TinyCore RedPill loader (TCRP) - Development release 0.9

[Polanskiman]

Message addressed to @pocopico

 

Regardless of the resizing, I think something would need to be clarified and addressed and that is what can and cannot be deleted from that partition. Has this been mentioned somewhere?

 

I played around this morning and flashed the usb key like 10 more times with different versions of the loader to see the behaviors and what I could or could not delete but I think it would be worth you saying explicitly what can safely be deleted and what needs to be actually backed up. Here is what I have after running backup and backuploader.

tc@box:/mnt/sdc3$ ls -la
total 449184
drwxrwxrwx 6 root root       4096 Jan  1  1970 ./
drwxrwxr-x 5 root staff       100 Oct  7 10:53 ../
drwxrwxrwx 3 root root       4096 Oct  7 02:59 auxfiles/
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root       4096 Oct  7 10:56 backup/
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root    6108352 Oct  7 03:00 bzImage-friend
drwxrwxrwx 3 root root       4096 Feb 18  2021 cde/
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root   12031520 Jan  5  2022 corepure64.gz
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root       2957 Oct  7 03:08 friendlog.log
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root   28498432 Oct  7 03:08 initrd-dsm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root   35825281 Oct  7 03:00 initrd-friend
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root       4096 Oct  7 03:00 lastsession/
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root  356232110 Oct  7 03:41 mydata.tgz
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root       1658 Oct  7 03:43 user_config.json
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root    5366304 Feb 18  2021 vmlinuz64
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root   15859712 Oct  7 03:08 zImage-dsm

 

What I gathered from this is that the backup/ directory can safely be deleted to make space as well as the mydata.tgz compressed file. Would there be anything else that could be deleted for a user to make space? These 2 alone will basically take half the partition space with the current 900 MB size.

There is also the auxfiles directory that contains the pat file. Can this be deleted or is this required for boot?

 

You also mentioned earlier:

15 hours ago, pocopico said:

You can start over but this time make sure you backup only the files that are necessary. 

What do you define as necessary? In other words what are the files that should be backed up?

 

I noticed that each time we run backuploader, a new directory will be created under backup/ with the date and time (e.i: 2022-Oct-07-03-02). This saves both partitions. My question is, is it really necessary to created new backups each time? Why not overwrite the previous backup. I'm just trying to think how to make this a bit less of a data hog. I doubt that people need to have multiple backups of their loader in the drive, but I could be wrong. I am pretty confident that in fact the large majority of people have no clue what they are backing up when running those commands and how to even recover them in case of need. I know there are these restoreloader and restoresession commands.

Anyhow, perhaps what could be added to the code is some confirmation question when one decides to do a backup. User would be prompted with the possibility of over-writing previous backups. What do you think? This would limit how fast the partition get's filled.

 

I am still playing around with the loader and I have to say there is still plenty I need to do to feel confortable with it but I'm getting there. You've done an excellent job man.

[pocopico]

@Polanskiman Actually nothing can be or should be deleted from that partition. Everything is there for a reason.

 

The only files you can delete is by running ./rploader.sh clean before your last backup and maybe the auxfiles that can be redownloaded. It saves you time though in case you are still testing things to have the pat files and the extractor cached.

 

 File/Directory         What is             
 auxfiles/              Holds all auxiliary files required for building the loader. It can be removed its mainly cached files
 backup/                Holds the backup of the loader partitions in case you need them for recovery
 bzImage-friend         Thats the TCRP friend kernel 
 cde/                   Holds TinyCore Redpill software
 corepure64.gz          The Tinycore initrd 
 friendlog.log          TCRP Friend log file
 initrd-dsm             DSM Initrd. Its used to boot via kexec the DSM initrd
 initrd-friend          TCRP Friend initrd 
 lastsession/           Two files backup after the build last session in case you want to restore them with restorelastsession command
 mydata.tgz             Thats basically the /home/tc and /opt of your TCRP
 user_config.json       Thats not a backup but the user_config.json that is required for TCRP Friend system boot 
 vmlinuz64              The TCRP kernel 
 zImage-dsm             DSM patched kernel.

