Sunday, July 1, 2012

Getting Fedora-17 ARM images to understand booting LVM volumes

In order to get your uInitrd to understand booting from a LVM volume, you need to regenerate the initramfs and uInitrd images with the LVM bits.  To do so, follow these steps (substitute your versions as necessary):
  1. Install LVM (yum -y install lvm2)
  2. Update initramfs image (in /boot run dracut -f initramfs-3.3.6-3.fc17.armv5tel.kirkwood.img 3.3.6-3.fc17.armv5tel.k
    irkwood)
  3. Update uInitrd image (in /boot/uboot run mkimage -A arm -O linux -T ramdisk -C none -a 0 -e 0 -n initramfs -d /boot/ini
    tramfs-3.3.6-3.fc17.armv5tel.kirkwood.img uInitrd-kirkwood)
So now you're wondering how to do this if you don't already have a running system?  Well, in theory you can run dracut and mkimage from a host system, but I've been unsuccessful getting a working image that way.  So to create my bootstrap uInitrd, I built a throwaway system, then used uInitrd to boot my LVM enabled system. 

The easiest approach would be to do the above steps, the move the boot media to a another computer, and copy the root filesystem to a temporary file, delete the partition with the root filesystem, and add it to a volume group (as a PV) and create a LV and copy the root filesystem back.  It sounds complicated but it's not.

GuruPlug booting from MMC

Back in 2010, I wrote how to put Fedora 12 on a GuruPlug.  Now in 2012, I find myself wanting a more modern operating system.  Knowing that a Fedora 17 image is available, I want to prepare my GuruPlug to boot Fedora 17.  One goal that I didn't achieve last time was to boot using an initrd so that I could have LVM volume management (and presumably encryption) of the root filesystem.  At the time, the uboot code to support loading an image from MMC was not yet available, so instead I opted to use the GuruPlug flash for the kernel (using a non-Fedora kernel) and boot directly to the partitioned ext3 formatted root.

I was having to use a non-Fedora kernel which was less than optimal.  Also, having the kernel in nand made it harder to update.  If we have it on the micro SD card, its easy to update using standard update utilities (yum).

Now the uboot image is available, and we can load both uImage and uInitrd from MMC, so I'm going to do some upgrades.

First item is to get that updated uboot code loaded.  Again, we are lucky that someone else had done the work of compiling for us.  On this page, you can download the updated uboot 2011.12 (Jan 08 2012) image (u-boot.kwb).  In my previous explanation of upgrading, I explained tftp loading of the  images.  This time, I'm going to use a usb stick.  Newer uboots seem much less finicky.

Be sure and printenv a copy of your environment as you will lose all these settings on upgrade.

U-Boot 2010.03-01161-gd91b0a9 (Apr 22 2010 - 03:24:41)                         
Marvell-GuruPlug                                                               
                                                                               
SoC:   Kirkwood 88F6281_A0                                                     
DRAM:  512 MB                                                                  
NAND:  512 MiB                                                                 
In:    serial                                                                  
Out:   serial                                                                  
Err:   serial                                                                  
Net:   egiga0, egiga1                                                          
88E1121 Initialized on egiga0                                                  
88E1121 Initialized on egiga1                                                  
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0                                               

Marvell>> printenv                                                             
bootcmd=${x_bootcmd_usb}; ${x_bootcmd_kernel}; setenv bootargs ${x_bootargs} ${x_bootargs_root}; bootm 0x6400000
bootdelay=3                                                                    
baudrate=115200                                                                
x_bootcmd_usb=usb start                                                        
x_bootcmd_kernel=nand read.e 0x6400000 0x100000 0x400000                       
x_bootargs=console=ttyS0,115200                                                
ethact=egiga0                                                                  
ethaddr=01:02:03:04:05:06                                                      
eth1addr=01:02:03:04:05:07                                                     
x_bootargs_root=ubi.mtd=2 root=0811 rootdelay=10                               
stdin=serial                                                                   
stdout=serial                                                                  
stderr=serial                                                                  
                                                                               
Environment size: 412/131068 bytes                                             
                                                                

Marvell>> usb start                                                            
(Re)start USB...                                                               
USB:   Register 10011 NbrPorts 1                                               
USB EHCI 1.00                                                                  
scanning bus for devices... 3 USB Device(s) found                              
       scanning bus for storage devices... Device NOT ready                    
   Request Sense returned 02 3A 00                                             
1 Storage Device(s) found                                                      

