Buffalo NAS-Central Forums

The kernels I compiled are available at
Edited: now at:
ftp://ftp.dmik.org/pub/common/buffalo/lspro/duncan_h

There are 4 variants (the tar archives contain uImage and all modules and config files)
kernel-2.6.16.57-lsp_eabi-dh_v1.tar.gz
kernel-2.6.16.57-lsp_oabi-dh_v1.tar.gz
kernel-2.6.16.57-lsp_eabi-dh_v2.tar.gz
kernel-2.6.16.57-lsp-oabi-dh_v2.tar.gz

(just unpack the tar archive in the / directory, then go to /boot, move uImage.buffalo to (say) uImage.old, and make uImage.buffalo a symbolic link to the new uImage file; see the README-2.6.16.57-lsp_xabi-dh_vx file)



eabi : cross-compiled (2005q3 toolchain) EABI kernel with legacy OABI support.
oabi: natively-compiled OABI kernel (maybe iptables will work with FreeLink using an OABI kernel?, ALSA sound too, maybe; FreeLink is debian-arm which is OABI="old ABI" binary format)

v1: ext3 and xfs file systems have ACL and security label support
v2: ext3 and xfs support is compiled exactly as in the stock buffalo kernels.

the config is based on 1.10 Buffalo Linkstation kernels, with lots of extra modules for usb and serial devices (these can be attached with a usb-to-serial cable), as well as modules for other filesystem types.

see README-2.6.16.57-lsp_xabi-dh_vx

For rebuilders, the patch to the buffalo GPL source that updates 2.6.16.16 to 2.6.16.57, and a native arm OABI mkimage executable are also posted. The patch adds squashfs support too.


Thanks to dmik for hosting these while ftp uploads at nas-central are not working.

These LinkStation Live/Pro kernels also work on a Kurobox Pro, but don't support its extra features.


Which format, EABI or OABI to use? With Freelink (debian-arm)there is no advantage (and there are disadvantages) in using an EABI kernel (with OABI legacy support), except that Buffalo kernels are EABI, and may have better-tested ext3 and xfs filesystem support. With a debian-armel distribution (SID, not stable), use EABI kernels.

First of all thanks for the good work - great to see new kernels avail
is there ANY way I can pursuade you to compile for the TS Pro II as well? (I was told i't s a single flag in the config...)

@gnyf I could compile TS kernels (so could you!), but couldn't test them. Would you
want to be the tester? What do you want, some extra modules?

@duncan_h yes I would like to give it a shot as I'm in some kind of bad situation anyhow:
viewtopic.php?f=22&t=4928

I'll have to wait to get a serial cable - can I simply buy a std. usb-serial converter or will a need a special one?

I'd love to see usb(lp) support in kernel and xfs.
Once the kernel is up I might need some help with the above ref thread to get the full Debian up if anyone can help with that.

thx

@gnyf:

Serial port access is real useful for testing kernels. The v2 LinkStations have a nice little socket on the bottom of the box which accepts a modified USB type-A female plug. This make it easy to gain serial port access to u-boot on v2 LinkStations, so you can select which kernel to boot during the booting process (that makes it easy to recover from bad test kernels). Otherwise you need to mount the drive with the /boot partition on a linux PC to put back a working uImage.

Unfortunately, the Terastation in the pictures http://buffalo.nas-central.org/index.php/Disassemble_the_TSPROv2/TSLIVE seems only to have some place on the mainboard marked for soldering serial cable leads, but no nice external socket. You probably need to solder leads to the TS mainboard to get serial port access. You then connect to a PC using a FTDI (USD20) USB-TTL adapter cable. (or a hacked cell-phone data cable if you can find the right one). (Personally, I am scared to use a soldering iron on my mainboard, in case I mess it up.)

EDIT: the place for attaching (soldering) the serial cable leads is accessible by just removing the TS side panel

I believe that the drives on the TeraStation are designed to be easily swappable, so maybe all you need is a usb-to-SATA cable and power supply ( you can get this for USD 15 or so), and just remove the drive when you need to. I would not play about with untested kernels until you have verified that you can access /boot on a non-bootable TeraStation to fix it. (It's just a question of making /boot/uImage.buffalo a symbolic link to a working uImage.) If you have serial port access, you can interrupt the booting process to specify the kernel uImage you want to u-boot to use, and use a different one than the default one (u-boot is the equivalent of grub on a i386 PC)

If you want to try to compile TeraStation kernels, I would start by checking that you can recreate the Stock Buffalo one (they supplied their config files) and can install it, etc.

Don't try patching the source from linux 2.6.16.16 to linux 2.6.16.57 at first, as there are significant fixes to the RAID code in the kernel sources in drivers/md/ (multi-device support), and lots of that code is patched by Buffalo. That's not an issue for the Linkstation, which does not use it, but is for the TeraStation. Just try adding extra module support for features you need. That way you are just adding stubs for the new modules to the kernel image (which must not grow to be larger than 1.9MB) The process is easy once you have learned to sucessfully recompile the standard Buffalo kernel.

Unless you want iptables or ALSA usb sound card support, use the same 2005q3 cross-compiling toolchain that Buffalo uses (available here), and do all the compiling on a linux pc. (this builds EABI kernels with legacy OABI support for debian-arm (i.e., FreeLink)).

