@bodhi Revised DTS / DTB works for me with both your rootfs and kernel and my own. I herby award you a large shiraz :-) Richardby richjn - Debian
@bodhi Just a heads up that linux-5.5.3-mvebu-tld-1 may not work correctly on the RS816 if my experience with my own kernel is indicative. On my own kernel I was ok up to linux-5.4.6 but sata broke with linux-5.4.7. What appeared to be happening is the drives were brought up by our DTS (I could hear them start) but then set back down again by the kernel, the first two drives, attached to coby richjn - Debian
@bodhi >Final edit for Section I: All looks good to me :-) My only minor comment is regarding the rootdelay=20 could be changed to rootdelay=10 or even 5 probably but to be honest it's not material. Just recapping the history of the rootdelay= addition. I originally added rootdelay=10 because very occasional the USB rootfs boot would drop to intramfs with root not found. Itby richjn - Debian
@bohdi >Thanks for all your contribution to this forum. Zero sleep and no prospect of any for several hours has probably led me to be more 'sensitive' than events would dictate appropriate. Thank you for the comment. I think we both need to clear our desks a bit before we do much more, I suggest we park this project till Monday next week or longer if you are snowed underby richjn - Debian
@bodhi > rootwait is not needed on HDD, SSD, or USB rootfs. Only needed on boxes with an SD card (MMC) rootfs. Back when we first started working on the RS816 I originally put rootdelay=10 into the bootargs because the USB occasionally did not come up in time. Its up to you whether we leave rootdelay=10 / 20 or use rootwait but I suggest you DO need one of them on USB. The main pointby richjn - Debian
@bodhi Testing of rootwait richjn Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I will see if I can "engineer" some time on the RS816 I got a short period of time to test and found the following: 1) Sata port A (sda & sdb) start to spin up almost immediately 2) Sata port B (sdc & sdd) start to spin up after ~8 - 10 seconds 3) With SSDby richjn - Debian
@bodhi Actually I'm not sure rootwait is the right answer for RAID because the rootfs WILL be seen as soon as its partially assembled i.e. the kernel will continue even on a degraded array. I will see if I can "engineer" some time on the RS816 I think we need to do actual tests before deciding. Richardby richjn - Debian
@bodhi >However, most of the time, the most useful thing that you can do is fixing a corrupted rootfs Fair point, I guess there is serial over ethernet or just using a laptop with a USB serial adaptor to connect locally but overall I think you are correct, you are already having a bad day by this point so may as well rip it out of the rack to sort out in comfort somewhere. Agreed letsby richjn - Debian
@bodhi >> It is something everybody might be interested in :) Ah I see, interesting stuff! It's the real joy of "playing" with this stuff there is always something new to learn every day. >Use rootwait and a stop watch to see if the array coming up fully after how long. As soon as I can run a test I will see how long it takes but the more I think about it the morby richjn - Debian
@bodhi Between doing real work I have been thinking about this mdadm degraded issue as it bugs me not really knowing what the cause of it is. The current "workaround" was to introduce an otherwise unnecessary reboot and although it seemed to fix it I'm not really comfortable with it. Up to the recent tutorial runs I have been using 2TB drives or SSD's for my own purposesby richjn - Debian
@bodhi Baud rate removed. Not sure I understand how the IP addresses help if you have no serial console but I guess I don't need to know :-) Richardby richjn - Debian
@bodhi I have added the extra prerequisite to Section IV but added baud as well I can remove that bit if you think its unnecessary. c. Serial console must be connected during installation. (baud 115200) No problem time wise I think we are in the home straight on this one :-) I probably need to concentrate on my day job for the next few days as I'm getting long stares from work colby richjn - Debian
@ bodhi Draft IV. Recovery to stock Synology DRAFT DO NOT FOLLOW UNTILL TRANSFERRED TO WIKI Installation instructions for Synology RS816 IV. Recovery to stock Synology Prerequisites: a. All HDD drives must be removed from the RS816 while this recovery is performed. b. tftp server is already set up in your network environment. c. Serial console must be connected during instalby richjn - Debian
@bodhi No issues with amendments your version is clearer. EDITED my previous post as incomplete In the final boot envs in Step 5.c I had missed out setenv load_image_addr 0x02000000 It didn't show up on my test run because its the default anyway. Extra boot env's added that are not needed / used are setenv ipaddr 192.168.1.19 setenv serverip 192.168.1.20 setenv load_inby richjn - Debian
@bodhi All three tutorials are now complete and have been tested to work. There are no doubt quite a few edits required to tidy it up but the basics are sound. The workaround for no mdadm in rootfs was to insert an additional reboot. I'm out of time and need to return the NAS to stock now, hopefully any changes to the tutorial from here on will not require testing. As sole judge Iby richjn - Debian
