Installing Debian from stock U-Boot/firmware

bodhi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> since you have cre
> ated the rootfs on USB, fw_printenv/setenv binary
> is already in the rootfs, which can be executed di
> rectly while in stock OS, or after booting into De
> bian.

For some strange reason, when I first logged in as root, fw_printenv didn't work, so I assumed it was not installed. I just checked and it was there in /usr/bin so not sure what happened. May be I made a typo at that time.

BTW, how about renaming the title of this thread to something more relevant like "Installing Debian on a Flash drive starting from stock U-Boot/firmware" so that it is easier to find for others?

haridsv,

> BTW, how about renaming the title of this thread t
> o something more relevant like "Installing Debian
> on a Flash drive starting from stock U-Boot/firmwa
> re" so that it is easier to find for others?

Good idea! please change it to "Installing Debian from stock U-Boot/firmware", if you can. Or I will.

-bodhi
===========================
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bodhi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Good idea! please change it to "Installing Debian
> from stock U-Boot/firmware", if you can. Or I will

I changed the subject for the OP, but I guess it doesn't change it for the replies. However, I verified that the new title shows up in the forum list, so that should be good enough.

To enable netconsole, can I just follow these instructions?

haridsv,

There are 2 parts of netconsole

U-Boot. This is to access U-Boot console, just like using serial console.
http://forum.doozan.com/read.php?3,14

Debian.This enable you to see the dmesg output during boot. But no input.
http://forum.doozan.com/read.php?2,9522

-----

The new u-boot envs already set up netconsole for U-Boot, if you did step 10:

Quote

10. Set up netconsole. It's important to set up neconsole if you don't already have serial console connected. If you've flashed the default environments in step 8 then activate netconsole with the following envs:

fw_setenv preboot_nc 'setenv nc_ready 0; for pingstat in 1 2 3 4 5; do; sleep 1; if run if_netconsole; then setenv nc_ready 1; fi; done; if test $nc_ready -eq 1; then run start_netconsole; fi'
fw_setenv preboot 'run preboot_nc'
fw_setenv ipaddr '192.168.0.xxx'
fw_setenv serverip '192.168.0.yyy'

-bodhi
===========================
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Here is my transcript:

admin@pogoplug:~$ sudo fw_setenv serverip 192.168.1.150
admin@pogoplug:~$ sudo fw_setenv ipaddr 192.168.1.151
admin@pogoplug:~$ sudo fw_setenv if_netconsole 'ping $serverip'
admin@pogoplug:~$ sudo fw_setenv start_netconsole 'setenv ncip $serverip; setenv bootdelay 10; setenv stdin nc; setenv stdout nc; setenv stderr nc; version;'
admin@pogoplug:~$ sudo fw_setenv preboot 'run if_netconsole start_netconsole'

admin@pogoplug:~$ grep netconsole /etc/initramfs-tools/modules
netconsole netconsole=6666@192.168.1.151/eth0,6666@192.168.1.150/

admin@pogoplug:~$ sudo update-initramfs -u
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-4.12.1-kirkwood-tld-1
I: The initramfs will attempt to resume from /dev/sda2
I: (UUID=dfc91059-3ed1-4fe5-9ba5-7adafbc2c65f)
I: Set the RESUME variable to override this.

admin@pogoplug:~$ sudo mkimage -A arm -O linux -T ramdisk -C gzip -a 0x00000000 -e 0x00000000 -n initramfs-4.12.1  -d /boot/initrd.img-4.12.1-kirkwood-tld-1 /boot/uInitrd
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-4.12.1-kirkwood-tld-1
Image Name:   initramfs-4.12.1
Created:      Tue Sep  5 15:15:34 2017
Image Type:   ARM Linux RAMDisk Image (gzip compressed)
Data Size:    7710767 Bytes = 7530.05 kB = 7.35 MB
Load Address: 00000000
Entry Point:  00000000

