Debian Squeeze on LS-WXL

This guide(a Work In Progress) will explain how to install Debian GNU/Linux "Squeeze" on the LinkStation™ Duo LS-WXL using the Debian "debootstrap" procedure. The original kernel will be preserved, as well as the original bootloader (U-Boot). This Procedure is based on the Lenny procedure of the same name and is offered here as all the procedures for installing Squeeze on the LS-WXL led to an eventual endless reboot cycle. As the "lenny" procedure installs a squeeze kernel in any case and the lenny procedure produces a sane machine I just altered it by the change of the bootstrap fetched and the apt archives accessed in the install procedures.

Basic idea:


 * create a Debian system with debootstrap
 * use the data partition as a temporary root
 * replace the old filesystem with the new one

This guide will ask you to reformat partitions, delete existing data, etc. All of these actions may void your warranty, destroy your data, etc. In general you can receive help from the community or from the Buffalo forums but bear in mind that every problem you may encounter is ultimately up to you to solve. You do it at your own risk.

This guide is based on the procedure for installing Debian on LS-CHLv2 and was developed using the LS-WXL/E version. This guide should also work for the LS-WXL/R1 variants.

This guide suggests to install blstools, a small set of utilities developed for this hardware to enable some operations which would not be possible from a plain Debian install:


 * turn the unit off from the on-off-auto switch
 * turn unit blinking LEDs to still blue when boot is complete
 * resume blinking when the unit is shutting down
 * use the USB port

Please note that the Armel Debian "micro_evtd" package will NOT work on LS-WXL because of different hardware.

=Preliminary steps=

Obtain root access to the linkstation
You are supposed to start from an "open" Stock Firmware, that is stock software that you can telnet to,

Follow this guide to get telnet root console access to the LS.

Follow this guide to SSH as root to the LS.

Backup the LS
If you have any important data on the LS you definitely need to make a backup.

Even if you don't, you'd better take a snapshot of the vital disk partitions (first and second partition). So you will be able to easily revert to the original stock distribution. [|This forum post] explains how to do it.

=Prepare a Debian squeeze root filesystem=

Debootstrap
This is derived from original debootstrap docs.

From the linkstation console download the Debian debootstrap utility and install it with dpkg:

wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/d/debootstrap/debootstrap_1.0.35_all.deb dpkg -i debootstrap_1.0.35_all.deb

dpkg will complain of missing dependencies. Ignore it.

Note that for firmware 1.22 (and possibly others) Busybox isn't linked to ar so the debootstrap step below will fail.

which ar >/dev/null || ln -s /bin/busybox /usr/bin/ar # fix ar link mkdir debian-armel-rootfs debootstrap --verbose --arch armel squeeze debian-armel-rootfs http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian

This step WILL take time. At the end you should get the following message:

I: Base system installed successfully.

Completing the debootstrap and preparing the rootfs
Most commands will be run in the chrooted environment of the newly created Debian squeeze install. In order to enter the chroot type LANG=C chroot debian-armel-rootfs/ /bin/bash to leave type exit.

Copy kernel modules from stock kernel
Kernel modules reside in /lib/modules/. Here we are using the stock kernel so we must copy them from the stock initrd to the new rootfs. This must be done from within a chrooted environment in the new system - won't work with stock software.

cp /boot/initrd.buffalo debian-armel-rootfs/tmp/ LANG=C chroot debian-armel-rootfs/ /bin/bash cd /tmp dd if=initrd.buffalo of=initrd.gz ibs=64 skip=1 gunzip initrd.gz mkdir INITRD mount -t ext2 -o loop initrd INITRD cp -R INITRD/lib/modules/* /lib/modules/ umount INITRD rmdir INITRD rm initrd*

Adding missing devices
Still in the chrooted environment.

Mount the proc filesystem - it can be mounted a number of times - and run the command to create device nodes in /dev (TODO: investigate dynamic devices with udev?):

apt-get install makedev ln -s /sbin/makedev /dev/MAKEDEV mount -t proc proc /proc cd /dev mv .udev .oldudev MAKEDEV generic MAKEDEV md mv .oldudev .udev umount /proc

This will also take some time while all device nodes are created.

Apt setup
Apt will complain about packages without verification if this step is not performed.

Edit /etc/apt/sources.list, use the appropriate debian mirror

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian squeeze main deb http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main contrib deb http://volatile.debian.org/debian-volatile squeeze/volatile main contrib
 * 1) Debian packages for squeeze
 * 1) Uncomment the deb-src line if you want 'apt-get source'
 * 2) to work with most packages.
 * 3) deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian squeeze main
 * 1) deb-src http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main contrib
 * 1) deb-src http://volatile.debian.org/debian-volatile squeeze/volatile main contrib

Perform an update

apt-get update

The final upgrade step can be performed later once the installation is finished.