Draft III. Installation with RAID rootfs. DRAFT DO NOT FOLLOW UNTILL TRANSFERRED TO WIKI Installation instructions for Synology RS816 III. Installion with RAID rootfs. In this section we will install uImage into NAND and create a 4 drive raid. This method is very similar to the stock Synology installation but with the benefit of being native Debian. This tutorial is only interesby richjn - Debian
bodhi edited: Please see this post for final HDD installation instruction. Draft II. Installation with HDD rootfs. DRAFT DO NOT FOLLOW UNTILL TRANSFERRED TO WIKI Installation instructions for Synology RS816 II. Installion with HDD rootfs. In this section we will install uImage and uInitrd to raw sectors on a HDD this method was originally contributed to the wiki by forum memberby richjn - Debian
Installation instructions for Synology RS816/DS116 I. Installation with USB rootfs Prerequisites: a. All HDD drives must be removed from the RS816/DS116 while this installation is performed. b. tftp server is already set up in your network environment (we will use it for the kernel initial booting before it can be set up permanently in flash). c. Serial console must be connected duriby richjn - Debian
@bodhi I have no plans to post the tutorial anywhere else, it is specific to your rootfs / kernel. Remember I use my own rootfs / kernel for my purposes and if I were to post elsewhere (which I'm not) it would be with those. >> .....Linux users who dislike heavy rootfs (large and bloated with stuff they don't care)...... I understand your "bloat" comment I feel tby richjn - Debian
@bodhi For the tutorials I am going to link into your USB preparation tutorial as you requested but to make a logical read of my tutorials I think we need to make a couple of changes. 1) For the purposes of my tutorials we need to generate uInitrd as well as uImage as we use both in the initial USB tftp boot. (lets us use LABEL=) 2) In my tutorials I copy the rootfs tarball into the prepby richjn - Debian
@bohdi My preference would be to do what is best for the community because this is my way of saying thank you for the help I received so I will have a go at constructing the tutorials along the lines you suggest. My thoughts generally had been that with a rack server most people would just want to install as a 4 disk raid and that as I would have to type all the commands in to produce a tutby richjn - Debian
@bodhi Please don't read the following as me suggesting you should drop everything else / give up your weekend for this but I thought I should at least make you aware of upcoming events. The RS816 has been returned to stock in preparation for a new contract we have secured commencing next week, however, it is a public holiday weekend here (Monday off) so it would be possible to do a fuby richjn - Debian
@bodhi I was just trying to save you some time and had intended the download for you only with the thought you would replace your own Buster rootfs download with it and obviously update your md5 hashes etc. I have nonetheless removed the link as you requested. bodhi Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I don't think a special tarball is needed. I don&by richjn - Debian
bodhi Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Thanks Richard! > > I will take a close read and post again. I did a silly copy paste of the wrong set of env, I have edited the tutorial. Richardby richjn - Debian
1000001101000 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Are you planning to configure flash-kernel to > automate updating the uImage for this device? Actually I had not even heard of flash-kernel, sounds like a good idea but I will leave that for others to add as I have no experience of it. Richardby richjn - Debian
PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE THIS DRAFT TUTORIAL UNTIL IT HAS BEEN MOVED TO THE WIKI @bodhi Draft tutorial Synology RS816 tutorial In this turorial we will install native Debian onto the RS816 utilising the exsisting disks in a raid setup. As with all things Linux there are numorous ways you could ammend these instructions to end up with your chosen configuration, this tutorial makes noby richjn - Debian
@bodhi I have re-run the install procedure using uImage and everything works out ok but I have added some issues / suggestions for the Buster rootfs to the bottom of this post. To boot from USB rootfs we use: setenv ipaddr 192.168.1.19 setenv serverip 192.168.1.1 setenv usb_setup 'setenv usbActive 1; setenv usbType 3; usb start;' setenv load_dtb_addr 0x1000000 setenv loby richjn - Debian
@bodhi For a single HDD Raw sector install our final approach was: Prepare uImage cd /boot cp -a zImage zImage.fdt cat /boot/dts/armada-385-synology-rs816.dtb >> zImage.fdt mkimage -A arm -O linux -T kernel -C none -a 0x00008000 -e 0x00008000 -n Linux-5.2.9-mvebu-tld-1 -d zImage.fdt uImage DD to HDD dd if=uImage of=/dev/sda bs=1M seek=10 And boot env Marvell>> scby richjn - Debian
@bodhi >> If you could, in a single post, list the other envs set when we test reading kernel uImage and uInitrd from HDD. No problem but it will be tomorrow before I can get on to it. Perhaps its easier for both of us just to leave the MTD partitions as is it's only 64k at the end of the day, I'm fairly confident I can modify our existing envs to just remove the DTB bits,by richjn - Debian