Marvell>> usb part                                                             
## Unknown partition table                                                     
                                                                               
                                                                               
Partition Map for USB device 1  --   Partition Type: DOS                       
                                                                               
Partition     Start Sector     Num Sectors     Type                            
    1                   63        15794113       c                             
                                                                               
## Unknown partition table                                                     
                                                                               
## Unknown partition table                                                     
                                                                               
## Unknown partition table                                                     
Marvell>> fatload usb 1:1 0x0800000 u-boot.kwb                                 
reading u-boot.kwb                                                             
......................                                                         
                                                                               
227200 bytes read                                                              
Marvell>> nand erase 0x0 0x60000                                               
                                                                               
NAND erase: device 0 offset 0x0, size 0x60000                                  
Erasing at 0x40000 -- 100% complete.                                           
OK                                                                             
Marvell>> nand write 0x0800000 0x0 0x60000                                     
                                                                               
NAND write: device 0 offset 0x0, size 0x60000                                  
 393216 bytes written: OK                                                      
Marvell>> reset                                                                
resetting ...                                                                  
                                                                               
                                                                               
U-Boot 2011.12 (Jan 08 2012 - 21:46:50)                                        
Marvell-GuruPlug                                                               
                                                                               
SoC:   Kirkwood 88F6281_A0                                                     
DRAM:  512 MiB                                                                 
WARNING: Caches not enabled                                                    
NAND:  512 MiB                                                                 
*** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment                               
                                                                               
In:    serial                                                                  
Out:   serial                                                                  
Err:   serial                                                                  
Net:   egiga0, egiga1                                                          
88E1121 Initialized on egiga0                                                  
88E1121 Initialized on egiga1                                                  
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0                                               
Marvell>>      
  

Note that I searched for partitions and uboot told me that my USB FAT filesystem was on USB (for GuruPlug MMC appears as USB) device 1, parition 1, or 1:1.

Now we need to fix the environment that was lost.

  
Marvell>> setenv ethaddr 01:02:03:04:05:06                                     
Marvell
>> setenv eth1addr 01:02:03:04:05:07                                    
Marvell
>> setenv x_bootcmd_usb 'usb start'                                       
Marvell
>> setenv x_bootcmd_kernel 'nand read.e 0x6400000 0x100000 0x400000'    
Marvell
>> setenv x_bootargs_root 'root=ubi.mtd=2 root=0811 rootdelay=10'       
Marvell
>> setenv bootcmd '${x_bootcmd_usb}; ${x_bootcmd_kernel}; setenv bootargs
 ${x_bootargs} ${x_bootargs_root}; bootm 0x6400000'                                      
Marvell
>> saveenv                                                              
Saving Environment to NAND...                                                  
Erasing Nand...                                                                
Erasing at 0x60000 -- 100% complete.                                           
Writing to Nand... done                                                        
Marvell
>>
             
That gets you back to where you were, but with the updated uboot.  If you want to go ahead and update to Fedora 17, you can then download the Kirkwood ARM image, copy it to a micro SD card, and then boot it by changing these variables:

bootargs=console=ttyS0,115200 root=LABEL=rootfs rootdelay=10
bootcmd=run x_bootcmd_usb; ${x_bootcmd_uimage}; ${x_bootcmd_uinitrd}; setenv bo}
x_boot_mem=bootm 0x00800000 0x01100000                                         
x_bootargs=console=ttyS0,115200                                                
x_bootargs_root=root=LABEL=rootfs rootdelay=10                                 
x_bootcmd_ethernet=ping 192.168.2.1                                            
x_bootcmd_kernel=nand read.e 0x6400000 0x100000 0x400000                       
x_bootcmd_uimage=fatload usb 1:1 0x00800000 uImage-kirkwood                    
x_bootcmd_uinitrd=fatload usb 1:1 0x01100000 uInitrd-kirkwood
x_bootcmd_usb=usb start; usb tree; usb part; fatinfo usb 1; fatls usb 1  
      
         
Then your boot will look something like this:

                                                                      U-Boot 2011.12 (Jan 08 2012 - 21:46:50)                                        
Marvell-GuruPlug                                                               
                                                                               