Install mdadm
apt-get --no-install-recommends install mdadm If apt-get complains that pts isn't accessible: ignore it or mount devpts (mount -t devpts devpts /dev/pts).

Ignore the "(failed to load MD subsystem)" error.

Update mdadm.conf:

exit                                               # exit from chroot cp /etc/mdadm.conf debian-armel-rootfs/etc/mdadm/ LANG=C chroot debian-armel-rootfs/ /bin/bash       # back again

Configuring locale
Install and configure the locales. Suggestion is to install at least the en_US.UTF-8 and your native language locale (e.g. it_IT.UTF-8, de_DE.UTF-8, etc).

apt-get install locales dpkg-reconfigure locales

Editing /etc/fstab
Create /etc/fstab:

cat >/etc/fstab <<EOF # /dev/md2	/		xfs	defaults,noatime	0   1 /dev/md0	/boot		ext3	rw,nosuid,nodev		0   2 /dev/md10	none		swap	sw			0   0 proc		/proc		proc	defaults		0   0 EOF
 * 1) /etc/fstab: static file system information.
 * 1) file system	mount point	type	options			dump pass

Partition /dev/md2 contains the shared directory which will be used as a temporary root before the final installation. Make sure that a backup of this partition is made if it contains important data.

If the LS has only a single drive attached, change /dev/md2 to either /dev/sda6 or /dev/sdb6 depending on which slot the drive is inserted.

Network
Edit /etc/network/interfaces to match your LAN configuration. My LS gets all information from DHCP:

auto lo iface lo inet loopback
 * 1) Used by ifup(8) and ifdown(8). See the interfaces(5) manpage or
 * 2) /usr/share/doc/ifupdown/examples for more information.
 * 1) We always want the loopback interface.

auto eth1 iface eth1 inet dhcp
 * 1) DHCP for Ethernet connection


 * 1) Example static IP setup: (broadcast and gateway are optional)
 * 2) auto eth1
 * 3) iface eth1 inet static
 * 4)     address 192.168.0.42
 * 5)     network 192.168.0.0
 * 6)     netmask 255.255.255.0
 * 7)     broadcast 192.168.0.255
 * 8)     gateway 192.168.0.1

Create /etc/hosts

cat >/etc/hosts </etc/hostname <<EOF EOF

Replace   with a sensible name.

Install SSHD
apt-get install openssh-server passwd root mkdir ~/.ssh exit cp /root/.ssh/au* debian-armel-rootfs/root/.ssh/ LANG=C chroot debian-armel-rootfs/ /bin/bash #back again

Edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config and make sure that the following line is present and uncommented:

PermitRootLogin yes

Prepare the rootfs archive
Clean up the installation, leave the chrooted environment and tar it up:

aptitude clean exit tar zcvf squeeze-armel-rootfs.tgz -C debian-armel-rootfs.

Now you have a complete rootfs for Debian squeeze armel.

=Installation=

We will reuse the existing root partition to store the debian rootfs. The data partition will be used as a temporary root so that this installation will be performed right on the LS itself. It is necessary to have a backup of the data partition if it contains important stuff.

If you want to change the RAID type for the data partition, it is better to use the web interface before switching to the full Debian setup.

Create an initrd
An initrd is necessary to boot debian using a raid partition.

We need busybox to create a minimal initrd. Note that we need to go back to the chrooted environment.

chroot debian-armel-rootfs/ /bin/bash apt-get install busybox

Install uboot files:

apt-get install uboot-mkimage

Create and mount an ext2 image file:

cd /tmp dd if=/dev/zero of=initrd bs=1k count=0 seek=3K mke2fs -F -m 0 -b 1024 initrd tune2fs -c0 -i0 initrd mkdir INITRD mount -o loop initrd INITRD

Might you want to create a bigger initrd, the max size of the uncompressed initrd is 8388544 bytes.

