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List:       soekris-tech
Subject:    [Soekris] net5501 SSD ...um...story
From:       Tom Huppi <tomh () huppi ! com>
Date:       2011-09-18 23:32:11
Message-ID: CALuaqg-QQ4S89uuut-r+TVVe=Pb8oT3YGTh=8DV-tE+JT1fKaA () mail ! gmail ! com
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Hi all,

I have no real question or especially valuable advice...just some time
as I compile kernel and world and dd /dev/random to spindle now so I
am tapping out this note.  That said, if anyone has any theories about
things, I'd love to hear them.

HW: net5501, cm9 radio, sata drive, 1.33c
OS:  FreeBSD 8.1-ish and FreeBSD 8.2R
Purpose: gateway/router/nat/dhcp/etc mainly, but use as low powered
machine for some things as well.

Yesterday my USP buzzed and the net5501 box died.  The Hitachi E5K
which had been in service since mid 2010 clicked at about 2/sec and
the Soekris HDD light flashed along with it.  Any power cycle made the
HDD do the same thing immediately (before the POST started.)  Tried a
different power supply with same results.

Deciding the drive was dead, I picked up a 60G OCZ Vertex Plus
(OCZSSD2-1VTXPL60G) locally.

(When I later had the net5501 opened up, I thumped on the E5K and low
and behold, it booted fine again which was very cool because I had no
recent backup.  But I cannot trust the thing, so...)

Built the OS onto the SSD a Dell R300 server which I had kicking
around.  Re-compiled world and kernel.  After a few inevitable
mis-haps converting fstab, ttys, etc, I got it to boot beautifully in
the net5501.

1G /
1G swap
2G /var
1G /tmp
16G /usr
37-ish /extra  (to encrypt later.)

Things working well, I unscrewed the old E5K and bolted in the SSD and
put the case back together and...

 - no /boot/loader

Jeez!  It worked several times a few minutes ago, and I made NO
changes to anything :(

-----

I did some reading and attempted a partition scheme like:

600M /boot  (room for two kernels)
512M swap
512M /
...

This got me the no /boot/loader issue on my _build_ host.

-----

Thinking the SSD may have gone bad, I installed again as so:

56-ishG /
600-ishM swap

Works on my build machine.

------

Next I dicked around experimenting with CF for some boot stuff, but
ultimately decided that I don't have a very strong desire to play
re-mounting games and did not feel like I could trust (and/or
adequately document) hybrid like this.  Also messed around trying
gpart with nothing remotely resembling success.

------

Now I am building on a new 500G Hitachi non-E 5k.  (Couldn't find an E
model in a hurry and the two I have are a matched set earmarked for a
net6501 when I get one.)

Hopefully this drive will live long enough for me to replace the whole
system with a net6501 unit where my intent is to arrange mirrored data
drives in a rack-mount chassis which has (hopefully) a good power
supply and enough room to avoid heat issues.  And in the mean time, I
can locally log monster packet dumps at least.

------

One thing I learned is how cool it is to re-build on a fast build
machine rather than doing on a net5501 as I have done in the past.
Had to learn to build in the keyboard and nic drivers for the build
machine, and leave CPU_i686 so the Soekris kernel will boot on it
though.

In case it is useful to anyone, here is my current checklist for
converting from a standard build machine to a Soekris for FreeBSD 8.2.

 - /etc/rc.conf  (network to 'vr's)
 - /etc/ttys  (all off but ttyu0 on)
 - /boot/loader.conf  (comconsole stuff)
 - /etc/ssh/sshd_config  (Permit root since it suck to go over serial)
 - /etc/fstab  (with combios flash=primary, my sata is /ad1)

------

My theories about what is wrong:

 - I am not paying enough attention to the boundary stuff, and/or the
installer did not properly manipulate some MBR which was already on
the SSD or some such as it did seem to start at block 35 or something
which I noticed as I fought with this stuff.

 - This SSD is simply not compatible with the net5501 (or vice-versa),
and/or not compatible given the slice sizes that I desire.

 - The SSD is indeed bad.

 - BOTH of my Soekris power supplies are bad.

 - The net5501 itself has some problems.

I don't know if my 500G Hitachi 5k will work or not...doing the
encryption work on the fast build machine now and will try to boot the
net5501 when that is done.

Again, if anyone has some theories about why my SDD didn't work, I'd
be interested to hear them.

------

Thanks,

 - Tom
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