• USB boot

    From The Natural Philosopher@3:770/3 to All on Wed Oct 18 19:25:12 2023
    I am trying to get a 4B to SSD USB boot

    I cloned a working SD card using DD, but that does not work ..the boot partition is run OK from the USB but then it insists on mounting the SD
    card as the rootfs.

    If the SD card is not installed it wont boot


    Of course the PARTUUID of the SSD and the USB are the same. but it wont
    mount the USB.

    I cant find a tool to modify PARTUUID : otherwise cmdline.txt and
    fstab are trivial to change.

    --
    Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have
    guns, why should we let them have ideas?

    Josef Stalin

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From bob prohaska@3:770/3 to The Natural Philosopher on Thu Oct 19 01:12:54 2023
    The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
    I am trying to get a 4B to SSD USB boot

    I cloned a working SD card using DD, but that does not work ..the boot partition is run OK from the USB but then it insists on mounting the SD
    card as the rootfs.

    If the SD card is not installed it wont boot


    Of course the PARTUUID of the SSD and the USB are the same. but it wont
    mount the USB.

    I believe you don't need the microSD at all.

    What happens if you dd the image onto the ssd and leave the microSD
    out of the picture entirely? That works for me using a mechanical disk.

    hth,

    bob prohaska

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Mark@3:770/3 to bob prohaska on Thu Oct 19 07:08:20 2023
    In message <ugpvqm$3v7bl$1@dont-email.me>
    bob prohaska <bp@www.zefox.net> wrote:

    The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
    I am trying to get a 4B to SSD USB boot

    I cloned a working SD card using DD, but that does not work ..the boot
    partition is run OK from the USB but then it insists on mounting the SD
    card as the rootfs.

    If the SD card is not installed it wont boot


    Of course the PARTUUID of the SSD and the USB are the same. but it wont
    mount the USB.

    I believe you don't need the microSD at all.

    What happens if you dd the image onto the ssd and leave the microSD
    out of the picture entirely? That works for me using a mechanical disk.

    hth,

    bob prohaska

    - and for me, using SSD only. But do I remember a one-time non-reversable
    fix on the RPi3 that needed to be agreed-to initially?

    --
    Mark J
    Using RISCOS 5.28 on RaspberryPi3B+ and Linux on RaspberryPi4B+8GB
    Rest in peace Beagle and Pandaboards

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From The Natural Philosopher@3:770/3 to bob prohaska on Thu Oct 19 08:56:08 2023
    On 19/10/2023 02:12, bob prohaska wrote:
    The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
    I am trying to get a 4B to SSD USB boot

    I cloned a working SD card using DD, but that does not work ..the boot
    partition is run OK from the USB but then it insists on mounting the SD
    card as the rootfs.

    If the SD card is not installed it wont boot


    Of course the PARTUUID of the SSD and the USB are the same. but it wont
    mount the USB.

    I believe you don't need the microSD at all.

    What happens if you dd the image onto the ssd and leave the microSD
    out of the picture entirely? That works for me using a mechanical disk.

    That's what I did but it still wouldn't boot.

    But I have stumbled on an arrangement that now actually works that way.


    hth,

    bob prohaska


    --
    “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.”
    ― Groucho Marx

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From bob prohaska@3:770/3 to The Natural Philosopher on Thu Oct 19 15:34:34 2023
    The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
    On 19/10/2023 02:12, bob prohaska wrote:
    The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
    I am trying to get a 4B to SSD USB boot

    I cloned a working SD card using DD, but that does not work ..the boot
    partition is run OK from the USB but then it insists on mounting the SD
    card as the rootfs.

    If the SD card is not installed it wont boot


    Of course the PARTUUID of the SSD and the USB are the same. but it wont
    mount the USB.

    I believe you don't need the microSD at all.

    What happens if you dd the image onto the ssd and leave the microSD
    out of the picture entirely? That works for me using a mechanical disk.

    That's what I did but it still wouldn't boot.

    But I have stumbled on an arrangement that now actually works that way.


    Can you describe what you did?