Create directory structure and the device nodes:

mkdir -p INITRD/{bin,lib,dev,etc/mdadm,proc,sbin} cp -a /dev/{null,console,tty,sd{a,b,c,d}?,md*} INITRD/dev/

Copy busybox, mdadm and their dependencies:

cp /bin/busybox INITRD/bin/ cp /sbin/mdadm INITRD/sbin cp /lib/{libm.so.6,libc.so.6,libgcc_s.so.1,ld-linux.so.3} INITRD/lib

The dependencies can be determined using the commands:

ldd /bin/busybox ldd /sbin/mdadm

Create a linuxrc:

cat > INITRD/linuxrc < /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf mdadm -Eb /dev/sd??* >> /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf mdadm -As --force echo "0x902" > /proc/sys/kernel/real-root-dev umount /proc umount /sys EOF chmod +x INITRD/linuxrc
 * 1) !/bin/busybox sh
 * 1) Mount the /proc and /sys filesystems.
 * 1) use /dev/md1 as root
 * 2) echo "0x901" > /proc/sys/kernel/real-root-dev
 * 3) use /dev/md2 as root
 * 1) use /dev/sda6 as root
 * 2) echo "0x806" > /proc/sys/kernel/real-root-dev
 * 3) use /dev/sdb6 as root
 * 4) echo "0x822" > /proc/sys/kernel/real-root-dev
 * 1) Clean up.

Uncomment the relevant line if you use a different temporary root partition.

Generate an initrd for temporary root partition:

umount INITRD gzip initrd mkimage -A arm -O linux -T ramdisk -C gzip -a 0x0 -e 0x0 -n initrd -d initrd.gz initrd.buffalo

Next we need to create another initrd for the final installation:

gunzip initrd.gz mount -o loop initrd INITRD

Edit linuxrc to use /dev/MD1 as root:

echo "0x901" > /proc/sys/kernel/real-root-dev
 * 1) use /dev/md1 as root

Or change it to whatever partition you may want later.

umount INITRD gzip initrd mkimage -A arm -O linux -T ramdisk -C gzip -a 0x0 -e 0x0 -n initrd -d initrd.gz initrd.buffalo.final rmdir INITRD

Copy initrd:

exit mv /boot/initrd.buffalo /boot/initrd.buffalo.old cp debian-armel-rootfs/tmp/initrd.buffalo* /boot/

Installing the Debian rootfs
This will be a two step process. We first boot debian using a temporary rootfs and then transfer it to it final partition.

If you are using two hard disks, /dev/md2 will be the temporary partition and /dev/md1 will be the final destination. If you are using a single drive, then /dev/sda6 or /dev/sdb6 will be the temporary partition.

Install rootfs in temporary partition
Untar the rootfs and copy the backup:

tar xvzf squeeze-armel-rootfs.tgz -C /mnt/array1/ cp squeeze-armel-rootfs.tgz /mnt/array1/

Use /mnt/disk1 or /mnt/disk2 instead of /mnt/array1 if you are using a single drive.

Reboot and pray that it works. :)

reboot

After rebooting, login to the new system.

Install rootfs in /dev/md1
Format /dev/md1, use whatever filesystem that you prefer:

mkfs.ext3 /dev/md1 tune2fs -c0 -i0 /dev/md1

Mount it under /mnt and extract the rootfs:

mount /dev/md1 /mnt tar xvzf /squeeze-armel-rootfs.tgz -C /mnt cp /squeeze-armel-rootfs.tgz /mnt/root          # make a copy

Edit /mnt/etc/fstab to reflect the changes:

# /dev/md1	/		ext3	defaults,noatime	0   1 /dev/md0	/boot		ext3	ro,nosuid,nodev		0   2 /dev/md10	none		swap	sw			0   0 proc		/proc		proc	defaults		0   0
 * 1) /etc/fstab: static file system information.
 * 1) file system	mount point	type	options			dump pass

Use the correct initrd:

cd /boot mv initrd.buffalo initrd.buffalo.initial cp initrd.buffalo.final initrd.buffalo

Note: make sure the /boot is mounted! You may have to manually mount it to complete the above step.

Reboot and pray that it works. :)

reboot

Setup data partition
The existing data partition can be mounted on the home directory as-is without formatting but the rootfs files must be manually deleted.

The other approach is to start clean and format it. Note that the EXT3 was chosen as the filesystem for the data partition.

Replace /dev/md2 with either /dev/sda6 or /dev/sdb6 if you are using a single drive.

Format:

mkfs.ext3 -m0 /dev/md2 tune2fs -c0 -i0 /dev/md2

Update /etc/fstab:

# /dev/md1	/		ext3	defaults,noatime	0   1 /dev/md2	/home		ext3	defaults,noatime	0   2 /dev/md0	/boot		ext3	ro,nosuid,nodev		0   2 /dev/md10	none		swap	sw			0   0 proc		/proc		proc	defaults		0   0
 * 1) /etc/fstab: static file system information.
 * 1) file system	mount point	type	options			dump pass

Mount /home

mount /home

Add user
Issue the following command

adduser

Configuring timezone
dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Useful packages
Anyone would need these:

apt-get install sudo less usbutils bzip2 mc linuxlogo psmisc

NTP
Ntpd ensures that your Linkstation clock stays in sync with global time servers.

apt-get install ntp

blstools
As told above, blstools are a set of utilities which enable LS-CHL/XHL/WXL hardware-specific features otherwise unavailable from a plain Debian squeeze installation.

