Zyxel NSA320 : basic support for Debian installation

Thanks for responding. Does this mean that Arch Linux ARM is supporting or going to support the 310/320 sometime soon? I think all I've done is follow Davy's instructions for installing Debian replacing u-boot along the way. I thought that if I removed my drives it would fall back to the internal firmware but it didn't haven't hooked serial console back up yet to see what is going on. If I have only updated u-boot should I be able to boot the original firmware or not?

Seeing as I have not actually changed out the uboot, I can't say. I am using the stock uboot & come changes to the uboot environment to get it booting from SATA. And yes, we will be supporting the device.

Cool, I can't wait. So will I need to revert to the stock u-boot to install arch? If so is there any way that you could provide me with a copy of your stock u-boot?

At this point, there should be little difference for you, as the existing system boots linux. I am planning on getting a more capable u-boot in use as well.

Davy, thanks for the good work. I picked one of these up on newegg and I'm dying to get debian up and running. Just a few ?'s before I start:

1: what is the baud for the serial connection to the board?

2: I'm not too familiar with UBOOT, having only used it with my beaglebone, not a lot of functional knowledge. When you say in step 3: "UNTAR the uboot file, put it in your tftpserver's root dir" Is this the tftpserver's root on the HDD I prepared in step 1?

3: I assume that the tftpboot, nand erase, etc in step 3 are commands on the Uboot console?

Thanks again!

The serial connection to the board is standard, 115200,n,8

Thanks, Warhead. I finally have some time to dive in, this was the excuse I was looking for to order a bus pirate. I'll just have to read up on UBOOT.

hi,
will the NSA325 be supported as well? I have one and would like to get a "full" linux supported. Archlinux would be a first step, but since I have debian already on my iConnect running it would be easier for me to migrate everything...
is is possible to boot from USB? This is an important thing for me...

kind regards,
astrakid

Recently I've also updated uboot and installed debian through the package. I've put the debian installation on a 2 GB usb drive, with 1,5 GB ext2 rootfs and 512 MB swap. After that I formatted my 2 TB HDD as ext4.
However, I think the transfer speeds are less than what they were in the original firmware. Currently reaching ~20-25 MB/s write speeds and ~40 MB/s read utilising approx. 70% of the CPU while doing so. Is there any way to improve the performance?

Other software I've installed is the Webmin package and Twonkyserver, with twonkyserver occupying approx 1% of the CPU.

Regards,
Erwin

Dudes, I am getting stuck with 'Gave up waiting for root device'. It seems the fix is to set rootdelay to 90 perhaps...but I can't find where to do this?

Any help is much appreciated :)

Regards,

Flooreus

Flooreus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dudes, I am getting stuck with 'Gave up waiting
> for root device'. It seems the fix is to set
> rootdelay to 90 perhaps...but I can't find where
> to do this?
>
> Any help is much appreciated :)
>
> Regards,
>
> Flooreus

Did you install debian on a USB drive or on a partition of your HDD?

If you installed it on a USB drive, try setting the root=LABEL to the uuid listed in your debian installation



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/13/2013 07:26AM by Memesa.

Flooreus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dudes, I am getting stuck with 'Gave up waiting
> for root device'. It seems the fix is to set
> rootdelay to 90 perhaps...but I can't find where
> to do this?
>
> Any help is much appreciated :)
>
> Regards,
>
> Flooreus

Root delay can be set with fw_setenv while you're booting into Linux, using either rescue system, stock OS.

If you can't boot into any Linux system on USB or HDD then you will need netconsole or serial console so that at the uBoot prompt you can run setenv.

As memesa suggested above, try booting with Debian on USB and then do fw_setenv at Linux command line. Also, it's best if you post the output of fw_printenv here so we can suggest the exact command to do that.

Hi guys,

Thanks for the responses. I managed to get it working, I simply set the label of the main partition to be USBROOT and it worked fine.

I have another question though, is it possible to set up the NAS to boot from the internal drives and not the flash drive?

Yes, absolutely.

You'll have to adjust the bootcommand and parameters so it knows to look for both the kernel and the rootfs on a particular drive.

For sanity's sake, make sure you have a copy of your current booting commands and parameters before you tinker w/ changes.

=====================================================

• davy's Github Repo's rescue-dg

The README, doesn't mention the default password to use. It would be helpfull, if it were added.

ssh root@xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
password:root



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/21/2013 10:03PM by Cassie.

Yes, Debian will be on my NSA320... Sounds great!

