[Avila] problem with updating flash from Linux

[Jim Thompson]

On Nov 3, 2006, at 9:38 AM, Ahmet Basagalar wrote:

> David,
>
> Is there a way to do failsafe boot on redboot, so if one image does  
> not boot up then the other one boots?

the only way I can see of doing this would be to enable the watchdog,  
then hope that linux gets far enough along before the watchdog fires
(resetting the system) to a) take-over the watchdog and b) scribble  
something to redboot indicating that linux did, in-fact, come up.

obviously, redboot would check this flag on startup, and if it wasn't  
in the 'right state' it would boot the alternate image.

> Also can I change the redboot startup script through linux?

of course, its just flash, do what you like with it.

Jim

>
> Ahmet
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Acker" <dacker at roinet.com>
> To: "Avila" <avila at lists.unixstudios.net>
> Sent: Friday, November 03, 2006 11:59 AM
> Subject: Re: [Avila] problem with updating flash from Linux
>
>
>> Ahmet Basagalar wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I am running into problems while updating flash from Linux. I  
>>> have compiled Redboot without checksum control, so that is not an  
>>> issue anymore. But when I do a kernel upgrade using 'netflash' in  
>>> Linux sometimes it works and sometimes it does not, meaning  
>>> redboot tries to load the kernel but system just hangs as if it  
>>> is a corrupt kernel. The same happens for the filesystem, when I  
>>> upgrade it by 'netflash' sometimes I got error messages during  
>>> mount. Updating flash through redboot works fine.
>>>
>>
>> We use flashcp -v to the mtd device and that works great for us.   
>> It verifies the images after writing.  You might want to keep a  
>> failsafe image and change the redboot boot script to boot from  
>> that before starting your upgrade.  Only switch the boot script  
>> back to your regular partition once you are done and verified.  
>> That way if things go wrong, it will reboot into a minimal linux  
>> that can repair itself.
>>
>> We also found when flashing a jffs2fs image you want to size the  
>> image the same size as the flash partition.
>> -Ack
>>
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