PM me if you need any specific tips to get started. I found a few minor difficulties in the way, but managed to work it out. I'm assuming you have a PC that can run linux.


If you really want me to, I could compile a Terastation kernel for you, but its not really difficult at all

hi!
i would like to test the new kernels from duncan_h as well.
but i can't download anything from ftp://ftp.dmik.org/incoming/
i'am getting strange errors like "550 can't change directory to /incoming/kernel...." with firefox.
can you plz take a look at it?
greetz
awx

yes, Simply clicking on the file doesnt download it (its ftp:// not http://)

try ctrl-click on firefox and select "save link as ,,,"

aha.
did u try it urself?

Same prolem here~~~

I used FTP to try



I think the files need administrator to approve.

I thought I had successfully downloaded it as a test last night, but maybe I was mistaken

Looks like we are waiting for dmik to act....

duncan_h
Thank you very much for uploading. Will try it now.

all
Sorry for the delay, duncan_h's kernels are now available at ftp://ftp.dmik.org/pub/common/buffalo/lspro/duncan_h.

P.S. If the ftp is unavailable, please be patient and try after some minutes -- most likely I'm reinstalling the kernel

@dmik

Thank you for your sharing.

I just tried. Still not work.



Please help to check!!!

Thank you very much!

smallkeung
My fault, sorry. Should work now.

great!
the kernel files in "kernel-2.6.16.57-lsp_oabi-dh_v2.tar.gz" bricked my LSPro
changing back the kernel with the drive attached to another linux box didn't work this time.
the drive is now stuck in em-mode.
any suggestions?
awx

@awx: mount the drive on the pc

mount the LSPRO's /boot partition and post what ls -l reports is in
it.

(Maybe also mount the root partition and ls-l in etc/)


Relax: you *cannot* badly "brick" your LSPRO by changing the kernel if you are able to mount the drive on a PC to fix it. The only way to really brick the LSPRO is to destroy the u-boot bootloader image in flash memory.

For the record, here are the md5sums:

md5sum uImage*_v*
1a6687035b55fdaaf342ff317fc34d72 uImage-2.6.16.57-lsp_eabi-dh_v1
76ca18973e14db45b253ff65fc20c82f uImage-2.6.16.57-lsp_eabi-dh_v2
56a07ef2dd1689afdc88d11540611401 uImage-2.6.16.57-lsp_oabi-dh_v1
7d58c0f868cba0fccd68ea8bd7838f35 uImage-2.6.16.57-lsp_oabi-dh_v2

testing eabi-dh_v2
duncan@HS-DHGL26C:/boot$ uname -r
2.6.16.57-lsp_eabi-dh_v2

testing oabi-dh_v2
duncan@HS-DHGL26C:~$ uname -r
2.6.16.57-lsp_oabi-dh_v2

duncan@HS-DHGL26C:~$ ls -l /boot
total 32301
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 722 2008-01-26 02:37 boot_options
-rw-r--r-- 1 duncan users 35179 2008-01-05 18:23 config-2.6.16.57-lsp_eabi-dh_v1
-rw-r--r-- 1 duncan users 34978 2008-01-06 15:31 config-2.6.16.57-lsp_eabi-dh_v2
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 35167 2008-01-05 21:27 config-2.6.16.57-lsp_oabi-dh_v1
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 34995 2008-01-06 18:39 config-2.6.16.57-lsp_oabi-dh_v2
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2006-12-18 13:45 hddrootmode
-rw-rw-rw- 1 root root 4563579 2006-12-27 17:29 initrd.buffalo
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 84 2006-12-15 17:27 linkstation_release
drwx------ 2 root root 12288 2007-08-12 19:22 lost+found
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 29 2008-01-26 11:38 rootfs_ok
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 35 2008-01-06 19:31 System.map -> System.map-2.6.16.57-lsp_oabi-dh_v2
-rw-r--r-- 1 duncan users 581135 2008-01-05 18:19 System.map-2.6.16.57-lsp_eabi-dh_v1
-rw-r--r-- 1 duncan users 574105 2008-01-06 15:30 System.map-2.6.16.57-lsp_eabi-dh_v2
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 578060 2008-01-05 21:25 System.map-2.6.16.57-lsp_oabi-dh_v1
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 571298 2008-01-06 18:39 System.map-2.6.16.57-lsp_oabi-dh_v2
-rwxr--r-- 1 duncan users 1850740 2008-01-05 18:21 uImage-2.6.16.57-lsp_eabi-dh_v1
-rwxr--r-- 1 duncan users 1822616 2008-01-06 15:32 uImage-2.6.16.57-lsp_eabi-dh_v2
-rwxr--r-- 1 root root 1829832 2008-01-05 19:14 uImage-2.6.16.57-lsp_oabi-dh_v1
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1803868 2008-01-06 18:43 uImage-2.6.16.57-lsp_oabi-dh_v2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 duncan users 31 2008-01-26 11:35 uImage.buffalo -> uImage-2.6.16.57-lsp_oabi-dh_v2








I assume you are running FreeLink?

there must be one of those files
rootfs_ok
rootfs_booting
or initrdmode
in either /boot or /etc
that force you into EM mode depending on what they contain.

or perhaps you mistyped the symbolic link from /boot/uImage.buffalo to the uImage file.