OpenWrt Forum Archive

Topic: Openwrt 8.09 on Soekris 5501

The content of this topic has been archived on 2 May 2018. There are no obvious gaps in this topic, but there may still be some posts missing at the end.

Post #1
ardenfort
15 Mar 2009, 04:16

First time user of OpenWRT on Soekris 5501. The kernel boots and mounts the root file system over NFS. Thereafter the console stops responding.  Any ideas on where to begin debugging ( I am compiling busybox with debug flags enabled)?

Ping works between the eth0 interface (through which NFS was mounted) and the NFS server (same as the PXE boot server).  It definitely is an issue with the root file system because if I point the kernel to a different root file system (built for a different soekris box) the whole stuff comes up to the login prompt and everything is alright. 

The file system that worked was built with buildroot, and the one that does not work is from OpenWRT 8.09. 

I tar-gzip the file system on the build-machine, copy it over to the NFS server, gunzip/untar it.

CPU on Soekris 5501 is "CPU Geode LX 500 Mhz". 
Screendump: last few lines on console:

IP-Config: Complete:
     device=eth0, myaddr=10.0.0.101, mask=255.0.0.0, gw=255.255.255.255,
     host=10.0.0.101, domain=mshome.net, nis-domain=(none),
     bootserver=10.0.0.1, rootserver=10.0.0.1, rootpath=
Looking up port of RPC 100003/2 on 10.0.0.1
Looking up port of RPC 100005/1 on 10.0.0.1
VFS: Mounted root (nfs filesystem).
Freeing unused kernel memory: 172k freed
Please be patient, while OpenWrt loads ...


Console hangs after the last message about OpenWrt loading. I was patient for more than two hours.

thanks!

Post #2
ardenfort
15 Mar 2009, 05:29

Copying busybox binary from OpenWRT file system to  the working buildroot file system: everything works (well.. this OpenWRT busybox is not quite compatible with the old rooot file system, but there is no console issue).

Post #3
ardenfort
15 Mar 2009, 20:21

Kinda solved.  The root file system created by this OpenWRT does not anything under /dev.

I copied the files under /dev from a good root-file system (from buildroot) to the one created by OpenWRT and now the whole system boots up to a shell. There are quite a few error messages on the console.. but at least the issue is now isolated to the Openwrt scripts/config!

An issue with the same symptoms:  https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/4172
- I went through this patch.. but this ticket or the described patch/fix has nothing to do with the issue I have.

(Last edited by ardenfort on 15 Mar 2009, 20:22)

The discussion might have continued from here.