SoC:   Kirkwood 88F6281_A0                                                     
DRAM:  512 MiB                                                                 
WARNING: Caches not enabled                                                    
NAND:  512 MiB                                                                 
In:    serial                                                                  
Out:   serial                                                                  
Err:   serial                                                                  
Net:   egiga0, egiga1                                                          
88E1121 Initialized on egiga0                                                  
88E1121 Initialized on egiga1                                                  
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0                                               
(Re)start USB...                                                               
USB:   Register 10011 NbrPorts 1                                               
USB EHCI 1.00                                                                  
scanning bus for devices... 3 USB Device(s) found                              
       scanning bus for storage devices... Device NOT ready                    
   Request Sense returned 02 3A 00                                             
2 Storage Device(s) found                                                      
                                                                               
Device Tree:                                                                   
  1  Hub (480 Mb/s, 0mA)                                                       
  |  u-boot EHCI Host Controller                                               
  |                                                                            
  +-2  Hub (480 Mb/s, 100mA)                                                   
    |   USB2.0 Hub                                                             
    |                                                                          
    +-3  Mass Storage (480 Mb/s, 500mA)                                        
          USB Storage 000000009909                                             
                                                                               
## Unknown partition table                                                     
                                                                               
                                                                               
Partition Map for USB device 1  --   Partition Type: DOS                       
                                                                               
Partition     Start Sector     Num Sectors     Type                            
    1                 2048          524288       c                             
    2               526336        15626240      8e                             
Interface:  USB                                                                
  Device 1: Vendor: Generic  Rev: 9909 Prod: STORAGE DEVICE                    
            Type: Removable Hard Disk                                          
            Capacity: 7887.0 MB = 7.7 GB (16152576 x 512)                      
Partition 1: Filesystem: FAT16 "uboot      "                                   
      436   readme.txt                                                         
       71   boot.scr                                                           
  3244464   uimage-3.3.6-3.fc17.armv5tel.kirkwood                              
  9808824   uinitrd-3.3.6-3.fc17.armv5tel.kirkwood                             
  3292112   uimage-kirkwood                                                    
 12165177   uinitrd-kirkwood                                                   
       93   klist.txt                                                                     
  3291896   uimage-3.4.2-3.fc17.armv5tel.kirkwood                              
 12142387   uinitrd-3.4.2-3.fc17.armv5tel.kirkwood                             
  3292112   uimage-3.4.3-1.fc17.armv5tel.kirkwood                              
 12165177   uinitrd-3.4.3-1.fc17.armv5tel.kirkwood                             
                                                                               
13 file(s), 0 dir(s)                                                           
                                                                               
reading uImage-kirkwood                                                        
                                                                               
3292112 bytes read                                                             
reading uInitrd-kirkwood                                                       
                                                                               
12165177 bytes read                                                            
## Booting kernel from Legacy Image at 00800000 ...                            
   Image Name:   3.4.3-1.fc17.armv5tel.kirkwood                                
   Image Type:   ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)                         
   Data Size:    3292048 Bytes = 3.1 MiB                                       
   Load Address: 00008000                                                      
   Entry Point:  00008000                                                      
   Verifying Checksum ... OK                                                   
## Loading init Ramdisk from Legacy Image at 01100000 ...                      
   Image Name:   initramfs                                                     
   Image Type:   ARM Linux RAMDisk Image (uncompressed)                        
   Data Size:    12165113 Bytes = 11.6 MiB                                     
   Load Address: 00000000                                                      
   Entry Point:  00000000                                                      
   Verifying Checksum ... OK                                                   
   Loading Kernel Image ... OK                                                 
OK                                                                             
                                                                               
Starting kernel ...                                                            
                                                                               
Uncompressing Linux... done, booting the kernel.                               
[    0.000000] Booting Linux on physical CPU 0                                 
...

Monday, January 2, 2012

Fedora 14 ARM on Pandaboard, part 3

Now that you have a Pandaboard booting Fedora 14 ARM, there are still some cleanup tasks to do.

Set the system time and install the ntp daemon.