    Thanks for writing,

    bob prohaska

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From The Natural Philosopher@3:770/3 to bob prohaska on Thu Oct 19 17:12:06 2023
    On 19/10/2023 16:34, bob prohaska wrote:
    The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
    On 19/10/2023 02:12, bob prohaska wrote:
    The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
    I am trying to get a 4B to SSD USB boot

    I cloned a working SD card using DD, but that does not work ..the boot >>>> partition is run OK from the USB but then it insists on mounting the SD >>>> card as the rootfs.

    If the SD card is not installed it wont boot


    Of course the PARTUUID of the SSD and the USB are the same. but it wont >>>> mount the USB.

    I believe you don't need the microSD at all.

    What happens if you dd the image onto the ssd and leave the microSD
    out of the picture entirely? That works for me using a mechanical disk.

    That's what I did but it still wouldn't boot.

    But I have stumbled on an arrangement that now actually works that way.


    Can you describe what you did?

    Thanks for writing,

    bob prohaska


    I am not sure. Because the fact is that I was looking at the green LED
    and noting that it didn't behave when I took the SD card out.

    At one point I was booting from the USB but then loading the SD card as
    root.

    I ended up doing several things - I relabelled the USB rootfs UUID, and
    used THAT in cmdline.txt and /etc/fstab together with a 'rootdelay=4'
    or somesuch. At which point I thought it hadn't booted because the green
    light was still going frantic, but then I noticed I had an SSD connection!

    cmdline.txt
    ========

    console=serial0,115200 console=tty1 root=UUID=606f7030-0f67-489c-b83b-06166a3ddc2e rootfstype=ex
    t4 fsck.repair=yes rootwait=4


    It turns out that the green light behaviour is tied to SD card access
    and there is a magic spell (dtparam) that stops the pi looking forlornly
    for its missing SD card, forever..

    dtparam=sd_poll_once

    in config.txt stops THAT.

    Then i patched /etc/fstab

    proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 PARTUUID=5f594add-01 /boot/firmware vfat defaults 0 2 UUID=606f7030-0f67-489c-b83b-06166a3ddc2e / ext4 defaults,noatime 0 1
    # a swapfile is not a swap partition, no line here
    # use dphys-swapfile swap[on|off] for that

    I did all that because I have had trouble cloning disks before with non
    unique disk ids.

    Having dome all that the 'resize partition on boot' worked and my 16GB
    cloned SD card image expanded to the 120GB ssd that I half-inched out
    of a laptop whose plastic had gone all 'organic' me and disintegrated.

    Which one of these steps was the critical one, I do not know.

    If you are bringing up a headless bookworm (and who wouldn't!) to boot
    off an USB SSD these may be helpful

    Also the connectors - USB to SATA - featured the ASmedia chipset

    $lsusb

    Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
    Bus 001 Device 003: ID 174c:55aa ASMedia Technology Inc. ASM1051E SATA
    6Gb/s bridge, ASM1053E SATA 6Gb/s bridge, ASM1153 SATA 3Gb/s bridge,
    ASM1153E SATA 6Gb/s bridge
    Bus 001 Device 002: ID 2109:3431 VIA Labs, Inc. Hub
    Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

    I got these from the Pi Hut (UK) and they have been flawless.

    Now expecting one cheapo 2TB SSD.

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07YD5F561?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

    It turns out that cheaper slower disks use less power and I MAY be able
    to simply put in 3SSDS. The 120GB one is really low power.

    And still stay under 1.2A peak USB current. I will report back on that.

    Otherwise I should be able to work with two 2TB drives in a partially
    mirrored config.

    The ultimate thing is going to be a cigar box sized server, running on
    less than 6W of power with gigabit Ethernet capability.

    Nothing about the speed of the Pi4B on 1GB RAM is any cause for concern
    at the moment.

    In fact although documentations is sporadic, the hardware quality on the Raspberry Pis and their price-performance is outstanding

    --
    “It is hard to imagine a more stupid decision or more dangerous way of
    making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people
    who pay no price for being wrong.”

    Thomas Sowell

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