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#1 2008-04-03 00:30:00

ragnar
New member
Registered: 2008-04-03
Posts: 4

NFS Boot trouble

I am trying to boot my dns323 using nfs boot. I have tried to follow the steps in http://dns323.kood.org/howto:install_debian about it, but the trouble is that the kernel fails get dhcp or if I set the ip statically in the boot args, then it fails to connect to the nfs server.

When I boot the thing using the normal firmware, it gets IP address normally and I can mount the directory from the nfs server. It seems like it does something magical at startup, that doesn't get done when I nfs-boot.

I have run wireshark on my network too to see if there actually is any network traffic from the dns323, but I am unable to see any traffic from it at all.

Has anyone here any idea of what is the problem and how to solve it?

I attached a file with two outputs from the serial console. One showing ip=dhcp, the other static ip.


Attachments:
Attachment Icon serial_port.log, Size: 13,912 bytes, Downloads: 730

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#2 2008-04-03 23:33:48

ragnar
New member
Registered: 2008-04-03
Posts: 4

Re: NFS Boot trouble

So, I have been investigating more now and tried to understand what the dns323 does with the original rootdisk.

It seems like the network driver doesn't get activated at boot time for original boot procedure (I guess the driver has ip=none as default). It only gets activated much later, when running the /etc/rc.sh startup script. And even then it can take up to 50 seconds to get the ip address, while sometimes it can actually get lucky and get the ip address directly on first try. I have even seen it begin to do dhcp discover and then ignore the answer it got and then 50 seconds later redo the dhcp discover process and then it actually does what it should.

There seem to be a race condition somewhere that makes the network driver not respond. I think this might be related to these messages:

   egiga0: link down
   <5>egiga0: link up<5>, full duplex<5>, speed 1 Gbps<5>

If it doesn't get the "link up" message quick enough, the network driver seem to do nothing at all for quite a long while.

My next step is probably to compile the latest orion.git kernel and upload through kermit and boot (I don't want to erase the flash just yet).

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#3 2008-04-06 13:33:08

ragnar
New member
Registered: 2008-04-03
Posts: 4

Re: NFS Boot trouble

Okay, the next stage in my tries to get rid of the original firmware.

I have now compiled a new kernel from the orion.git tree (using uclibc and buildroot build system). My .config is attached. I have succeded in uploading the kernel to uboot via kermit and saw that there was no errors in the process.

When I start the new kernel it just gets to the "booting kernel" message and then stops. Something is in other words rather bad with my kernel.

Does anyone have any tip on what could be wrong, or has done this themselves and have a tip on how to compile a working kernel from the orion.git tree?


Attachments:
Attachment Icon .config, Size: 32,424 bytes, Downloads: 531

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#4 2008-04-06 13:54:45

fonz
Member / Developer
From: Berlin
Registered: 2007-02-06
Posts: 1716
Website

Re: NFS Boot trouble

ragnar wrote:

When I start the new kernel it just gets to the "booting kernel" message and then stops. Something is in other words rather bad with my kernel.

You can't boot the orion kernel using the flashed uboot. uboot passes 526 as machine-type while the orion kernel expects 1542 for dns-323. You can either patch the orion kernel sources (arch/arm/tools/mach-types) or use my reloaded module to boot the kernel ( http://www.inreto.de/dns323/reloaded/dn … d-0.7.167/ )

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#5 2008-04-06 14:41:53

ragnar
New member
Registered: 2008-04-03
Posts: 4

Re: NFS Boot trouble

Ah, thank you for the information.

I actually read the line

Code:

/* Warning: D-Link uses a wrong mach-type (=526) in their bootloader */

in the orion git tree, but I promptly forgot about it again.

Although your reloaded kernel module looks really neat, I think I will go with the patched kernel for now.

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