Transfer File System to a Different Box

I have a Pogo Mobile (Kirkwood) running Bohdi's Debian kernel and file system (4.4) as a streaming player that works very well. It took a fair amount of time to get the ALSA sound system installed and working with a USB DAC and the Squeezelite player client. I wanted to set up a Pogo E02 the same so I installed the file system from the Mobile backup onto a new USB stick. It didn't boot because the E02 uses a different DTS file than the Mobile; I should have checked this. (Both the boxes are running an older U-Boot.) I rebuilt the kernel with the correct DTS and it booted (green light on) but didn't get a network address, so no SSH. I found a thread on here from another user that tried this and Bohdi pointed out a problem with the udev rules and conflicting MAC addresses:

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When you use an existing rootfs to boot another identical box, you will need to make sure the udev rules for persistent-net are removed or modified. This usually causes network problem because of conflicting MAC address.

To make it really simple, remove these 2 files (or rename them to *.save so that they will be regenerated by udev using the new MAC address) before mounting to the other box:
/etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules
/lib/udev/rules.d/75-persistent-net-generator.rules

I renamed the two files as suggested, but it still did not get on the network. There was a clue in dmesg (read from the stick in another Linux box) where it showed that the eth0 device was renamed to eth1. I looked at the 70-persistent-net.rules file again and found that the old definition from the Mobile was still there as eth0 and the new definition from the E02 was assigned to eth1. Since there was no definition for eth1 in /etc/network/interfaces, it didn't work. Also, the generator file had not been recreated; I renamed the old one back to the original name. I commented the line from the Mobile, moved the stick to the E02 and it got the network connection. Working 70-persistent-net.rules snippet:

# Unknown net device (/devices/platform/mv643xx_eth_port.0/net/eth0) (mv643xx_eth_port)
#SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="00:25:31:05:be:f1", ATTR{dev_id}=="0x0", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth0"

# Unknown net device (/devices/platform/mv643xx_eth_port.0/net/eth0) (mv643xx_eth_port)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="00:25:31:00:bd:cf", ATTR{dev_id}=="0x0", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth0"

In the best troubleshooting tradition of changing two things at once, I also changed the interfaces file to specifiy the MAC address using the the hwaddress line in the static ip section. So, I'm not certain which one fixed it, but I'm pretty sure it was the udev rules.

All is fine now after sorting out a couple of USB DAC issues. I thought I'd post this in case anyone is thinking of doing something like this.

mikeh49,

This issue has been thoroughly documented in the Wiki thread:

https://forum.doozan.com/read.php?2,23630

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Backup and Cloning rootfs

CrashPlan 4.3.0
Backup/Restore rootfs using tar command
Adjust udev rules after cloning rootfs
Stock Pogoplug rootfs
How to clone a rootfs from one Kirkwood box to another: Step 1 and Step 2
How to clone SATA rootfs to USB rootfs

Did you try step 2? those 2 files needed to be modfied as described.

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

I missed Step 2 and in my search I only found your post that deleted the 2 udev files (a couple of posts above the Step 2 post). After looking at Step 2, and with what I now know, I think all you need to do is comment the line in the persistent-net rules file that contains the MAC address of the "donor". A new line is then generated with the MAC of the new box.

In my case, the "donor" box persistent-net-generator file contained the KERNEL! line as in your example; I made no changes to that file.

Thanks for your help and all you do to support us with these devices.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/02/2019 10:11AM by mikeh49.