# date 123017102011                                         
Fri Dec 30 17:10:00 EST 2011                                                   
# yum install ntp ntpdate
Loaded plugins: presto
Setting up Install Process
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package ntp.armv5tel 0:4.2.6p2-7.fc14 set to be installed
---> Package ntpdate.armv5tel 0:4.2.6p2-7.fc14 set to be installed
--> Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

================================================================================
 Package         Arch             Version                  Repository      Size
================================================================================
Installing:
 ntp             armv5tel         4.2.6p2-7.fc14           fedora         573 k
 ntpdate         armv5tel         4.2.6p2-7.fc14           fedora          73 k

Transaction Summary
================================================================================
Install       2 Package(s)

Total download size: 645 k
Installed size: 1.7 M
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Downloading Packages:
Setting up and reading Presto delta metadata
Processing delta metadata
Package(s) data still to download: 645 k
(1/2): ntp-4.2.6p2-7.fc14.armv5tel.rpm                   | 573 kB     00:18   
(2/2): ntpdate-4.2.6p2-7.fc14.armv5tel.rpm               |  73 kB     00:01   
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total                                            30 kB/s | 645 kB     00:21   
Running rpm_check_debug
Running Transaction Test
Transaction Test Succeeded
Running Transaction
Warning: RPMDB altered outside of yum.
  Installing     : ntpdate-4.2.6p2-7.fc14.armv5tel                          1/2
  Installing     : ntp-4.2.6p2-7.fc14.armv5tel                              2/2

Installed:
  ntp.armv5tel 0:4.2.6p2-7.fc14        ntpdate.armv5tel 0:4.2.6p2-7.fc14     

Complete!
#
Turn on ntpd and start it.

# chkconfig ntpd on
# service ntpd start
Starting ntpd:                                             [  OK  ]
#


Enable LVM monitoring service (this is one of the %post failures during the LVM installation)

# chkconfig lvm2-monitor on                                 
# service lvm2-monitor start                                
Starting monitoring for VG panda:   1 logical volume(s) in volume group "panda"
monitored                                                                      
[  OK  ]                                                                       
#


Lock the guest account.

# usermod -L guest                                          
#

Add /boot/uboot as an entry in fstab.  The entry should look like this:

LABEL="uboot"           /boot/uboot             vfat    defaults,noauto 0 0
You also will want to update the / entry in fstab to mount the filesystem ext4 since that's what we formatted it as (mounting as ext3 is perfectly valid but will use none of the ext4 capabilities or features).  That line will now look like:

LABEL="rootfs"            /                       ext4    defaults        1 1

Additional items you might want to address:
  1. Change the root password
  2. Add swap (create lvol, mkswap, and enable it)
  3. Install openssh-clients for ssh support
  4. Change the hostname (/etc/sysconfig/network) 
  5. Set the timezone (it's currently in EST)

Well, that should be enough to get started.

    Sunday, January 1, 2012

    Fedora 14 ARM on Pandaboard, part 2

    From my previous entry, you'll have already created a bootable SD card.  Yeah, it doesn't boot much and ends with a kernel panic, but that's just what we need so far to get Fedora 14 on the Pandaboard.

    Install a different u-boot.bin

    Unfortunately the u-boot.bin on the validation image doesn't read boot.scr (autoboot script) and the settings are hard-coded.  In order to get a more flexible u-boot.bin, we'll borrow from Jon Master's previous Fedora 13 Pandaboard image.  Download the fedora_arm_image_pandaboard-uboot-20110622-0.tar.xz file, extract u-boot.bin, and copy it to the uboot filesystem:


    # tar -x uboot/u-boot.bin -f fedora_arm_image_pandaboard-uboot-20110622-0.tar.xz
    # ls uboot
    u-boot.bin
    # mount /dev/sde1 /mnt/tmp
    # cp uboot/u-boot.bin /mnt/tmp/
    cp: overwrite `/mnt/tmp/u-boot.bin'? y
    # umount /mnt/tmp


    Download Fedora 14 ARM image and install the root filesystem


    Go ahead and download the F14 ARM RC1 minimal image previously referenced.

    Insert the SD card and wait until the card is recognized.  Then create the physical volume, volume group, logical volume, root filesystem, and install the files to the root filesystem.