 

 

 

Edited October 7, 2022 by pocopico

[Peter Suh]

59 minutes ago, pocopico said:

 

You can boot from a second image and perform the changes on your target image 

 

@pocopico
As you said, I added one more target TCRP vmdk file to make it recognize as a non-boot disk and partition.
However, it seems impossible to change it unless the warning message below disappears.
Did you succeed in resizing?
Is there a more specific way? Can I install more tools as instructed in the warning message?
I wanted to succeed until the end if possible, but it's not easy.^^

 

 

Edited October 7, 2022 by Peter Suh

[pocopico]

1 minute ago, Peter Suh said:

 

@pocopico
As you said, I added one more target TCRP vmdk file to make it recognize as a non-boot disk and partition.
However, it seems impossible to change it unless the warning message below disappears.
Did you succeed in resizing?
Is there a more specific way? Can I install more tools as instructed in the warning message?
I wanted to succeed until the end if possible, but it's not easy.^^

 

 

Yes you should install these extra files for the resizing of the filesystem of the partition. 

tce-load -iw dosfstools

tce-load -iw mtools

 

[Peter Suh]

5 minutes ago, pocopico said:

 

Yes you should install these extra files for the resizing of the filesystem of the partition. 

tce-load -iw dosfstools

tce-load -iw mtools

 

 

Finally succeeded.
Because it is not set to exceed 1 GB, which is the default allocated space for the image.
I just tried reducing the size.
Thank you very much.

 

 

For other users, we remind you that the three commands below must be installed in batches.

gparted must be run as root.

 

tce-load -iw gparted
tce-load -iw dosfstools
tce-load -iw mtools

sudo gparted

 

 

 

[pocopico]

3 minutes ago, Peter Suh said:

Finally succeeded.
Because it is not set to exceed 1 GB, which is the default allocated space for the image.
I just tried reducing the size

 

You can try to first increase the size of the virtual disk and then perform the extension.

[Polanskiman]

23 minutes ago, pocopico said:

Actually nothing can be or should be deleted from that partition. Everything is there for a reason.

Yes obviously everything is there for a reason. I don't doubt that but see what I experienced yesterday. Running the clean command solved the issue BUT what if the loader get's bloated? All my comments above regarding deleting were merely to mitigate potential space errors.

 

Curious, what exactly get's deleted with the clean command? The output of the command says:

Clearing local redpill files

but I am not entirely sure what those files are and where they are located?

[pocopico]

18 minutes ago, Polanskiman said:

Yes obviously everything is there for a reason. I don't doubt that but see what I experienced yesterday. Running the clean command solved the issue BUT what if the loader get's bloated? All my comments above regarding deleting were merely to mitigate potential space errors.

 

Curious, what exactly get's deleted with the clean command? The output of the command says:

Clearing local redpill files

but I am not entirely sure what those files are and where they are located?

 

Hi yes sorry maybe i sounded a bit aggressive but i wanted to make an introduction for the table that was following  plus that i was also surpised that no files could be removed other than the auxfiles/*pat file which of-cource can be redownloaded in case you need that.

 

Inside redpill-load there are files created during the build process that take large amount of disk space. I try to clean most of them after using them but if something breaks in the middle then you need to manually remove them. The ./rploader.sh cleans files from /home/tc,  mainly those that can be redownloaded.
 

/home/tc/redpill-load
/home/tc/redpill-lkm 

 

Edited October 7, 2022 by pocopico

[Polanskiman]

22 minutes ago, pocopico said:

Hi yes sorry maybe i sounded a bit aggressive but i wanted to make an introduction for the table that was following  plus that i was also surpised that no files could be removed other than the auxfiles/*pat file which of-cource can be redownloaded in case you need that.

haha I didn't take it the wrong way, no worries

In fact those files I mentionned earlier can be removed, well at least I did remove them, then recreated the backups obviously with the commands. I wanted to see how the space was affected.

 

backups then were able to proceed and I was then able to reboot and all was fine.

 

Great, thank you.

