Problem installing U-Boot and kernel for Pogoplug V3 (OXNAS OX820)

Hey all.

Followed the instructions at http://blog.qnology.com/2015/04/hacking-pogoplug-v3oxnas-proclassic.html to try to flash uboot and boot debian from a usb. I used:

Debian-3.17.0-oxnas-tld-1-rootfs-bodhi.tar.bz2
uboot.2013.10-tld-3.ox820.bodhi.tar.gz

Everything more or less seems to have gone allright except I cannot actually boot with uboot, getting the following from terminal starting at the main loop after autoboot:

(Re)start USB...
USB0: USB EHCI 1.00
scanning bus 0 for devices... 3 USB Device(s) found
scanning usb for storage devices... 1 storage Device(s) found
** No partition table - usb 0 **
** No partition table - usb 0 **
** No partition table - usb 0 **
Wrong Image Format for bootm command

Led: ORANGE (Failed)
ERROR: can't get kernel image!
stopping USB..
resetting...

This makes me think that either I made a mistake in installing u-boot, the debian/uboot versions I took off the forum are the wrong ones or incompatible, or I simply screwed up formatting and moving the debian tar.bz2 to the USB from my raspberry pi. Any help with figuring out where I went wrong would be greatly appreciated :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/2016 03:42AM by bodhi.

Ancient Abysswalker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hey all.
>
> Followed the instructions at
> http://blog.qnology.com/2015/04/hacking-pogoplug-v
> 3oxnas-proclassic.html to try to flash uboot and
> boot debian from a usb. I used:
>
> Debian-3.17.0-oxnas-tld-1-rootfs-bodhi.tar.bz2
> uboot.2013.10-tld-3.ox820.bodhi.tar.gz
>
> Everything more or less seems to have gone
> allright except I cannot actually boot with uboot,
> getting the following from terminal starting at
> the main loop after autoboot:
>
> (Re)start USB...
> USB0: USB EHCI 1.00
> scanning bus 0 for devices... 3 USB Device(s)
> found
> scanning usb for storage devices... 1 storage
> Device(s) found
> ** No partition table - usb 0 **
> ** No partition table - usb 0 **
> ** No partition table - usb 0 **
> Wrong Image Format for bootm command
>
> Led: ORANGE (Failed)
> ERROR: can't get kernel image!
> stopping USB..
> resetting...
>
> This makes me think that either I made a mistake
> in installing u-boot, the debian/uboot versions I
> took off the forum are the wrong ones or
> incompatible, or I simply screwed up formatting
> and moving the debian tar.bz2 to the USB from my
> raspberry pi. Any help with figuring out where I
> went wrong would be greatly appreciated :)


Looks like the USB rootfs is no good. Recreate the rootfs on USB following the instruction closely. Things like these steps are required: Single Ext3 partition, labeled rootfs, untar the tarball while being root user (not sudo).

Don't change any step in the instruction to something equivalent (this is most likely was the problem).

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

I just refollowed the steps I did before to make sure I did it right (I didn't use root before) and I have the same problem. I don't know why I have the same problem... I used sudo -i to get root, used the -j parameter of mke2fs to make it be ext3 (I think? I don't know how to check the format after) and extracted the files all fine? Any suggestions?

Ancient Abysswalker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I just refollowed the steps I did before to make
> sure I did it right (I didn't use root before) and
> I have the same problem. I don't know why I have
> the same problem... I used sudo -i to get root,
> used the -j parameter of mke2fs to make it be ext3
> (I think? I don't know how to check the format
> after) and extracted the files all fine? Any
> suggestions?

Did you use the -L option to label it as rootfs? If not uboot will not be able to identify it as the boot disk.

Ray

Ancient Abysswalker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I just refollowed the steps I did before to make
> sure I did it right (I didn't use root before) and
> I have the same problem. I don't know why I have
> the same problem... I used sudo -i to get root,
> used the -j parameter of mke2fs to make it be ext3
> (I think? I don't know how to check the format
> after) and extracted the files all fine? Any
> suggestions?