    # pvcreate /dev/sde2
      Writing physical volume data to disk "/dev/sde2"
      Physical volume "/dev/sde2" successfully created
    # vgcreate panda /dev/sde2
      Volume group "panda" successfully created
    # lvcreate -L 2G -n root panda
      Logical volume "root" created
    # mkfs -t ext4 -L rootfs /dev/mapper/panda-root
    mke2fs 1.41.14 (22-Dec-2010)
    Filesystem label=rootfs
    OS type: Linux
    Block size=4096 (log=2)
    Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
    Stride=0 blocks, Stripe width=0 blocks
    131072 inodes, 524288 blocks
    26214 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
    First data block=0
    Maximum filesystem blocks=536870912
    16 block groups
    32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
    8192 inodes per group
    Superblock backups stored on blocks:
        32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912

    Writing inode tables: done                           
    Creating journal (16384 blocks): done
    Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

    This filesystem will be automatically checked every 38 mounts or
    180 days, whichever comes first.  Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.
    # mount /dev/mapper/panda-root /mnt/tmp
    # tar -xf rootfs-f14-minimal-RC1.tar.bz2 -C /mnt/tmp
    One thing that I haven't mentioned is that the minimal image doesn't contain lvm2, which we're going to need.  Go ahead and install that (and its dependencies) now:

    # rpm -ivh --ignorearch --root=/mnt/tmp http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora-secondary/releases/14/Everything/arm/os/Packages/lvm2-2.02.73-3.fc14.armv5tel.rpm http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora-secondary/releases/14/Everything/arm/os/Packages/lvm2-libs-2.02.73-3.fc14.armv5tel.rpm http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora-secondary/releases/14/Everything/arm/os/Packages/device-mapper-1.02.54-3.fc14.armv5tel.rpm http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora-secondary/releases/14/Everything/arm/os/Packages/device-mapper-event-1.02.54-3.fc14.armv5tel.rpm http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora-secondary/releases/14/Everything/arm/os/Packages/device-mapper-event-libs-1.02.54-3.fc14.armv5tel.rpm http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora-secondary/releases/14/Everything/arm/os/Packages/device-mapper-libs-1.02.54-3.fc14.armv5tel.rpm
    Retrieving http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora-secondary/releases/14/Everything/arm/os/Packages/lvm2-2.02.73-3.fc14.armv5tel.rpm
    Retrieving http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora-secondary/releases/14/Everything/arm/os/Packages/lvm2-libs-2.02.73-3.fc14.armv5tel.rpm
    Retrieving http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora-secondary/releases/14/Everything/arm/os/Packages/device-mapper-1.02.54-3.fc14.armv5tel.rpm
    Retrieving http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora-secondary/releases/14/Everything/arm/os/Packages/device-mapper-event-1.02.54-3.fc14.armv5tel.rpm
    Retrieving http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora-secondary/releases/14/Everything/arm/os/Packages/device-mapper-event-libs-1.02.54-3.fc14.armv5tel.rpm
    Retrieving http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora-secondary/releases/14/Everything/arm/os/Packages/device-mapper-libs-1.02.54-3.fc14.armv5tel.rpm
    Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
       1:device-mapper-libs     ########################################### [ 17%]
    warning: %post(device-mapper-libs-1.02.54-3.fc14.armv5tel) scriptlet failed, exit status 127
       2:device-mapper          ########################################### [ 33%]
       3:device-mapper-event-lib########################################### [ 50%]
    warning: %post(device-mapper-event-libs-1.02.54-3.fc14.armv5tel) scriptlet failed, exit status 127
       4:device-mapper-event    ########################################### [ 67%]
       5:lvm2-libs              ########################################### [ 83%]
    warning: %post(lvm2-libs-2.02.73-3.fc14.armv5tel) scriptlet failed, exit status 127
       6:lvm2                   ########################################### [100%]
    warning: %post(lvm2-2.02.73-3.fc14.armv5tel) scriptlet failed, exit status 127
    #


    You can ignore the %post errors as %post is simply trying to run ldconfig to update the dynamic linker/loader cache or chkconfig to enable a service.

