Re: Etch->Lenny upgrade gone bad
Martin Michlmayr wrote:
> Hi Del,
>
> * Del Merritt <del@alum.mit.edu> [2009-09-23 21:53]:
>
>> I mentioned that I have a "good" Lenny slug. I'm hoping there's a
>> clever way for me to flash its vmlinuz (and anything else from the
>> good Lenny install) to the former-Etch slug.
>>
>
> There is, although it remains to be seen whether it will help.
>
Well, as you (implicitly) predicted, that didn't help. Since the HDD is
still quite mountable, I did an:
% find bin boot etc initrd lib sbin sys usr -ls
in / on both machines. I then whipped up a little script to compare
the results, looking for common (and not) files and, when common, if the
sizes matched. A daunting number are different or only on one or the
other. *sigh*
So I'll copy my "important" files off of the / partition and then try
one of the "don't blow away my existing partitions" methods of a fresh
lenny install. I had hoped to avoid this, just 'cuz, but the full
install - once I'm done with all the backups, just in case - is pretty
quick.
And I still need to turbo the beast. So many projects; so little time.
Thanks for the suggestions, though.
-Del
> You can make a copy of your good machine with:
> cat /dev/mtdblock? > backup
>
> and then upload that to your broken machine with:
> upslug2 -U -i backup
>
>
>> I'm open to other suggestions; I haven't tried (yet) plugging my
>> etch->lenny disk to the good lenny box; aside from MAC address and
>> IP address, is there system-specific information in the flashed
>> data?
>>
>
> The IP address is actually stored on disk, not in flash (at least in
> case the Debian). See /etc/network/interfaces
>
> The MAC address is not stored in flash either. However, the udev
> rules will mention the MAC address to ensure it always uses the same
> network name. So when you plug your disk into the other NSLU2 you'll
> have to adapt /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules
>
> Apart from that, it should work fine.
>
>
>> In fact, I happen to have a third slug - still in box - and I'd love
>> to have a clever way to clone one of the other two without having to
>> go through the full Debian Installer (or the even slower aptitude
>> [full|safe]-upgrade process).
>>
>
> It's actually pretty easy to clone a NSLU2:
>
> - tar up the whole disk and untar it to another disk with the same
> disk partition layout.
> - Edit /etc/network/interfaces (in case it has a static IP, rather
> than DHCP)
> - Edit /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules
> - Make a copy of flash (as above) and write it to the other
> device (again, as above).
>
> It's on my TODO list to write a HOWTO describing how to clone a NSLU2
> but I'm not sure when I'll find the time.
>
>
>> Sorry for a long first post here; I've had worry-free slug operation
>> in the past, and thought I had the ducks in a row. Thanks for any
>> ideas,
>>
>
> No problem. I hope you get it working.
>
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