[PATCH] arm: mvebu: Add support for Thecus N2350 (Armada 385) board

[Pali Rohár]

On Sunday 29 January 2023 14:04:07 Tony Dinh wrote:
> Hi Pali,
> 
> On Sun, Jan 29, 2023 at 3:20 AM Pali Rohár <pali at kernel.org> wrote:
> >
> > On Saturday 28 January 2023 18:07:29 Tony Dinh wrote:
> > > > > > > +#define BOOT_TARGET_DEVICES(func) \
> > > > > > > +     func(SCSI, scsi, 0) \
> > > > > > > +     func(USB, usb, 0) \
> > > > > > > +     func(PXE, pxe, na) \
> > > > > > > +     func(DHCP, dhcp, na)
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I see that you have also NAND with UBIFS in DTS file. What is stored on
> > > > > > NAND? Does not it have bootable system and should be in default boot
> > > > > > target list?
> > > > >
> > > > > The UBIFS in stock FW was the rootfs. But it is not bootable any more
> > > > > with the new u-boot.
> > > >
> > > > Hm... Why it is not bootable by new u-boot? Is there some unknown issue
> > > > that it suddenly stopped working? Because u-boot as a bootloader is
> > > > there for booting system and it is its primary functionality. And if new
> > > > version cannot boot something which old version was able then it is a
> > > > bug on which u-boot should focus. If you have more details about this
> > > > issue, I can look at it.
> > >
> > > IMO, I don't think we need to waste time with stock FW on these NAS
> > > boards. They are no longer supported by the manufacturers for a while,
> > > and therefore have some inherent security problems (most if not all
> > > Kirkwood boards suffer the same fate). Usually people just modernize
> > > these boxes with a new u-boot and boot them with a modern Linux
> > > distro. It's a great thing that modern boards like Turris Omnia are
> > > supported by the manufacturer and other FOSS contributors. With
> > > Thecus, Netgear, Seagate... even a lot of Synology boxes, people just
> > > run really old kernel and rootfs and never see an update.
> >
> > Well, my point here is that this is ubifs stuff and I have one arm
> > device on which u-boot ubifs code is unable to parse and read data from
> > it. I thought that ubifs is completely broken in u-boot but then I
> > enabled ubifs on another powerpc device and it worked perfectly.
> 
> I had a similar experience on a few ARM devices. But when I wiped the
> partition and created a brand new UBIFS on the same devices with the
> latest u-boot code, it worked perfectly too. So perhaps it was
> something in the old filesystem in stock FW that caused the problem. I
> have on these ARM boards the latest u-boot (2017-2023). So if you
> would like me to help testing some ideas or some problems, I'd be glad
> to do what I can. Perhaps we can do it on a different thread, I might
> be able to find my backup mtd dumps for an old device such as Pogo V4
> and try mounting its partition with the new u-boot.

Ok, I can try to help. Either start a new thread or write me privately.

> Thanks,
> Tony
> 
> > I tried to debug that issue on arm device without any success.
> > Having broken code is u-boot is not something which should be present in
> > project and I wanted to fix it...