    Now there is still one problem with getting LVM to work:  The generated initramfs files have no LVM support.   This is a huge problem (the system will not be able to detect the root filesystem which is on a logical volume).  It's also a huge pain to fix it as dracut did not generate a bootable image when I tried to update the initramfs on my host system.  Because of that, I've made it easy on you - here is an initramfs with LVM support included.  Let's install that:

    # cp initramfs-2.6.40.3-0.fc14.armv7l.omap.img /mnt/tmp/boot/
    cp: overwrite `/mnt/tmp/boot/initramfs-2.6.40.3-0.fc14.armv7l.omap.img'? y
    #


    The next thing we'll need to do is update the boot files stored in the uboot filesystem (mkimage is in the uboot-tools package if it's not installed on your system).
    # mkdir /mnt/tmp/boot/uboot
    # mount /dev/sde1 /mnt/tmp/boot/uboot
    # mkimage -A arm -O linux -T kernel -C none -a 0x80008000 -e 0x80008000 -n 2.6.40.3.fc14.armv7l.omap -d /mnt/tmp/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.40.3-0.fc14.armv7l.omap /mnt/tmp/boot/uboot/uImage
    Image Name:   2.6.40.3.fc14.armv7l.omap
    Created:      Fri Dec 30 16:44:41 2011
    Image Type:   ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
    Data Size:    3919956 Bytes = 3828.08 kB = 3.74 MB
    Load Address: 80008000
    Entry Point:  80008000
    # mkimage -A arm -O linux -T ramdisk -C none -a 0 -e 0 -n initramfs -d /mnt/tmp/boot/initramfs-2.6.40.3-0.fc14.armv7l.omap.img /mnt/tmp/boot/uboot/uInitrd
    Image Name:   initramfs
    Created:      Fri Dec 30 16:46:50 2011
    Image Type:   ARM Linux RAMDisk Image (uncompressed)
    Data Size:    8043128 Bytes = 7854.62 kB = 7.67 MB
    Load Address: 00000000
    Entry Point:  00000000
    #
    In order to boot, we'll need to also create a boot script and compile it.

    # echo "setenv bootargs 'console=ttyO2,115200n8 ro rootwait root=/dev/mapper/panda-root init=/sbin/init earlyprintk rd_NO_PLYMOUTH'" > /mnt/tmp/boot/uboot/boot.cmd
    # echo "setenv bootcmd 'mmc init; fatload mmc 0:1 0x80300000 uImage; fatload mmc 0:1 81600000 uInitrd; bootm 80300000 81600000'" >> /mnt/tmp/boot/uboot/boot.cmd
    # echo "boot" >> /mnt/tmp/boot/uboot/boot.cmd
    # mkimage -A arm -O linux -T script -C none -a 0 -e 0 -n "Pandaboard boot script" -d /mnt/tmp/boot/uboot/boot.cmd /mnt/tmp/boot/uboot/boot.scr
    Image Name:   Pandaboard boot script
    Created:      Fri Dec 30 16:49:18 2011
    Image Type:   ARM Linux Script (uncompressed)
    Data Size:    257 Bytes = 0.25 kB = 0.00 MB
    Load Address: 00000000
    Entry Point:  00000000
    Contents:
       Image 0: 249 Bytes = 0.24 kB = 0.00 MB
    #
    Create the klist.txt file that contains the list of installed kernels.  This is actually not needed in this case since there is no xpfa repository with an updated grubby that can use it.  I'm just doing it for completeness.

    # echo "2.6.40.3.fc14.armv7l.omap" > /mnt/tmp/boot/uboot/klist.txt
    #

    This should be all that's required.  Let's unmount these filesystems, deactivate the volume group, eject the media, and try booting on the Pandaboard.



    # umount /mnt/tmp/boot/uboot /mnt/tmp
    # vgchange -an panda
      0 logical volume(s) in volume group "panda" now active
    # eject /dev/sde
    #

    If all has gone well, you're now sitting at the login prompt.  The root password is "fedoraarm".

    Next post will be dedicated to a few cleanup items.

    Friday, December 30, 2011

    Fedora 14 ARM on Pandaboard

    Jon Masters has provided a Pandaboard Fedora 13 image which mostly works great (the MLO appears to not work on the new ES model, but you can strip the MLO from the Pandaboard validation image and use it instead).

    However, if you have the desire to stay current, you might want to try a little newer version of Fedora.  I expect the floodgates to open shortly as the Fedora ARM team is working on bootstrapping Fedora 15, but in the meantime, Peter Robinson has provided a Fedora 14 ARM image.  No, it's not specific to the Pandaboard, but we can get it working anyway with a little elbow grease.  And if we leverage the work of others, we won't even have to do any compiling!

