[Soekris] Booting the net4526

Wed Oct 27 03:01:55 UTC 2004

Thanks for the suggestion.  It sounds simpler than the path I have been 
pursuing.  At the very least, I will try it in the future. 

As so often happens, about the time I got this message I evidently did 
*something* right, and things started to work - somewhat.  I  have no 
idea what it was, of course. So I will continue down my current path a 
little further.

Now I am to the point that the kernel loads and the hardware gets 
recognized, but the board fails to mount the root filesystem:

#==== Begin Output =========================

    comBIOS ver. 1.24  20040312  Copyright (C) 2000-2004 Soekris
    Engineering.
    net45xx
    0064 Mbyte Memory                        CPU 80486 133 Mhz
    Pri Mas  064MB ATA Flash Disk            LBA 977-4-32  62 Mbyte
    PXE-M00: BootManage UNDI, PXE-2.0 (build 082)
    Slot   Vend Dev  ClassRev Cmd  Stat CL LT HT  Base1    Base2   Int
    -------------------------------------------------------------------
    0:00:0 1022 3000 06000000 0006 2280 00 00 00 00000000 00000000 00
    0:16:0 1260 3873 02800001 0117 0290 10 3C 00 A0000008 00000000 10
    0:17:0 13A3 0020 0B400000 0116 0280 10 3C 00 A0001000 A0002000 11
    0:18:0 100B 0020 02000000 0107 0290 00 3F 00 0000E001 A0010000 05

     1 Seconds to automatic boot.   Press Ctrl-P for entering Monitor.

    BootManage UNDI, PXE-2.0 (build 082)
    BootManage PXE-2.0 PROM 1.0, NATSEC 1.0, SDK 3.0/082 (OEM52)
    Copyright (C) 1989,2000 bootix Technology GmbH, D-41466 Neuss.
    PXE Software Copyright (C) 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Intel Corporation.
    Licensed to National Semiconductor

    CLIENT MAC ADDR: 00 00 24 C2 B6 C0
    CLIENT IP: 192.168.1.166  MASK: 255.255.255.0  DHCP IP: 192.168.1.63
    GATEWAY IP: 192.168.1.254
    PXE Loader 1.00

    Building the boot loader arguments
    Relocating the loader and the BTX
    Starting the BTX loader
    Copyright (c) 1992-2004 The FreeBSD Project.r key for command
    prompt. 44]      C
    Copyright (c) 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994
            The Regents of the University of California. All rights
    reserved.
    FreeBSD 4.10-RELEASE #0: Fri Aug  6 13:31:46 CEST 2004
        root at nb.neon1.net:/usr/src/sys/compile/M0N0WALL_NET45XX
    Timecounter "i8254"  frequency 1189163 Hz
    CPU: AMD Am5x86 Write-Back (486-class CPU)
      Origin = "AuthenticAMD"  Id = 0x4f4  Stepping = 4
      Features=0x1<FPU>
    real memory  = 67108864 (65536K bytes)
    avail memory = 54808576 (53524K bytes)
    Preloaded elf kernel "kernel" at 0xc0a39000.
    Preloaded mfs_root "/mfsroot.bin" at 0xc0a3909c.
    md0: Preloaded image </mfsroot.bin> 7438336 bytes at 0xc031f0d0
    md1: Malloc disk
    Timecounter "ELAN"  frequency 8333333 Hz
    npx0: <math processor> on motherboard
    npx0: INT 16 interface
    pcib0: <AMD Elan SC520 host to PCI bridge> on motherboard
    pci0: <PCI bus> on pcib0
    wi0: <Intersil Prism2.5> mem 0xa0000000-0xa0000fff irq 10 at device
    16.0 on pci0
    wi0: 802.11 address: 00:02:6f:34:55:e9
    wi0: using RF:PRISM2.5 MAC:ISL3874A(Mini-PCI)
    wi0: Intersil Firmware: Primary 1.01.00, Station 1.04.09
    hifn0 mem
    0xa0008000-0xa000ffff,0xa0002000-0xa0003fff,0xa0001000-0xa0001fff irq
    11 at device 17.0 on pci0
    hifn0: Hifn 7955, rev 0, 32KB dram, 64 sessions
    sis0: <NatSemi DP83815 10/100BaseTX> port 0xe000-0xe0ff mem
    0xa0010000-0xa0010ff
    f irq 5 at device 18.0 on pci0
    sis0: Ethernet address: 00:00:24:c2:b6:c0
    miibus0: <MII bus> on sis0
    ukphy0: <Generic IEEE 802.3u media interface> on miibus0
    ukphy0:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
    isa0: <ISA bus> on motherboard
    orm0: <Option ROM> at iomem 0xc8000-0xd1fff on isa0
    pmtimer0 on isa0
    ata0 at port 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 irq 14 on isa0
    ata1 at port 0x170-0x177,0x376 irq 15 on isa0
    sio0 at port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4 flags 0x30 on isa0
    sio0: type 16550A, console
    sio1 at port 0x2f8-0x2ff irq 3 on isa0
    sio1: type 16550A
    Elan-mmcr driver: MMCR at 0xc59cc000
    BRIDGE 020214 loaded
    IPsec: Initialized Security Association Processing.
    IP Filter: v3.4.33 initialized.  Default = block all, Logging = enabled
    ad0: 61MB <064MB ATA Flash Disk> [977/4/32] at ata0-master BIOSPIO
    no B_DEVMAGIC (bootdev=0)
    Mounting root from ufs:/dev/md0c
    Root mount failed: 22

