GoflexNet with corrupted init.d/rcS can't boot fully

@jdwl101 replied:
------------------------------------------------------
> Bohdi basically answered that question in his last post.
> Give up on stock, the Debian install you have built is infinitely more capable.

I absolutely agree that Debian is drastically better, but that leaves me with several questions about running the Debian in the USB flash drive.

1. With the rootfs not mounted ro, the external USB flash drive will suffer erasure wear. At least pogo mounts rootfs as ro, and creates a ramdisk /tmp to hold files that are repeatedly updated rather than causing repeated block erasures in USB device.
2. The existing GoFlexNet code supported Samba file sharing with my local network of PCs running Windows. Installing and configuring a Debian version will take more time than fixing the existing FGN code.
3. I can edit the /etc/init.d scripts to prevent running the PogoPlug code, but still leave ssh capability, along with Samba that is very low-power compared to constantly powered USB with flash. (I do need to modify so it can power-down SATA drives after like 2 hours of idle.)

So I'm still going to continue my uBoot learning experience and see if I can create a uboot boot script for the original DtsBlock file systems. I appreciate your trying to save me time, but this has turned into a spiritual pursuit since I retired 10 years ago as an expert in self-encrypting storage devices. I haven't hacked anything since then, and now I whacked a serial port and can almost get the original GoFlexNet back to life. I was hoping to avoid trashing my dts filesystems while trying to mount the image that will boot the dts rootfs.

Of course, I understand if I'm asking for something that doesn't make sense to anyone, then I'll let this thread go and grep through the uBoot threads to see if I can fathom how to get the latest uBoot to understand the dtsblock file systems.

Thx for all the guidance this far into my adventure!

Jerry

Jerry,

> With the rootfs not mounted ro, the external
> USB flash drive will suffer erasure wear. At
> least pogo mounts rootfs as ro, and creates a
> ramdisk /tmp to hold files that are repeatedly
> updated rather than causing repeated block
> erasures in USB device.

We have a remedy for that in the Wiki thread

Quote

Flash drives issues

How to prolong the life of your rootfs USB thumb drive

> The existing GoFlexNet code supported Samba
> file sharing with my local network of PCs running
> Windows. Installing and configuring a Debian
> version will take more time than fixing the
> existing FGN code.

Also in the Wiki thread:

Quote

Samba

Samba smb.conf for a simple set up
HowTo setup Samba/CIFS shares

> constantly powered USB with
> flash.
(I do need to modify so it can power-down
> SATA drives after like 2 hours of idle.)

That is really a non-issue. USB 2.0 draws so little power that it is "in the noise", so to speak, of the whole box power consumption.

> So I'm still going to continue my uBoot learning
> experience and see if I can create a uboot boot
> script for the original DtsBlock file systems. I
> appreciate your trying to save me time, but this
> has turned into a spiritual pursuit

Now it is a damn good reason :) that is always a good thing to do, imo. However, you're in a slightly wrong track regarding what you said about "DtsBlock file systems". The rootfs is JFFS2, so you'd just load the stock kernel using u-boot env syntax for that rootfs to mount properly.

====


Ok. So to boot stock OS in NAND. You need to do 2 tasks:

1. To chainboot the stock u-boot (was on stock mtd0) that you should have backed it up before you install new u-boot. And this stock u-boot image should be on mtd3 (stock rootfs) at root folder.

2. To write a few u-boot envs that execute the chainboot and load the stock u-boot, execute it. This stock u-boot will load the stock kernel on mtd1 and then that will mount the rootfs from mtd3.

You can tell from the summary that it is a little bit involved to prepare. Since you've installed new u-boot in serial console, you did not have opportunity to prepare these things. That was also a reason for my suggestion to use kwboot to go straigth to Debian rootfs on USBB (you'd leave everything stock intact that way).

I will find the necessary envs in my notes and post them. I'm not sure if I can find a backup mtd0 for this box. If I can, I will post it. Or you can search the forum and find it in some post somewhere.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner

@jdwl101 replied:
------------------------------------------------------
> Bohdi basically answered that question in his last post.
> Give up on stock, the Debian install you have built is infinitely more capable.

I absolutely agree that Debian is drastically better, but that leaves me with several questions about running the Debian in the USB flash drive.

1. With the rootfs not mounted ro, the external USB flash drive will suffer erasure wear. At least pogo mounts rootfs as ro, and creates a ramdisk /tmp to hold files that are repeatedly updated rather than causing repeated block erasures in USB device.
2. The existing GoFlexNet code supported Samba file sharing with my local network of PCs running Windows. Installing and configuring a Debian version will take more time than fixing the existing FGN code.
3. I can edit the /etc/init.d scripts to prevent running the PogoPlug code, but still leave ssh capability, along with Samba that is very low-power compared to constantly powered USB with flash. (I do need to modify so it can power-down SATA drives after like 2 hours of idle.)

So I'm still going to continue my uBoot learning experience and see if I can create a uboot boot script for the original DtsBlock file systems. I appreciate your trying to save me time, but this has turned into a spiritual pursuit since I retired 10 years ago as an expert in self-encrypting storage devices. I haven't hacked anything since then, and now I whacked a serial port and can almost get the original GoFlexNet back to life. I was hoping to avoid trashing my dts filesystems while trying to mount the image that will boot the dts rootfs.

Of course, I understand if I'm asking for something that doesn't make sense to anyone, then I'll let this thread go and grep through the uBoot threads to see if I can fathom how to get the latest uBoot to understand the dtsblock file systems.

Thx.
Jerry

Sorry for the previous nearly-duplicate post - I didn't realize that there were new messages on the second "page" of the forum thread.

At this point, I have achieved nearly all that my original post was asking help for: "how to boot Debian from USB and then edit the nand filesystem to correct an accidental clog". Thanks @bodhi and @jdwl101 for all the patience and helpful comments.

I realize it seems like wasted effort to boot the original GFN kernel, but I really need the USB port to mount my very large hard drive containing movies, videos and mp3 music to be served over Samba. I may open a new msg thread under the uboot forum so I can explore adding an additional rootfs from the mtd, but I'll keep it to just specific questions about behavior of the uboot subsystem.

Best regards all
Jerry



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/15/2018 10:57AM by atglabs.

Jerry,


> I realize it seems like wasted effort to boot the
> original GFN kernel, but I really need the USB
> port to mount my very large hard drive containing
> movies, videos and mp3 music to be served over
> Samba.

Then you should boot the new Debian rootfs with SATA. And leave the USB port for that HDD. If the HDD is self-power then you could use a USB hub to open up more USB ports (or use a powered USB hub).

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner

If the challenge is that Debian doesn’t have samba installed apt-get install samba will fix that.

You could even copy the smb.conf from stock.

With my box samba performance doubled by dumping stock.