With the official software, i cannot partition my two 2TB harddrive. I'd like to create 1TB partition as RAID1 and the another one 1TB as RAID0, however this structure gives me safety, and storage as well.... I'll put the TV series to the stripe set, but the family photos and docs to the mirrored partition. I'll go and find Debian to my box! :D

Hey Davy,

Would it be possible for you to post a clean listing from a printenv with the new uboot. I have managed to mess mine up and can't see to find my backup.

Also would it be possible to provide a boot command for running the stock firmware?

Cheers,

Michael Crump

Very interesting device!
BTW, for those interested in Emdebian in NAND, have a look at my project for the Pogoplug V3 Versions.

https://github.com/ingmar-k/Pogoplug_V3_Emdebian

With a few small modifications you should be able to get an Emdebian image for NAND without too much work. If I have read this correctly, the Zyxel also has 128MB NAND, just like the Pogoplug V3.
So, all you would have to do would basicly be to use a different kernel und to do some other small machine specific modifications. Besides that it should be a pretty quick way.

Hi davygravy,
after my good old DNS-323 is broken I continued a few weeks with the old disks on my GoFlex Net. But now the old harddisks showing more and more errors and so I bought a Zyxel NSA 320.
I would like to install Debian on it but before I actually flash the new uboot I would like to at least test it and see if it works. On the old Dockstar I was able to "chainload" the new uboot via tftp:

tftpboot 0x800000 uboot.NAND-NSA320-IDEfixedv4-scripted.kwb
...
go 0x800200

On the NSA320 this does not work and as the mac address (B0:B2:DC:00:00:00) is different to the one you wrote in the readme (C8:6C:87:00:00:00) I might have a different hardware revision that might does not work with the uboot image. Is there another way to test the uboot before actually writing it to the NAND? Thanks.

HellG

PS: this is my uboot screen:

         __  __                      _ _
        |  \/  | __ _ _ ____   _____| | |
        | |\/| |/ _` | '__\ \ / / _ \ | |
        | |  | | (_| | |   \ V /  __/ | |
        |_|  |_|\__,_|_|    \_/ \___|_|_|
 _   _     ____              _
| | | |   | __ )  ___   ___ | |_ 
| | | |___|  _ \ / _ \ / _ \| __| 
| |_| |___| |_) | (_) | (_) | |_ 
 \___/    |____/ \___/ \___/ \__| 
 ** MARVELL BOARD: RD-88F6281A LE 

U-Boot 1.1.4 (Mar 23 2011 - 16:09:39) Marvell version: 3.4.19

U-Boot code: 00600000 -> 0067FFF0  BSS: -> 006CFEE0

Soc: 88F6281 A1 (DDR2)
CPU running @ 1200Mhz L2 running @ 400Mhz
SysClock = 400Mhz , TClock = 200Mhz 

DRAM CAS Latency = 5 tRP = 5 tRAS = 18 tRCD=6
DRAM CS[0] base 0x00000000   size 256MB 
DRAM CS[1] base 0x10000000   size 256MB 
DRAM Total size 512MB  16bit width
Addresses 10M - 0M are saved for the U-Boot usage.
Mem malloc Initialization (10M - 7M): Done
NAND:128 MB
Flash:  0 kB

CPU : Marvell Feroceon (Rev 1)
//---  stateButtonBit = 3, recovery ---//
Kernel address is 0xc80000.

Streaming disabled 
Write allocate disabled

Module 0 is RGMII
Module 1 is TDM

USB 0: host mode
PEX 0: interface detected no Link.
Net:   egiga0, egiga1 [PRIME]
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2013 06:23PM by HellG.

Ok,
I think I found the reason why it is not possible to chainload the uboot image provided in the tarball (see here: http://forum.doozan.com/read.php?3,1593). It seems that some config variables used for compiling the bootloader prevent the chainloading. So I think I give it a shot and hope to find some support here if I brick my device...

Hi HellG,

I would say that you can go ahead. I was in much the same situation as you are in (MAC-address like yours) and just got my NSA320 up and running with a USB-drive after flashing the new uboot. It seems like there is an issue with the network cable plugged in at boot (hangs at "host <serverip> is alive" and does not continue), but I will have to test that further. However, with the proper USB-drive (another one did not work) and by plugging in the network cable only later, everything seems to work. Mind you, it did take a serial connection, as davy originally suggested ...

Next step: install to HDD ...

What is your experience now?