22 minutes ago, pocopico said:

Inside redpill-load there are files created during the build process that take large amount of disk space. I try to clean most of them after using them but if something breaks in the middle then you need to manually remove them. The ./rploader.sh cleans files from /home/tc,  mainly those that can be redownloaded.
 

/home/tc/redpill-load
/home/tc/redpill-lkm 

 

 

[Dreadnought]

On 10/5/2022 at 5:26 PM, pocopico said:

 

redpill-acpid has just been updated and should work for most platforms. 

 

https://github.com/pocopico/rp-ext/raw/main/redpill-acpid/rpext-index.json

 

 

 

The power button is now working for me too, but unfortunately WOL is not working.

I am still not able to activate the feature within the settings or to start up the NAS via a magic package. 

With the ARPL loader WOL is working fine on the same device.

[pedroj666]

23 hours ago, Dreadnought said:

 

The power button is now working for me too, but unfortunately WOL is not working.

I am still not able to activate the feature within the settings or to start up the NAS via a magic package. 

With the ARPL loader WOL is working fine on the same device.

 

Is support for acpid already included in the creation of the bootloader using tinycore-redpill v0.9.2.7 or is it some add on that you need to add during boot creation?

 

PS: WOL is working fine on my NAS (DS920+). The pc starts up after sending the magic package.

 

Edited October 9, 2022 by pedroj666

[Biocef]

Le 04/10/2022 à 08:49, Biocef a dit :

Hi !

I tested TCRP Friend to switch from DSM 7.1-42661 Update 4 to DSM 7.1.1-42962 and it works very well, it's impressive, great job!

However, I have a problem with the mac address.

In the config.json I specified a mac address. When TCRP Friend boots it displays "Setting MAC from (the real mac) to (the mac I entered)". The IP Address line is correct according to my DHCP.

But once the NAS is started, it no longer uses these informations.

DSM starts using the real mac address and therefore my DHCP no longer gives it the correct address.

In DSM control panel, the real mac address is shown.

(sorry for my google translate english...)

 

Hi !

I just tried to redo a key with TCRP 0.9.2.7. I still have the same issue.

Mac address is good in TCRP but not in DSM.

I took a screenshot this time if it helps.

 

Thanks.

[puls200]

I

3 часа назад, Biocef сказал:

But once the NAS is started, it no longer uses these informations.

DSM starts using the real mac address 

I have exactly the same in TCRP 0.9.2.7. In TCRP 0.9.2.6 everything is fine and correct

Edited October 11, 2022 by puls200

[puls200]

Friends and @pocopico, please don't think I'm stupid and annoying. Just explain why this is so?

my test TCRP 0.9.2.6:

I am creating a new ds3622xs+ bootloader (a real mac), the power circuit works fine (startup and Shutdown), wol - start realmac.

I am creating a new ds3622xs+ bootloader (generated mac), the power circuit works fine (startup and Shutdown), wol - start realmac.

I am creating a new DS918 bootloader, DS920 (a real mac), Power schedule StartUP - does not work, Shutdown - works. wol - start realmac.

I am creating a new DS918 bootloader, DS920 (generated mac), Power schedule StartUP- does not work, Shutdown - works. wol - start realmac.
Maybe something is missing when creating bootloader in DS918, DS920? 

Power schedule StartUP - very necessary.

Or is it the platform?

in June's Loader v1.03b, v1.04b there were no problems (Power schedule) on the platforms (DS916, DS918, DS3617). maybe there is a secret )))))

Edited October 11, 2022 by puls200

[Peter Suh]

1 hour ago, puls200 said:

Friends and @pocopico, please don't think I'm stupid and annoying. Just explain why this is so?

my test TCRP 0.9.2.6:

I am creating a new ds3622xs+ bootloader (a real mac), the power circuit works fine (startup and Shutdown), wol - start realmac.

I am creating a new ds3622xs+ bootloader (generated mac), the power circuit works fine (startup and Shutdown), wol - start realmac.

I am creating a new DS918 bootloader, DS920 (a real mac), Power schedule StartUP - does not work, Shutdown - works. wol - start realmac.