In order to install the latest blstools, smartmontools is required:

apt-get install smartmontools

Download the package from the blstools project page

apt-get install subversion

svn co https://blstools.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/blstools/trunk blstools

cd blstools

./install.sh /etc/init.d/lsmonitor start

The following features are installed:

lsmonitor (/etc/init.d/lsmonitor)
This is a daemon that is automatically started when the system boots. You don't need to call it directly.

lsmonitor stops the blue led from flashing and provides a reassuring, still blue light. Also, when you move the switch in "off" position lsmonitor initiates system shutdown (which is nice isn't it?)

usb (/etc/init.d/usb)
Powers on and off the USB interface.

When you want to connect a USB disk to the Linkstation you should first call:

sudo /etc/init.d/usb start

and then you will be able to mount the USB drive to the desired location (generally, the device will be /dev/sdb1). Once done, in order to save power you can unmount the mounted volume and issue:

sudo /etc/init.d/usb stop

to disable the USB device.

Webmin
wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/webadmin/webmin_1.560_all.deb apt-get install libnet-ssleay-perl openssl libauthen-pam-perl libio-pty-perl apt-show-versions libapt-pkg-perl dpkg -i webmin_1.560_all.deb For more information, please refers to Webmin to remotely administer your LinkStation

=Building the Debian kernel=

 Caution: Make sure that you have physical access to the drives and a linux box just in case you messed up with the the kernel configuration. At the moment, there is no known way of gaining root access when the device is in EM mode.

The kernel can be natively compiled or cross compiled using an external Debian PC.

Requisites
Install the following packages under root:

apt-get install build-essential fakeroot uboot-mkimage debhelper python libncurses5-dev

Update /etc/apt/sources.list to be able to download the Squeeze kernel sources:

echo deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian squeeze main >> /etc/apt/sources.list apt-get update

Install the kernel sources (this command can be run as a normal user)

apt-get -t squeeze source linux-2.6

Download the patch and sample config file (for linux-2.6-2.6.32-30):

wget http://pastebin.com/download.php?i=vFRr3zAX -O patch.lswxl wget http://pastebin.com/download.php?i=2R6sJ0ZX -O config.lswxl

Native compilation
cd linux-2.6-2.6.32 make -f debian/rules source cd debian/build/source_armel_none/

apply the necesary patches, but review them before you apply them, as the kernel patches changes every week

patch -Np1 -i ~/patch.lswxl

cp ~/config.lswxl .config make uImage modules cp arch/arm/boot/uImage uImage.buffalo.debian make modules_install INSTALL_MOD_PATH=./modules

On my LS, the compilation took around 1.5 hrs.(unverified for squeeze userland)

Cross compilation
cd linux-2.6-2.6.32 make -f debian/rules.gen source_armel_none

apply the necesary patches, but review them before you apply them, as the kernel patches changes every week

patch -Np1 -i ~/patch.lswxl

cd debian/build/source_armel_none/ patch -Np1 -i ../../../../patch.lswxl cp ../../../../config.lswxl .config make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabi- uImage modules mv arch/arm/boot/uImage uImage.buffalo.debian make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabi- modules_install INSTALL_MOD_PATH=./modules

Installation
Get yourself root access, and get write access to the boot fs

su mount -o remount,rw /boot

If blstools is installed, this program must first be disabled or removed. Otherwise, the system will just automatically reboot.

chmod a-x /etc/init.d/lsmonitor

Copy the kernel to the boot directory, create a backup of the old version:

mv /boot/uImage.buffalo /boot/uImage.buffalo.old cp uImage.buffalo.debian /boot/uImage.buffalo

Copy the modules:

cp -a modules/lib/modules/2.6.32 /lib/modules

make the correct realtime clock device, with this kernel settings it is: mknod /dev/rtc c 254 0

Reboot and enjoy your new kernel.

blstools Replacement
This is the replacement lsmonitor script. This uses the sysfs GPIO interface instead of the buffalo specific proc interface. Also this script monitors the temperature of both drives.

=References=


 * http://www.kolios.dk/2009/09/07/howto-install-a-debian-from-scratch-on-a-buffalo-terastation-duo-2/
 * http://www.cyrius.com/debian/orion/buffalo/kuroboxpro/recovery.html
 * http://buffalo.nas-central.org/index.php/Open_Stock_Firmware
 * http://buffalo.nas-central.org/wiki/FreeLink_for_the_Kurobox_Pro_-_Automatic_Install
 * http://forum.buffalo.nas-central.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=13551
 * http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Initramfs