- On Ubuntu, use command su to gain root.
- The steps in the creation of the rootfs must be followed very closely: single Ext3 partition, label it rootfs, extract it while being root.

Your boot log indicated that the drive partition was not even recognized by u-boot. So nothing got loaded.

scanning usb for storage devices... 1 storage Device(s) found 
** No partition table - usb 0 ** 
** No partition table - usb 0 ** 
** No partition table - usb 0 **

If you use Ubuntu laptop/desktop, take this USB drive there and

- On a terminal, used fdisk to erase any partition on it, and recreate the partition,
- make2efs -j -L (to format it as Ext3, label it as rootfs)
- mount
- extract the tarball.

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

I used ./mke2fs -L rootfs -j STUFF, and it looked like the partition was indeed named rootfs... :/

What brand is the USB flash drive? what capacilty?

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

Random Kingston 16GB USB I had lying around. Is that an unsupported drive type?

Ancient Abysswalker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Random Kingston 16GB USB I had lying around. Is
> that an unsupported drive type?

This is not as good as Sandisk brand (any model is fine for booting and housing rootfs).

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

Interesting and odd that that might matter. Used a 16GB SANDISK CRUZER USB and I still have the same problem. Is it possibly my version of mke2fs or my debian tar that's the problem? It probably wouldn't be incorrectly added uBoot right?

I took a picture of the terminal in case that helps? It lists TLD4 and TLD3 in the terminal... Did I make a mistake installing uBoot or something? http://imgur.com/b05IM8t

Uboot looks fine. Your USB rootfs is the problem.

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

what am i doing wrong?

-insert USB (sda)
-chmod 755 mke2fs
-./mke2fs -L rootfs -j /dev/sda
-Mount and access usb
-move tar over
-tar -xvjf file.tar.bz2
-plug into pogoplug after unmounting

Is this not right? sudo -i puts me in root as far as I can tell (it really looks like it)

Ancient Abysswalker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> what am i doing wrong?
>
> -insert USB (sda)
> -chmod 755 mke2fs
> -./mke2fs -L rootfs -j /dev/sda
> -Mount and access usb
> -move tar over
> -tar -xvjf file.tar.bz2
> -plug into pogoplug after unmounting
>
> Is this not right? sudo -i puts me in root as far
> as I can tell (it really looks like it)

I can't tell what you are doing wrong without see the log of what you did. If you capture the whole terminal session when you create the rootfs and post it here, and I might be able to see the problem. The USB drive partition is not good. As of right now, u-boot could not even read the the partition at all, so it did not attempt to load the kernel.

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

Ancient Abysswalker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> what am i doing wrong?
>
> -insert USB (sda)
> -chmod 755 mke2fs
> -./mke2fs -L rootfs -j /dev/sda

Hi, it looks like this is the problem here. It should be /dev/sda1. Looks like you didn't partition it first with fdisk.

Welp, i feel a bit dumb now... It is a bit happier with me now. But it says files are missing from the extraction... What am i missing? :/

I'm missing uImage, uInitrd, and the pogoplug dtb??

http://imgur.com/htjDPWJ

Seems like problem still with rootfs partition. Interrupt U-Boot and type:

usb start
ls usb 0
ls usb 0 /boot

(post back the results)

apparently ls doesn't exist?

http://imgur.com/2jWDwVe

Ah I guess in this version of U-Boot it is "fsls"

usb start
fsls usb 0
fsls usb 0 /boot

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/2016 05:04PM by nwestfal.

Ancient Abysswalker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> apparently ls doesn't exist?
>
> http://imgur.com/2jWDwVe


The partition is OK now. Try to boot again. If files are not found by u-boot again, then bring the USB rootfs back to Ubuntu, mount it and list these to see if they are all there.

ls -l /media/sdb1/boot
ls -l /

I think the rootfs has not been properly extracted.