I am creating a new DS918 bootloader, DS920 (generated mac), Power schedule StartUP- does not work, Shutdown - works. wol - start realmac.
Maybe something is missing when creating bootloader in DS918, DS920? 

Power schedule StartUP - very necessary.

Or is it the platform?

in June's Loader v1.03b, v1.04b there were no problems (Power schedule) on the platforms (DS916, DS918, DS3617). maybe there is a secret )))))

 

I recently discovered one thing while testing the Power ON scheduling of a DS1621xs+ (Broadwellnk) with a Dell T1700.
After installing as bare metal with a USB stick and setting the schedule, I removed the USB stick.
Powered on at the scheduled time even with the stick removed.
Perhaps it is a natural result, but I wonder if DSM does not record sleep in the state of S5 in BIOS as DSM shuts down.
The log monitored by the serial port contains the following contents.

 

[ 255.465129] e1000e: EEE TX LPI TIMER: 00000011
[ 255.503506] pin 0 is protected by driver.
[ 256.008416] Turned off USB vbus gpio 0 (ACTIVE_LOW)
[ 256.013322] pin 0 is protected by driver.
[ 256.517433] Turned off USB vbus gpio 0 (ACTIVE_LOW)
[ 256.522340] pin 0 is protected by driver.
[ 257.026426] Turned off USB vbus gpio 0 (ACTIVE_LOW)
[ 257.031334] pin 0 is protected by driver.
[ 257.535448] Turned off USB vbus gpio 0 (ACTIVE_LOW)
[ 257.540361] pin 0 is protected by driver.
[ 258.045440] Turned off USB vbus gpio 0 (ACTIVE_LOW)
[ 258.058643] ACPI: Preparing to enter system sleep state S5
[ 258.064381] reboot: Power down
[258.067641] acpi_power_off called
[ 258.071000] Confirm SLP_TYP poweroff status 0 pm1a 1c01 pm1b 1
[ 258.087118] Confirm OS poweroff status 0 pm1a 3c01 pm1b 2001

 

The same log is also present on DS1621+(v1000), which does not operate on the Power On schedule.

 

[ 1410.300950] e1000e: EEE TX LPI TIMER: 00000011
[ 1410.820297] ACPI: Preparing to enter system sleep state S5
[ 1410.826560] reboot: Power down
[ 1410.829879] acpi_power_off called
[ 1410.833257] Confirm SLP_TYP poweroff status 0 pm1a 1c01 pm1b 1
[ 1410.850268] Confirm OS poweroff status 0 pm1a 3c01 pm1b 2001

 

DS1621+ has the same action of "ACPI: Preparing to enter system sleep state S5", but I think it may not be properly recorded in BIOS.

Edited October 11, 2022 by Peter Suh

[Polanskiman]

@Peter Suh This is a reminder for you to use code tags. Thank you.

[puls200]

41 минуту назад, Peter Suh сказал:

After installing as bare metal with a USB stick and setting the schedule, I removed the USB stick.
Powered on at the scheduled time even with the stick removed.

You're absolutely right.
When the Startup function works correctly, the usb stick is not needed. And it doesn't matter how you turn off the system.
My DS3622 works the same way.

[merve04]

Quick question, when I upgraded to 7.0.1 from 6.2.3, I built a loader using tcrp 0.9.x

i want to upgrade to 7.1.1, do I just boot into tcrp and do full upgrade before updating via gui? or is there a specific way of upgrading? Thanks in advance 

[Peter Suh]

9 hours ago, merve04 said:

Quick question, when I upgraded to 7.0.1 from 6.2.3, I built a loader using tcrp 0.9.x

i want to upgrade to 7.1.1, do I just boot into tcrp and do full upgrade before updating via gui? or is there a specific way of upgrading? Thanks in advance 

 

Do you remember exactly which option you used when building the tcrp 0.9.x loader?

 

If you didn't add the withfriend or jun options at the end, you'll need to rebuild the loader.

 

If you build the friend loader with the withfriend option and not with jun's mod with the jun option, you will need to rebuild the loader.

 

If not, it is called a jot mod.

