flashing b3 Kernel

[marcz]

First I apologize, if this post is not in the good section.

I have just got a B3, I want to replace a previous Qnap+Debian that run mainly nfs, and only nfsv4.
I nave seen that nfsv4 is not selected in kernel 2.6.38.

There are also a (less important) lack of io accounting to run io monitoring like iotop. On a nas io are the crucial resource, so it's quite interesting to monitor it.

I want also to give kexec is a try, if it works it would be very good to try a new kernel, alas the running kernel must have kexec enabled; so I cannot use it to test my new kernel!

So I added to the config

Code: Select all

CONFIG_KEXEC=y
CONFIG_ATAGS_PROC=y
CONFIG_TASKSTATS=y
CONFIG_TASK_DELAY_ACCT=y
CONFIG_TASK_IO_ACCOUNTING=y
CONFIG_NFSD_V4=y

It's easy to recompile the bubba patched kernel with ccache+distcc, to get zImage, then uImage,
but then I don't know how to proceed, I don't know if I have to flash the uImage to some /dev/mtd or if uboot read directly /boot/uImage.

If I need to flash but how and wich mtd? and can I recover with your recovery usb image if the flash fail?

If it read from /boot do it find the kernel by name?

I am also slightly worried by the /proc/cmdline

Code: Select all

root=/dev/sda1 console=ttyS0,115200 serial=4607 key=Pa8zRtzkKzewQCwVSey8Hxn9zEc= button=0

What is this key? do I have to change it with a new kernel? and how?

Also I have found the sources of the kernel, but not of the kernel package. Where is also the bootloader source?

Any help would be appreciated

I suggest also that you add nfsd4 and io-accounting for the next kernel build.

Marc

[carl]

First I apologize, if this post is not in the good section.

I have just got a B3, I want to replace a previous Qnap+Debian that run mainly nfs, and only nfsv4.
I nave seen that nfsv4 is not selected in kernel 2.6.38.

There are also a (less important) lack of io accounting to run io monitoring like iotop. On a nas io are the crucial resource, so it's quite interesting to monitor it.

I want also to give kexec is a try, if it works it would be very good to try a new kernel, alas the running kernel must have kexec enabled; so I cannot use it to test my new kernel!

So I added to the config

Code: Select all

CONFIG_KEXEC=y
CONFIG_ATAGS_PROC=y
CONFIG_TASKSTATS=y
CONFIG_TASK_DELAY_ACCT=y
CONFIG_TASK_IO_ACCOUNTING=y
CONFIG_NFSD_V4=y

It's easy to recompile the bubba patched kernel with ccache+distcc, to get zImage, then uImage,
but then I don't know how to proceed, I don't know if I have to flash the uImage to some /dev/mtd or if uboot read directly /boot/uImage.

If I need to flash but how and wich mtd? and can I recover with your recovery usb image if the flash fail?

If it read from /boot do it find the kernel by name?

I am also slightly worried by the /proc/cmdline

Code: Select all

root=/dev/sda1 console=ttyS0,115200 serial=4607 key=Pa8zRtzkKzewQCwVSey8Hxn9zEc= button=0

What is this key? do I have to change it with a new kernel? and how?

Also I have found the sources of the kernel, but not of the kernel package. Where is also the bootloader source?

Any help would be appreciated

I suggest also that you add nfsd4 and io-accounting for the next kernel build.

Marc

You don't need to flash the kernel, as it's read from the hard drive at boot, i.e. you only need to place the uImage in /boot

On a related note, up to now, we have built the kernels manually, but in the future (present in upcoming b2 release), the source debian package http://b3.update.excito.org/pool/main/l ... 39.4-4.dsc is used.

[marcz]

Thank you for your answer Carl.
I replaced the kernel from bubba3-kernel by my kernel and everything works fine. I have nfsd4, so my B3 is now a true NAS, and works fine. I have also IO accounting so iotp works fine too.

It is the nice aspect of open source, when something is missing you can work a bit to get it.

Your answer also answer one other question, I was asking; if we don't flash but only change the kernel file on /boot, of course the rescue system is still available to move back uImage.old to uImage.

For the new kernel, is it the next kernel we will get on b3? Does it means that the patches that were in bubba3-kernel are now in Debian patches or in the kernel dist itself? Does it means also that the Debian kernel config that includes my needed options and many options unset presently for modules, will hold for next release?

I would like nevertheless to see the source of the bootloader (uboot), are they available?

Thank you for your answer.

Marc

[DanielM]

I have nfsd4

Ok, now I have got a request for Excito. I want that too, but I don't want to fiddle around with kernels. Can we have that in next official kernel? Please please with sugar on top?

/Daniel

[Ubi]

yeah, this seems to be a recurring request.

[johannes]

Ok, with all that sugar this is now accepted. Scheduled for the next kernel release. Provided this won't cause anything unexpected this is in 2.4 (for B3 only, not possible for B2 as it looks now).