone else reading this, kindly suggest. also, if there's any better option than above, or if i am wrong in what i have assumed, then please point that too. thanks!

UPDATE: am trying to figure this out. hopefully will be able to do this successfully very soon. will post about it here then.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/05/2014 05:09AM by InfoScav.

InfoScav,

The simplest solution is using pmount. Always label the HDD to something meaningful, e.g. MUSIC. pmount will take care of the mounting the disk to /media. So even if you don't want to automount (this is another subject), pmount is going to work well for it. That disk partition is always going to be /media/MUSIC regardless which Linux box you plug it in.

pmount /dev/sda1 /media/MUSIC
pumount /media/MUSIC

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)

thanks bodhi! that was helpful. i tried to mount the HDD using pmount, but was given the error that the drive is not removable. came to know that for it to be mounted, will have to edit /etc/pmount.allow. anyway, i've slightly changed the requirement, and now want to create UUID entries for both my HDDs in fstab, and mount them on boot (whichever is plugged in at that time), as well as share them with samba. working to that end.

UPDATE: got the HDD mounted to a pre-created dir in /media, and added an entry for it using UUID in fstab, with the option of autoboot enabled. then created various folders in the mounted HDD, and configured samba to share the HDD with Windows. :)

now onto setting up logitech media server. :)

InfoScav,

Ah! I thought you want to use USB so that you can unplug it easily. However, you can do the same with HDD label using the mount command, instead of pmount.

The reason I prefer partition label over the UUID: it is more flexible, you can even swap disks as long as the label is used for mounting, while UUID is fixed to that physical disk. And I don't put the entry in fstab because without that HDD plugged in, you will not be able to boot the box with just the USB rootfs (fstab entry must be resolved while the rootfs is mounted). So the most flexible solution for people who oftenly unplug the HDD and carry it to another machine: mount it in /etc/rc.local using disk label.

With all that said, your setup is pretty good, it should work great as it is.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)

ohk! thanks for informing about that! though i would seldom be unplugging/swapping the HDD, i had this in mind while putting an entry in the fstab with UUID, that perhaps, instead of UUID, putting an entry with the label would also work good. i will try that too now.
also, will check mounting with /etc/rc.local. didn't know about that.

one thing - if i run 'apt-get upgrade' sometime, i hope it won't upgrade the kernel, isn't it? asking because i saw an old thread, where the OP had done that, and his kernel got upgraded and then he wasn't able to boot with the USB-stick anymore. he had to re-install debian. though i think it was about dockstar.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/2014 09:34AM by InfoScav.

done! added an entry in rc.local as following:

mount /dev/disk/by-label/LHDD /media/LHDD

where, LHDD is the label of my laptop-HDD presently connected to the dock via SATA, and a dir i created by the same name (for easy identification) in /media to mount the HDD to.

tested it. mounting fine upon boot. so the difference between (auto)mounting via entry in fstab & rc.local is that the dock may fail to boot if the HDD is missing from the dock, when the entry is there in fstab, whereas not in the case if/when the entry is there only in rc.local, isn't it?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/2014 09:36AM by InfoScav.

InfoScav,

Quote

one thing - if i run 'apt-get upgrade' sometime, i hope it won't upgrade the kernel, isn't it? asking because i saw an old thread, where the OP had done that, and his kernel got upgraded and then he wasn't able to boot with the USB-stick anymore. he had to re-install debian. though i think it was about dockstar.

apt-get upgrade will not update your kernel. But it might update the initrd, if your rootfs has not been upgraded for a while. So if you see the output that said "generating initrd.img …." then the initrd was upgraded. In this case, the uInitrd should be regenerated (the old uInitrd still works for booting, but it takes old settings so needs to be regenerated). See kernel installation instruction about how to generate uInitrd.

Quote

so the difference between (auto)mounting via entry in fstab & rc.local is that the dock may fail to boot if the HDD is missing from the dock, when the entry is there in fstab, whereas not in the case if/when the entry is there only in rc.local, isn't it?

