Chronic problems getting IP...

Good afternoon:

I've been lurking and occasional question-asking in these forums for about 5 years while toying with my Dockstar. I think this is the right place to post this, but am happy to move it if it belongs elsewhere. Wasn't completely sure if this belonged in "uBoot" or :Rescue" or "Debian"...

I recently had a USB stick on the Dockstar fail, and upon attempting replacements I have been bedeviled by the device's inability to grab an IP from my router. I have had this problem in the past and have gotten around it mostly from trial and error, but this time I am stuck.

The Dockstar is running Jeff's Rescue, v2 I believe:

rescue:~# cat /etc/issue
Jeff Doozan's Dockstar/Pogoplug Recovery System

rescue:~# uname -a
Linux rescue 2.6.32.18-dockstar #1 Thu Feb 17 03:09:57 EST 2011 armv5tel GNU/Linux

My notes indicate that I am running the 2014-07 Kirkwood version of the U-Boot. But, I don't know what to do to verify that.

If I restart the Dockstar without a USB stick in place, the Dockstar happily grabs an IP from my router. Example:

Thu, 28 Jan 2016 13:45:27 received DISCOVER from 00:10:75:1a:XX:YY
Thu, 28 Jan 2016 13:45:28 sending OFFER to 255.255.255.255 with 192.168.2.183
Thu, 28 Jan 2016 13:45:28 received REQUEST from 00:10:75:1a:XX:YY
Thu, 28 Jan 2016 13:45:28 sending ACK to 192.168.2.183

(I used to assign a persistent IP to the device via the MAC address. I've turned that off for now just letting DHCP do its thing in case the MAC-based reservation was causing a problem. I see no difference)

However, if I insert a USB stick -- any USB stick (I have tried 3 or 4), the device will not request (or, is not offered) an IP from my router.

The USB sticks in question usually have an Asterisk PBX system on them. Most recently I had been running the PogoPlug Mobile image from Nerdvittles, and have been doing so for more than a year without troubles. But I have also used full Debian OS sticks. And, since this problem cropped up I have tried other images -- someone on this forum linked to a Github image so I tried that one:

"Debian-jessie-3.18.5-pogoplug-v4-20151110-disk-image.4GB.img"

Nope; that won't boot/receive an IP either.

I'd love some suggestions regarding how to trouble-shoot this or get past this. I'm quite a novice, even after having tinkered with Debian on my Dockstar for 5 years. But I follow directions well if I understand them... :)

Brian

Brian,

Create a new USB rootfs following instruction in the rootfs/kernel thread: http://forum.doozan.com/read.php?2,12096

I'd recommend using the 3.16 rootfs (it is simpler with 3.16 to get it working, but you can also use the latest with some extra steps). Here is the 3.16 section in the rootfs /kernel thread:

Quote

Updated 02 Sept 2014 (rootfs):

Rootfs Debian-3.16.0-kirkwood-tld-2 was uploaded. This rootfs is to keep in sync with kernel Linux-3.16.0-kirkwood-tld-2 (and its new features).

Boot with this USB stick and you should have a network connection to log in as root/root.

-bodhi
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Forum Wiki
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Thanks, bodhi.

Just to clarify, I can login to the rescue system with root/root with no USB stick inserted, and I can thereafter insert, mount and examine any USB stick that I plug into the Dockstar once booted to rescue. I just can't get the Dockstar to boot from power-off if one of the sticks is inserted.

The USB stick that I have been using successfully until this current snafu is running on this fs: "Debian-3.14.0-kirkwood-tld-1-rootfs-bodhi." It'd be lovely to get that one up-and-running because that is the PBX image that I have been using for some time but that won't now mount and boot.

I'll create a new USB rootfs following the instruction in the rootfs/kernel thread you note above.

Brian

> The USB stick that I have been using successfully
> until this current snafu is running on this fs:
> "Debian-3.14.0-kirkwood-tld-1-rootfs-bodhi." It'd
> be lovely to get that one up-and-running because
> that is the PBX image that I have been using for
> some time but that won't now mount and boot.

If you can either login to rescue system, or into the new USB stick, then you can fix your current rootfs.

Mount the current rootfs and run e2fsck to check for error. If there is no fsck error then perhaps some files were coruppted. In that case, you will need to hunt it down by

1. Looking at /, /boot folders, and some other files hoping to see if there are anomalies.

2. set up logging to do normal logging to disk. The Debian-3.14.0-kirkwood-tld-1-rootfs-bodhi has the sysem logging set to RAM by default.

cat /etc/default/busybox-syslogd

# Defaults for busybox-syslogd initscript
# This is a POSIX shell fragment sourced by /etc/init.d/busybox-syslogd

# Additional options that are passed to the daemons.  Default is to log
# to ring buffer (to be read with logread(1)) and drop duplicates.
#SYSLOG_OPTS="-C128" # commented out to log to disk in /var/log/messages

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

Thanks! I will try all of that. What perplexes me in part is that I have a known, good .img file of the PBX disk image that I like to use that I write to a known, good usb thumbdrive. There should be no corruption, because it is a fresh image. Yet the Dockstar will not boot from that freshly imaged usb thumbdrive...