admin@pogoplug:~$ ls -lrt /boot
total 44596
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root    4096 Jul 16 03:44 dts
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  153501 Jul 16 08:51 config-4.12.1-kirkwood-tld-1
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3821528 Jul 16 10:12 zImage-4.12.1-kirkwood-tld-1
-rw------- 1 root root 3821528 Jul 16 13:13 vmlinuz-4.12.1-kirkwood-tld-1
-rw------- 1 root root 2504031 Jul 16 13:13 System.map-4.12.1-kirkwood-tld-1
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8435004 Jul 16 13:36 linux-headers-4.12.1-kirkwood-tld-1_1.0_armel.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3821592 Jul 20 13:41 uImage
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3833423 Aug 29 13:27 zImage.fdt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3833487 Aug 29 21:59 uImage.fdt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7710767 Sep  5 15:03 initrd.img-4.12.1-kirkwood-tld-1
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7710831 Sep  5 15:15 uInitrd

Here are a couple of deviations that would like to make sure are OK:
- I had to add "tld-1" to the initrd path, so specified "/boot/initrd.img-4.12.1-kirkwood-tld-1" instead of the suggested "/boot/initrd.img-4.12.1-kirkwood".
- The output of mkimage has the image name as "initramfs-4.12.1" with no "-kirkwood" suffix.

haridsv,

Quote

Here are a couple of deviations that would like to make sure are OK:
- I had to add "tld-1" to the initrd path, so specified "/boot/initrd.img-4.12.1-kirkwood-tld-1" instead of the suggested "/boot/initrd.img-4.12.1-kirkwood".
- The output of mkimage has the image name as "initramfs-4.12.1" with no "-kirkwood" suffix.

kirkwood-tld-1 should be in the suffix. I had some typos in the kernel instruction, but I've corrected it. If you still see something is not right, please let me know where!

Quote

admin@pogoplug:~$ sudo fw_setenv if_netconsole 'ping $serverip'
admin@pogoplug:~$ sudo fw_setenv start_netconsole 'setenv ncip $serverip; setenv bootdelay 10; setenv stdin nc; setenv stdout nc; setenv stderr nc; version;'
admin@pogoplug:~$ sudo fw_setenv preboot 'run if_netconsole start_netconsole'

You don't have to set this up, these are already in the default envs. See:

fw_printenv preboot_nc

Book keeping only: since you are booting with DTB using the new u-boot, the uImage is original. If this is indeed the original uImage

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3821592 Jul 20 13:41 uImage

then remove these files, to make it clear (to yourself later):

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3833423 Aug 29 13:27 zImage.fdt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3833487 Aug 29 21:59 uImage.fdt

-bodhi
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bodhi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> kirkwood-tld-1 should be in the suffix. I h
> ad some typos in the kernel instruction, but I've
> corrected it. If you still see something is not ri
> ght, please let me know where!

Look at the step 4 of this post, it doesn't have "-tld-1" in the initrd path.

Also, initramfs name has no suffix but I am suspecting that this is just for identification and can be anything, but it looks like the output of mkimage has the exact same name printed as "Image Name":

admin@pogoplug:~$ sudo mkimage ... -n initramfs-4.12.1  ...
...
Image Name:   initramfs-4.12.1
...
admin@pogoplug:~$ sudo mkimage ... -n initramfs-4.12.1-kirkwood-tld-1  ...
...
Image Name:   initramfs-4.12.1-kirkwood-tld-1
...

Considering the above information, your step 4 doesn't seem consistent, which is the other thing I was referring to as deviation. Here is how your output looks:

Quote

4. Generate new uInitrd (reminder: replace the 3.2.28 below with your current kernel version):

mkimage -A arm -O linux -T ramdisk -C gzip -a 0x00000000 -e 0x00000000 -n initramfs-3.2.28 -d /boot/initrd.img-3.2.28-kirkwood /boot/uInitrd
Expected output:
Image Name: initramfs-3.2.28-kirkwood
Created: Wed Sep 5 14:11:38 2012
Image Type: ARM Linux RAMDisk Image (gzip compressed)
Data Size: 6686266 Bytes = 6529.56 kB = 6.38 MB
Load Address: 0x00000000
Entry Point: 0x00000000

Is this again because of some version differences?

> You don't have to set this up, these are already i
> n the default envs.

I have already run these commands, so there is no way to check whether they existed before, but I removed those steps from my personal notes.