---
Standart ist der Standardfehler

Hi chessplayer,
I am already beyond uboot and everything is fine. And yes, a serial connection is essential especially for monitoring the boot process (see below). I also had to upgrade to a newer kernel version as I had errors in the xfs data partition. I also had these errors with the 3.3.2 kernel before on my GoFlex Net with my old harddisks and blamed this 5 year old disk. But with my new NSA320 and brand new disks I encountered the same errors again (null journal after reboot) and now I am on kernel version 3.8.4 and we will see if the same error happens again.
I installed the basic system on both harddisks and usually work on the first (left) one. So if something goes wrong I just pull the left disk and automatically boot from a clean disk.
After dist-upgrading to wheezy I had a problem with the network: The systemd did not fetched an IP address via dhcp as the system date was too old (1915 I think). NTP will update the time but it needs a working internet connection in the first place... So whenever "/etc/init.d/networking stop" is executed I write the current date to /etc/LASTDATE and whenever "/etc/networking start" is executed it sets /etc/LASTDATE as current date. After that ntp is restarted and set the clock to the actual date and time.
To utilize the power button and later on also the kopy button I installed triggerhappy and let it run as root to actually call "poweroff" (only if between key down and key up is more then 4 seconds).

Does anybody know how to use the LEDs in the frontpanel to show system status and harddisk activity?

Cheers HellG.

@HellG

Did you update your uBoot before you were able to boot from SATA (see my question here)?

Cheers,

chessplayer

---
Standart ist der Standardfehler

Yes, I updated the uboot to the version provided in the first post of this thread. Without provision to unbrick a really dead unit (I don't mean serial cable) I would not try any other image.
HellG

@HellG:

Sorry if I was not clear. I take it as a given that everything described in this thread's first post was done (as I did). So, if I understand you correctly, all you did was follow the first post and afterwards you were able to boot from disk?

And, what I meant by updating uBoot is whether you followed Jeff's official script, which he updated due to davy's work. Apparently, you did not do that and I am still waiting ( or rather hoping) for davy to answer my question. However, if all you did was follow post one and were then able to boot, I need to look in a differnt direction.

---
Standart ist der Standardfehler

@chessplayer,

Did you set up rootfs label envs for your SATA booting? what your envs look like?

The same concept here:
http://forum.doozan.com/read.php?2,12045,12432#msg-12432

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



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/2013 05:42PM by bodhi.

Hi,
I only followed the instructions in the readme from the link in the first post. After that booting was never a problem. Keep in mind that the first is the left one but with "run boot_sata1" it should work from the uboot console immediately.

Hi,
did anybody test the performance of the NSA320? According to the specs it should be at least par with the GoFlex Net but with more ram (512 vs 128 MB). However testing transfer performance from my PC to the box it seems that it is as slow as my old DNS-323:

NSA320 internal:
sda -> sdb file copy (7GB): ca 37MB/sec (measured with midnight commander)

NSA320 -> PC (SMB): 14.5 MB/sec (measured with total commander)
PC -> NSA320(SMB): 10.5 MB/sec (measured with total commander)

NSA320 -> PC (NFS): 34.1 MB/sec (measured with dd)
PC -> NSA320 (NFS): 23.7 MB/sec (measured with dd)


Windows (SMB) file transfer performance is much less then with the GoFlex Net and so far I have no idea how this can be. However NFS performance looks ok.

I will try to start the same harddisk on the GoFlex Net and see if it is a configuration or software issue.

HellG

PS: Doing the SMB test under linux (ubuntu) read performance is around 20MB/sec and write performance only 4.5MB/sec.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/12/2013 02:31PM by HellG.

Having finally given the disk an msdos partition table (and, if I had a 3TB disk, I would give it a hybrid one like for the GoFlex Home ...), this post has become obsolete ...

Sorry for the confusion ...

Cheers,

chessplayer

---
Standart ist der Standardfehler



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/2013 04:57PM by chessplayer.

Hi chessplayer,
boot_sata1 (or 2) is the bootcommand to use. You probably created the partition on another computer and yor NSA320 does not recognise the partition. The problem obviously lies here:

Failed to mount ext2 filesystem...

My suggestion is to start over again:
- boot from usb
- insert only one disk into the left bay
- wipe the partition table (ALL DATA WILL BE LOST!!!): dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda
- make partitions with fdisk: sda1 type 83 (default) maybe 2 to 4 GB, sda2 512MB swap (type 82), sda3 type 83 the rest
- check with "v" and "p" if everything is alright.
- format the drive with mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda1; mkswap /dev/sda2; mkfs.(whatever_you_like) /dev/sda3
- mount the harddisk
- copy all the directory (except /proc and /sys) to the harddisk. Create empty /proc and /sys manually
- reboot

Cheers,
HellG