Re: NSLU2 apex boot problems

["Gordon Farquharson" <gordonfarquharson@gmail.com>]

Hi Brendan

On Jan 30, 2008 9:56 PM, Brendan Moran <annirak.debian@gmail.com> wrote:

> Now, my NSLU2 seems to continuously load and reload the kernel image. When
> it gets to loading the initramfs, it stops, goes back, and loads the kernel
> image again. I can't interrupt the process. What have I done wrong?

I'm not sure what you have done wrong. It could be the copy of APEX
you downloaded. I suggest you reflash a known good image (i.e. your
backup), and then flash the new version of APEX with the script listed
at the end of this email. I have tested it quite thoroughly, and have
submitted it to the APEX maintainer for inclusion in the next version
of  apex-nslu2 in Debian. If is based on the flash-kernel script that
Debian currently uses. To use it, copy the version of APEX you want to
flash to /boot/apex.flash and then run the script. APEX will be
written to the NSLU2 flash while preserving any customizations to the
APEX configuration.

Gordon

----

!/bin/sh

# Copyright (C) 2006  Joey Hess  <joeyh@debian.org>
# Copyright (C) 2006  Martin Michlmayr <tbm@cyrius.com>
# Copyright (C) 2007  Gordon Farquharson <gordonfarquharson@gmail.com>

# This code is covered by the GNU General Public License.

set -e

error() {
	echo "$@" >&2
	exit 1
}

check_mtd() {
	if [ ! -e /proc/mtd ]; then
		error "/proc/mtd doesn't exist"
	fi
}

mtdblock() {
	grep "$1" /proc/mtd | cut -d: -f 1 | sed 's/mtd/\/dev\/mtdblock/'
}

# See http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/Info/BootFlash -- the NSLU2 uses a
# 16 byte MTD header, the first four bytes (big endian) give the length of
# the remainder of the image, and the remaining bytes are zero.  Generate
# this header.
sercomm_header() {
	perl -e 'print pack("N4", shift)' "$1"
}

nslu2_swap() {
	if [ "$little_endian" ]; then
		devio "<<"$1 "xp $,4"
	else
		cat $1
	fi
}

apex_file=/boot/apex.flash

if [ ! -e $apex_file ]; then
	error "Can't find $apex_file"
fi

machine=$(grep "^Hardware" /proc/cpuinfo | sed 's/Hardware\s*:\s*//')
case "$machine" in
	"Linksys NSLU2")
		check_mtd
		case "$(dpkg --print-architecture)" in
			arm|armel)
				little_endian=1
			;;
			armeb)
				little_endian=0
			;;
		esac
		mtdloader=$(mtdblock Loader)
		if [ -z "$mtdloader" ]; then
			error "Cannot find mtd partition 'Loader'"
		fi
		lsize=$(wc -c $apex_file | awk '{print $1}')
		mtdblocksize=131072
		pad=$(expr $mtdblocksize - $lsize - 16)
		# Store non-default APEX configuration
		tmp=$(tempfile)
		(apex-env printenv | egrep -v '\*=') > $tmp
		printf "Flashing loader: " >&2
		(
			sercomm_header $(expr $lsize + 16)
			nslu2_swap $apex_file
			perl -e "print pack(\"C\", 0xff) x $pad"
		) > "$mtdloader" || error "failed."
		# Write the stored APEX configuration. For each line,
		# remove whitespace from the start and the end of the
		# line, and use all the characters, including
		# whitespace, after '=' as the value.
		while read line
		do
			key=$(echo $line | cut -d '=' -f1 | awk '{print $1}')
			val=$(echo $line | awk '{$1=""; $2=""; print substr($0,3)}')
			apex-env setenv "$key" "$val"
		done < $tmp
		rm $tmp
		echo "done." >&2
	;;
	*)
		error "Unsupported platform."
	;;
esac


-- 
Gordon Farquharson
GnuPG Key ID: 32D6D676