Problem to upgrade my exroot with pivot-root to latest firmware version 0.1.1

Mike Kranidis

Dear friends,
I use exroot with pivot-root and till now everything was fine. Last day I tried to upgrade my firmware that is 0.0.8 to 0.1.1 but unsuccessfully. The oupgrade seemed that running and completed just fine. After reboot I saw the internal 16MB flash. Ok that was happens to me in all oupgrade before. After second reboot, I have booting from my external USB flash BUT NOT UPGRADED it is still 0.0.8. I have tried many times with the same problem... What is the problem? Can you suggest me a workaround or a solution ? (I don't want to do factory reset and starts over from the beginning because I have set-up and install many things to my external USB).
Thanks and Best Regards,
Mike Kranidis

Luciano S.

@Luciano-S. said:

How the whole thing works is explained and illustrated in the openWRT Wiki:
The OpenWrt Flash Layout

To summarize the topic:

Using a USB-Storage to put the rootfs on it,
1.1 pivot-overlay moves writable part of filesystem only to a USB-storage.
1.2 pivot-root copies the whole root filesystem to the USB-storage

Undoo this behavior (1.1 & 1.2) we copy a untouched firmware back to the Omega (How to perform a real factory reset in terminal).

See 1.2 pivot-root copies the whole root filesystem to the USB-storage.
If you update without USB-Stick you still have the old Firmware on it.
Go back to the tutorial and do the copy from the new firmware to the stick again.

Mike Kranidis

Yes but I am wondering why this happened. I did the firmware update with USB in its position, booted from the USB stick and the problem appeared as explained above... So as I understood you guide me to do again the system copy to the USB stick. In this case I will lost all installed packages... Am I right?
Thanks.

Luciano S.

For me the tutorial (Using-USB-Storage-as-Rootfs) seams not to be complete and not covers this kind of changes.

I guess a other case for the @administrators to check and proof.

Kit Bishop

@Mike-Kranidis @Luciano-S Yes, this is a continuing problem with doing an oupgrade - it effectively replaces your system with the new version.
Some relief can be had by editing the file /etc/sysupgrade.conf which is used to list files and directories (end the name with a /) that are to be preserved over a system upgrade

However, I always keep a script file on a separate system that I copy over to my Omega and run after a system upgrade to ensure that all is up to date.
This script file does the following:

Does the pivot-overlay (in my case - could equally well be pivot-root)
Ensures /etc/config/fstab is edited as required
Does an opkg update
Does an opkg install to install the additional packages I want

However, I do think it would be a good idea if this was all mentioned in the tutorialhttps://wiki.onion.io/Tutorials/Using-USB-Storage-as-Rootfs

Mike Kranidis

@Kit-Bishop
Thank you sir. You are always a good reference for the problem solving. (nice tip on another thread about the replacement of putty... I will try it!).

I kindly request the comments from Onion regarding the problem. OK we shall waiting theirs turn...

Let's see if we will have an answer from them...

Luciano S.

@Kit-Bishop said:

However, I always keep a script file on a separate system that I copy over to my Omega and run after a system upgrade to ensure that all is up to date.
This script file does the following:

Does the pivot-overlay (in my case - could equally well be pivot-root)

Ensures /etc/config/fstab is edited as required

Does an opkg update

Does an opkg install to install the additional packages I want

However, I do think it would be a good idea if this was all mentioned in the tutorialhttps://wiki.onion.io/Tutorials/Using-USB-Storage-as-Rootfs

Would it be possible to show us this script in Gist or so?

About mentioning the problem to the tutorial editor, might be a good idea to do so over github. Making a issue in the tutorial. Problem might be, that the owner of the tutorial is a different person as that one who makes the whole firmware thing?!

Lazar Demin

We actually haven't had much of a chance to explore the nuances of pivot-root and pivot-overlay. We definitely welcome all additions and improvements to the wiki articles from the Omega community!

As mentioned on the Wiki home page, changes to the wiki can be made by submitting a Pull Request to the Wiki GitHub Repo.

Mike Kranidis

@Lazar-Demin
Dear Lazar, please investigate further the reported by me, problem. It is very annoying to try to upgrade your firmware (that is fully installed at the external USB stick), the firmware upgrade to be done only to the internal flash, leaving you with only one possible solution: to remake the initial internal flash to external USB stick copy loosing every installation and customization lying on the USB stick.

That is awful bad. Taking in to consideration that the internal flash memory is ONLY 16MB it is more than obvious most of the Omega customers will have everything installed on the external USB stick...

Please find what cause the problem, solve it and make all of us happy.

Thanks and Best Regards,
Mike Kranidis