    Partitioning & formatting your SD card

    This is perhaps the most critical step - and one with many nuances and folklore.  The image provided by Peter is "generic" in the fact that it doesn't have Pandaboard specific files or image layout.  What this means is that we'll have to provide an additional partition: the MLO/uboot partition for Pandaboard.

    There have been some reported problems with specific SD cards, so I would suggest using a high quality SD card (I have used both Micro Center "generic" card and a PNY professional card without issues).  If there is any doubt about the card, try the validation image first.

    Once you have the card in hand, you can insert it into your computer and examine /var/log/messages to determine which device is assigned by the kernel.  In my case, this is what was reported:

    sd 4:0:0:2: [sde] 15644672 512-byte logical blocks: (8.01 GB/7.45 GiB)

    Also, it's worth noting that if there are mountable filesystems, they are probably mounted.  That's not what we want, so be sure to unmount any mounted filesystems from this card.

    Now I use fdisk to create two partitions:
    1. The uboot/MLO partition sized at about 64 MB.
    2. The rest of the card for the system.
    There is two things worth mentioning here.  Most people also create a separate swap, boot, and root partitions.  I'm not going to do that here.  I'm going to instead create a 2nd partitions to use as a PV (Physical Volume) for LVM.  I will then later create Logical Volumes for swap and root filesystems.  I will not be creating a separate /boot filesystem.  The reason that this is many times distinct from the root filesystem is because it makes recovery easier if you can mount up root and make changes.  Since the /uboot partition/filesystem will be copies of files from /boot, I won't make it separate - the /uboot filesystem will contain the important files.

    Now create the two partitions:

    # fdisk /dev/sde

    Command (m for help): c
    DOS Compatibility flag is set (DEPRECATED!)

    Command (m for help): o
    Building a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0xaa802e39.
    Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
    After that, of course, the previous content won't be recoverable.

    Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite)

    WARNING: DOS-compatible mode is deprecated. It's strongly recommended to
             switch off the mode (with command 'c').
    Command (m for help): n
    Partition type:
       p   primary (0 primary, 0 extended, 4 free)
       e   extended
    Select (default p): p
    Partition number (1-4, default 1): 1
    First sector (62-15644671, default 62): 63
    Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G} (63-15644671, default 15644671): +64M

    Command (m for help): t
    Selected partition 1
    Hex code (type L to list codes): 6
    Changed system type of partition 1 to 6 (FAT16)

    Command (m for help): a
    Partition number (1-4): 1

    Command (m for help): p

    Disk /dev/sde: 8010 MB, 8010072064 bytes
    247 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1021 cylinders, total 15644672 sectors
    Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
    Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
    I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
    Disk identifier: 0xaa802e39

       Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
    /dev/sde1   *          63      131135       65536+   6  FAT16
    Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.

    Command (m for help): n
    Partition type:
       p   primary (1 primary, 0 extended, 3 free)
       e   extended
    Select (default p): p
    Partition number (1-4, default 2): 2
    First sector (62-15644671, default 62): 131136
    Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G} (131136-15644671, default 15644671):
    Using default value 15644671

    Command (m for help): t
    Partition number (1-4): 2
    Hex code (type L to list codes): 8e
    Changed system type of partition 2 to 8e (Linux LVM)

    Command (m for help): p

    Disk /dev/sde: 8010 MB, 8010072064 bytes
    247 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1021 cylinders, total 15644672 sectors
    Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
    Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
    I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
    Disk identifier: 0xaa802e39

       Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
    /dev/sde1   *          63      131135       65536+   6  FAT16
    Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
    /dev/sde2          131136    15644671     7756768   8e  Linux LVM
    Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.

    Command (m for help): w
    The partition table has been altered!

    Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.

    WARNING: If you have created or modified any DOS 6.x
    partitions, please see the fdisk manual page for additional
    information.
    Syncing disks.
    #
    You'll notice that I forced the 1st partition to start at sector 63 even though this was listed as no longer a requirement.  For whatever reason, I was unable to get a starting sector of 2048 (the default when not using DOS-compatability mode) to work.  Your mileage may vary.