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

oddly that isn't a command either. Used help to list commands and found ext2fsls and ext4fsls. Tried those: http://imgur.com/2oJTkNv

I guess it is ext2ls / ext4ls on that older U-Boot on qnology blog. I just recently did this with bodhi's latest U-Boot on a Pro (labeled as POGO-BIZ02-US from Adorama). My earlier post with "ls" was based on a moonman U-Boot on an E02 which has netconsole working. When you said "ls" didn't work, I hooked a serial console to the Pro and found that with V3 latest U-Boot, it is "fsls". Oddly I haven't gotten netconsole to work on the Pro.

Like bodhi said above, try and mount it in a different Linux.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/2016 06:28PM by nwestfal.

What do you mean by "mount it in a different Linux"? Do you mean try a different linux machine to format and create the USB?

Yes, on different Linux machine (i.e. Ubuntu, in my case I have OpenSUSE).

But I meant trying to mount the partition to read it:

Example:

mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt
ls -l /mnt
ls -l /mnt/boot

Note: might be different /dev/sdXX on your box depending on how many drives you have.

nwestfal Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I guess it is ext2ls / ext4ls on that older U-Boot
> on qnology blog. I just recently did this with
> bodhi's latest U-Boot on a Pro (labeled as
> POGO-BIZ02-US from Adorama). My earlier post with
> "ls" was based on a moonman U-Boot on an E02 which
> has netconsole working. When you said "ls" didn't
> work, I hooked a serial console to the Pro and
> found that with V3 latest U-Boot, it is "fsls".
> Oddly I haven't gotten netconsole to work on the
> Pro.

Netconsole should work.

Fyi . I changed that command since it was conflicted with jffs2 ls. Moonman version doesnot have jffs2. Alarm determined to get rid off stock, so even jffs2 was eliminated :)

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

Never mind. I checked again and the tar didn't completely extract. the entire boot folder was missing. Works now :)

bodhi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Netconsole should work.
>
> Fyi . I changed that command since it was
> conflicted with jffs2 ls. Moonman version doesnot
> have jffs2. Alarm determined to get rid off stock,
> so even jffs2 was eliminated :)

Ah okay. Maybe I'll create a separate thread for netconsole. Not a huge deal since serial is working, but it is convenient having it.

As for Alarm, I love the distro for pogos, but not too fond of the install procedures not making backups, or doing sanity checking for bad blocks etc.

I feel kind of dumb, I can't figure out or find the login credentials to get into the debian distro... -_-

Debian GNU/Linux 7 debian ttyS0
debian login:
password:

Ancient Abysswalker

root/root

Quote

Updated 02 Nov 2014:

Rootfs Debian-3.17.0-oxnas-tld-1-rootfs-bodhi.tar.bz2 was uploaded. This rootfs is to keep in sync with kernel Linux-3.17.0-oxnas-tld-1.

Basic minimal Debian Oxnas rootfs for Popo Pro/Classic V3 plug:

- tarball size: 83M
- install size: 251M
- a basic wheezy rootfs
- Installed packages: nano, avahi, ntp, busybox-syslogd (log to RAM), htop, dialog, bz2.
- see LED controls in /etc/rc.local, and /etc/rc0.d/K08halt
- see some useful aliases in /root/.profile
- root password: root

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



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/27/2016 05:14PM by bodhi.

Perfect, that worked. One last quick question, if a sata is plugged in it tries to boot from that first, before the uBoot USB. How do I change that? Do I just play around in fstab?

Ancient Abysswalker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Perfect, that worked. One last quick question, if
> a sata is plugged in it tries to boot from that
> first, before the uBoot USB. How do I change that?
> Do I just play around in fstab?

Is that the normal HDD or the one with special code in the first (I can't recall how many) sectors ? If you're not sure about this, then it is a normal HDD.

- If it is a normal HDD, then u-boot envs need to be adjust to select USB first.

- If it is the special HDD then the magic code in the first sectors need to be removed, because this is how OXNAS bootROM works: find SATA that has special magic sequence in the HDD, boot it. If fail, look at the uboot envs to deternine the next storage option, and if USB option is found it will boot it.

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