> Book keeping only: since you are booting with DTB
> using the new u-boot, the uImage is original. If t
> his is indeed the original uImage
> ...
> then remove these files, to make it clear (to your
> self later):
> ...

What is DTB? BTW, search seems to be partially broken on the forum. Yesterday while searching for something, I didn't find a thread that I knew had that keyword. Today I tried searching for DTB and got no hits, though at least this thread should have showed up.

Nm... found that it means "Device Tree Blob", from this post. Oh, I come across so many new concepts and terms when I go down to this level :)

To answer your question, only these files seem to have been updated since I installed, so the rest should have been the original:
- zImage.fdt
- uImage.fdt
- initrd.img-4.12.1-kirkwood-tld-1
- uInitrd

It looks like update-initramfs generates "initrd.img-4.12.1-kirkwood-tld-1" and mkimage generates "uInitrd". What are all the input files that I need to keep around for their future run to work?

haridsv,

> Look at the step 4 of http://forum.doozan.com/read.php?2,9522, it doesn't have
> "-tld-1" in the initrd path.

I see! it is OK then, because before that, the assumption was:

Quote

Assuming the kernel version is 3.2.28-kirkwood

> Also, initramfs name has no suffix but I am suspec
> ting that this is just for identification and can
> be anything,

> Is this again because of some version differences?

That's true. It's for identification purpose only. The image name could be anything you want it to be.

> Nm... found that it means "Device Tree Blob",
> Oh, I come across so many ne
> w concepts and terms when I go down to this level
> :)

Right :) U-Boot circa 2012 does not have FDT (Flatten Device Tree) capability. The U-Boot images that I've been releasing since 2013 have this capability (that was one of the main reasons why I started doing this, other than having large GPT partition >2TB, and Ext4 file system). All modern kernel versions since Linux 3.16 provide FDT.


>What are all the input files that I need
> to keep around for their future run to work?

These are the whole set of relevant kernel files that should be kept in /boot. config-4.12.1-kirkwood-tld-1 is for convenience only. Other files are needed in case they are used in generating u-boot images, looking up symboles, installing modules...

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  153501 Jul 16 08:51 config-4.12.1-kirkwood-tld-1
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3821528 Jul 16 10:12 zImage-4.12.1-kirkwood-tld-1
-rw------- 1 root root 3821528 Jul 16 13:13 vmlinuz-4.12.1-kirkwood-tld-1
-rw------- 1 root root 2504031 Jul 16 13:13 System.map-4.12.1-kirkwood-tld-1
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8435004 Jul 16 13:36 linux-headers-4.12.1-kirkwood-tld-1_1.0_armel.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7710767 Sep  5 15:03 initrd.img-4.12.1-kirkwood-tld-1

-bodhi
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Thank you!

Would you be help me setup a rescue system that boots the original firmware if the USB drive is not found? Should I just follow the instruction from here?

haridsv,

> Would you be help me setup a rescue system that bo
> ots the original firmware if the USB drive is not
> found? Should I just follow the instruction from [
> url=http://forum.doozan.com/read.php?4,3896]here[/
> url]?

That's Jeff's V2, a good and simple rescue system. Yes, follow that instruction. But before installing that, you need to save your current u-boot envs to a text file. And dump your NAND mtds to keep a back up, if you have not done so,

-bodhi
===========================
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bodhi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That's Jeff's V2, a good and simple rescue system.
> Yes, follow that instruction. But before installin
> g that, you need to save your current u-boot envs
> to a text file. And dump your NAND mtds to keep a
> back up, if you have not done so,

I had a quick look at the shell script and I am not too comfortable in running it as is, as it seems to be doing a lot more than what I thought would be needed. Isn't the uboot that I already have capable of booting from mtd2 so that I can get into the factory version of the OS?

haridsv,

> Isn't the uboot that I already have capa
> ble of booting from mtd2 so that I can get into th
> e factory version of the OS?

It is possible, but out of the box the new u-boot wont boot stock OS. You'll need some more non-trivial set up.

Try netconsole and make sure it is working first. And then think about what you want to do next as far as rescue is concerned.

-bodhi
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