    We'll want to format that first partition too:

    # mkfs -t vfat -F 16 -n uboot /dev/sde1
    mkfs.vfat 3.0.12 (29 Oct 2011)
    #
    Installing the boot files

    Now to save some time creating the boot partition, we're going to borrow MLO and uboot binaries from the Pandaboard validation image and a previous Fedora-13 Pandaboard image.  Download this image and copy the binaries to your local directory.  Now let's discover how the image is laid out:

    # fdisk -l validation-19102011.img

    Disk validation-19102011.img: 83 MB, 83886080 bytes
    255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 10 cylinders, total 163840 sectors
    Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
    Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
    I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
    Disk identifier: 0x00000000

                      Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
    validation-19102011.img1   *          63       80324       40131    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
    validation-19102011.img2           80325      144584       32130   83  Linux
    #
    From this, we can know that the uboot filesystem is located at 512 bytes per sector x 63 sectors = 32256 bytes.  Let's mount it and copy out the files we need.  All we really need is MLO and u-boot.bin, but we'll go ahead and grab the uImage for some quick testing too.

    # mkdir tmp
    # losetup --offset 32256 --show --find ./validation-19102011.img
    /dev/loop0
    # mount /dev/loop0 ./tmp
    # ls tmp
    MLO  u-boot.bin  uImage
    # cp tmp/MLO tmp/u-boot.bin tmp/uImage .
    # umount ./tmp
    # losetup -d /dev/loop0
    # rmdir tmp
    #


    Now, let's copy the MLO, u-boot.bin, and uImage files to the flash.  The MLO must be the first file written, and never be re-written, so we have to take special precautions to make sure that this happens correctly with no other writes.

    # mount /dev/sde1 /mnt/tmp
    # cp MLO /mnt/tmp/
    # sync
    # umount /mnt/tmp
    # mount /dev/sde1 /mnt/tmp
    # cp u-boot.bin uImage /mnt/tmp/
    # umount /mnt/tmp
    So this should be enough to at least test and make sure we laid it out right.  Let's eject the media and try booting it on the Pandaboard.

    # eject /dev/sde
    #
     A quick test

    Welcome to minicom 2.5

    OPTIONS: I18n
    Compiled on Apr  6 2011, 07:59:07.
    Port /dev/ttyUSB0

    Press CTRL-A Z for help on special keys



    Texas Instruments X-Loader 1.41 (Sep 29 2011 - 10:43:53)
    OMAP4460: 1.2 GHz capable SOM
    Starting OS Bootloader from MMC/SD1 ...


    U-Boot 1.1.4-gc1cd80bc-dirty (Oct 12 2011 - 17:56:27)

    Load address: 0x80e80000
    DRAM:  1024 MB
    Flash:  0 kB
    Using default environment

    In:    serial                                                                  
    Out:   serial                                                                  
    Err:   serial                                                                  
    Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0                                               
    mmc read: Invalid size                                                         
                                                                                   
    4020344 bytes read                                                             
    ## Booting image at 82000000 ...                                               
       Image Name:   Linux-3.0.4+                                                  
       Image Type:   ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)                         
       Data Size:    4020280 Bytes =  3.8 MB                                       
       Load Address: 80008000                                                      
       Entry Point:  80008000                                                      
       Verifying Checksum ... OK                                                   
    OK                                                                             
                                                                                   
    Starting kernel ...                                                            
                                                                                   
    Uncompressing Linux... done, booting the kernel.                               
    [    0.000000] Linux version 3.0.4+ (danders@ccd-dev) (gcc version 4.3.3 (Sourc1
    [    0.000000] CPU: ARMv7 Processor [412fc09a] revision 10 (ARMv7), cr=10c5387f
    ...
    [    8.663208] Waiting 3sec before mounting root device...                     
    [   12.223846]   b301           65536 mmcblk0p1 00000000-0000-0000-0000-00000001
    [   12.233856]   b302         7756768 mmcblk0p2 00000000-0000-0000-0000-00000002
    [   12.242279] No filesystem could mount root, tried:  ext3                    
    [   12.242279] Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unkn)
    ...

    If you saw your board get at least to the point of trying to mount the root and failing, this is a good sign.  This means that the MLO, u-boot.bin, and uImage files are all functional.

    Next step is to get it booting a Fedora image - that's the next post.