 

You can check which mode was built by using the menu text on the GNU GRUB boot screen.

 

Whether you install DSM in advance or update DSM after rebuilding the TCRP loader, there will be no problems.

 

However, I recommend the former if possible.

 

In the latter method, if switching between Jun / Jot mode occurs, DSM may be reinstalled in the system partition.

[MSXGames]

Hi All,

 

I have a question, I couldn't find it so hopefully someone can answer it.

 

I have a Dell R210 II with Broadcom network adaters, the server starts and TPRP is starting, but it will not connect to the internet, even when the cable is connected.

I have put in a Intel i225 (2.5 Mhz) netwerk card in the server, the server start and TCRP is loading, but no internet connection.

When I do lspci -nnq I see all the network adapters in the list (broadcom and intel i225).

Are these network adapters not loaded or are there no drivers ?

 

Thank you.

[Peter Suh]

Hi All,
 
I have a question, I couldn't find it so hopefully someone can answer it.
 
I have a Dell R210 II with Broadcom network adaters, the server starts and TPRP is starting, but it will not connect to the internet, even when the cable is connected.
I have put in a Intel i225 (2.5 Mhz) netwerk card in the server, the server start and TCRP is loading, but no internet connection.
When I do lspci -nnq I see all the network adapters in the list (broadcom and intel i225).
Are these network adapters not loaded or are there no drivers ?
 
Thank you.

Broadcom nic's ext driver seems to use tg3, but there was a recent modification and there was a user who complained that it did not work. And i225 should be added as igc ext driver, but there is no ext driver yet.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Polanskiman]

Hi @pocopico Something when kaput today. I was playing around with the user_config.json file and inadvertently introduced some syntax errors. Upon reboot I was greeted with the following (see below). So I went on and looked at the config.json file in that path and the file was there. Ok so that's odd, why would it complain there is no file. So then I went on to check the user_config.json file to find out it was totally blank. Nothing, nada, 0 bytes. It looks like the syntax errors caused the loader to completely erase the content of the user_config.json file. I simply copied over the user_config.json that was in the /lastsession directory and we were back on track.

Cheers.

 

---------------------------------={ TinyCore RedPill Friend }=---------------------------------
TCRP Friend Version : 0.0.2
Detecting upgrade : Ramdisk upgrade has been detected cat: /root/config//7.1.1-42962/config.json: No such file or directory
cat: /root/config//7.1.1-42962/config.json: No such file or directory
cat: /root/config//7.1.1-42962/config.json: No such file or directory
cat: /root/config//7.1.1-42962/config.json: No such file or directory
sed: bad option in substitution expression
sed: bad option in substitution expression
cp: missing file operand
Try 'cp --help' for more information.
zImage upgrade has been detected
Checking for latest friend -> OK, latest
Loader BUS: usb
Running on 2 Processor  Intel(R) Pentium(R) CPU G3220 @ 3.00GHz With 15.5G Memory
System has 1 HBAs and 2 Network cards
IP Address : [REDACTED]

Model : , Serial : , Mac :  DSM Version : 7.1.1-42962 RedPillMake :
zImage : /mnt/tcrp/zImage-dsm initrd : /mnt/tcrp/initrd-dsm
cmdline :
/root/boot.sh: line 575: [: 0: unary operator expected
^Croot@tcrpfriend:~#

 

[Peter Suh]

@pocopico

 

I applied the DSM 7.1.1 update 2 released today to DS920+.
The test environment is VirtualBox.
DSM itself seems to be working normally,
I see a yellow error line on the TCRP friend loader. Is there any problem?

 

[Peter Suh]

1 hour ago, Peter Suh said:

@pocopico

 

I applied the DSM 7.1.1 update 2 released today to DS920+.
The test environment is VirtualBox.
DSM itself seems to be working normally,
I see a yellow error line on the TCRP friend loader. Is there any problem?

 

 

 

I just rebooted without taking any action, but the warning message above disappears and I log in normally.

 

 

[Polanskiman]

@pocopicoIn the output of the TCRP Friend, would it be possible to add the small update number along the DSM bigger version?