    Manual root filesystem specification:
      <fstype>:<device>  Mount <device> using filesystem <fstype>
                           eg. ufs:/dev/da0s1a
      ?                  List valid disk boot devices
      <empty line>       Abort manual input

    mountroot>

#==== End Output =========================

other server info:

#==== Begin DHCPd.conf entry ================

    host wifisetup {
      hardware ethernet 00:00:24:C2:B6:C0;
      filename "pxeboot";
      fixed-address 192.168.1.166;
      next-server 192.168.1.63;
      option root-path "192.168.1.63:/tftpboot";
    }

#==== End DHCPd.conf entry =================

Obviously,  'Root mount failed' is the basic problem, but why?  And I 
have no idea where the ' no B_DEVMAGIC (bootdev=0)' comes from or what 
it implies.

Another thing bothering me is how , if I do get the boot process 
completed, do I store a working configuration into the onboard flash so 
that it will boot without recourse to PXE in future.But such worries may 
reflect an unjustified optimism at this point.

Thanks for the help.

-- Dave

Stuart Henderson wrote:

> --On 26 October 2004 13:42 -0500 David Witten <wittend at wwrinc.com> wrote:
>
>> I am particularly troubled by the line:
>>    PXE-E79: NBP is too big to fit in free base memory
>>
>> While I assume NBP means something like 'network boot prom', I have
>> not been able to find it defined anywhere - especially in Intel's
>> 'documentation'
>
>
> I wonder if there's a chance you're trying to boot a kernel directly, 
> rather than loading a boot loader which in turn loads the kernel?
>
> One fairly quick way that will almost certainly give you a booting 
> system is to download flashboot-bindist from 
> mindrot.org/flashboot.html, and /pub/OpenBSD/3.5/i386/pxeboot from an 
> OpenBSD mirror (chosen from www.openbsd.org/ftp.html). Place these in 
> tftp root and create /tftpboot/etc/boot.conf like this:
>
> "stty com0 19200
> set tty com0
> boot tftp:/bsd.SOEKRIS4501"
>
> Set the filename option in dhcpd to "pxeboot" and you should be set, 
> all you'll need is tftp.
>
> FreeBSD (at least when I last tried) wanted either an NFS server, or 
> to have pxeboot rebuilt with tftp enabled.
>
> flashboot is a quite usable system as supplied even without 
> customising the file list, but fdisk/disklabel aren't included; if you 
> want to install it to flash, you can use the OpenBSD bsd.rd install 
> kernel to configure partitions.
>
> It does, however, have enough to copy an existing image file (for 
> example, the distributed m0n0wall or m0n0bsd images) i.e. scp/ftp and 
> dd, so even if you aren't currently planning on using it permanently, 
> you could make use of it as a bootstrap.