Yes, if the disk in fstab is not found, the rootfs mounting will fail. OTOH, once it gets to rc.local, Linux was already booted. And you might have more statements after the mount command, so to be sure that rc.local will executed completely even though the HDD is not plugged in:

if [ -d /dev/disk/by-label/LHDD ]; then
   mount /dev/disk/by-label/LHDD /media/LHDD
fi

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)

thanks! i did an 'apt-get upgrade' a day back. nothing upgraded. but will keep a note about regeneration of ulnitrd img in case if its reqd. anytime.

also, i had put the mount command for the HDD at the last of all the statements in rc.local (just above exit 0), but still, have made the changes to rc.local as told by you, as may be later on i put some script in there below HDD forgetfully, and that could create a problem then.

EDIT: the above-script didn't work. HDD didn't get mounted on reboot.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/08/2014 07:26AM by InfoScav.

bodhi, a few queries:

1. many-a-times, when i do 'apt-get update', i get error linking to the mirror. only after repeatedly trying (3-4 times) is debian able to successfully connect to the links and get update-info. should i change the mirror to the one nearest to my location, as instructed by Jeff? currently its the US mirror.

2. also, have been getting the 'FATAL: failed to fork' error a couple of times, after/while installing some packages. i read that it may be due to memory-issue. restarting the dock and reinstalling the package takes away the error. any way to avoid such situations?

3. if am cloning my boot flash-drive to another flash-drive, should i be using one with the same capacity as the boot-drive? or, suppose i use a larger capacity one, then, could i just reallocate more space to the rootfs and swap partitions after the cloning, in GParted? would that be recommended?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/08/2014 07:31AM by InfoScav.

InfoScav,

> 1. many-a-times, when i do 'apt-get update', i get
> error linking to the mirror. only after repeatedly
> trying (3-4 times) is debian able to successfully
> connect to the links and get update-info. should i
> change the mirror to the one nearest to my
> location, as instructed by Jeff? currently its the
> US mirror.

Yes, change to the one closer to you: http://www.debian.org/mirror/list.

>
> 2. also, have been getting the 'FATAL: failed to
> fork' error a couple of times, after/while
> installing some packages. i read that it may be
> due to memory-issue. restarting the dock and
> reinstalling the package takes away the error. any
> way to avoid such situations?

Package installation sometimes takes a lot of memory. Check and make sure your swap is working:

free

>
> 3. if am cloning my boot flash-drive to another
> flash-drive, should i be using one with the same
> capacity as the boot-drive? or, suppose i use a
> larger capacity one, then, could i just reallocate
> more space to the rootfs and swap partitions after
> the cloning, in GParted? would that be
> recommended?

Easiest way is if you create the partition at the exact large size you want first, and then copy rootfs over (sdb1 is new drive, sda1 is the existing drive, and both mounted on Ubuntu).

Log in a root user (not sudo)

cd /media/sdb1
cp -aR /media/sda1/* .
sync

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/08/2014 04:42PM by bodhi.

aha! thanks! will make changes and a note of all the 3 above.

hello there!

wanted to tell that the spare laptop HDD that i was using with the dock, it crashed one day. i tried to run fsck for it on Ubuntu, but the drive would just keep busy, and used to get stuck in being mounted on the OS. i then tried to create an img of the HDD, but there too, it got stuck at 85%, citing various errors. moreover, it started making loud noises (apart from clicking-sounds) while reading, probably due to bad sectors. i then discarded it, tore the shell apart, to look why it was making such sounds all of a sudden, and also to view how an HDD's innards look and work like (a youtube video wouldn't have been enough ;) ). i reckon that it went bad due to several power-cycles on the dock that i had performed. now i have connected another HDD to the dock, and this time, i haven't put any command or script anywhere to automount it, not in fstab, not in rc.local. i have just made it a point to mount it manually whenever i need to access it, upon booting the dock.



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 09/19/2014 01:49AM by InfoScav.