Troubleshooting boot issues

When trying to debug boot problems, the following (or something simillar) may help you.

You'll need the initfs_flash with a telnet or ssh server installed. I'll suppose that a telnet server is used:

  • Boot Nxx0 and start the telnet/ssh server
  • Connect USB cable to PC
  • Run:
modprobe usbnet
ifconfig usb0 up
ip addr add dev usb0 192.168.10.2/24
telnet 192.168.10.1
  • You're now connected. Load required modules for accessing your root partition:
insmod /lib/modules/2.6.21-omap1/jbd.ko 
insmod /lib/modules/2.6.21-omap1/mbcache.ko 
insmod /lib/modules/2.6.21-omap1/ext2.ko 
insmod /lib/modules/2.6.21-omap1/ext3.ko
  • And mount the root partition:
mount /dev/mmcblk0p2 /mnt/new_root -t ext3 -o noatime
  • Now run:
cd /mnt/new_root
mount -obind /tmp /mnt/new_root/tmp
pivot_root . mnt/initfs

export OSSO_VERSION=$(cat /etc/osso_software_version)

  • And you're ready to manually boot it:
cd /etc/init.d
./rcS
./rc 2

This will do the whole bootup procedure (not exactly, but the interresting part) and you'll be able to watch all bootup messages.

Don't forget that the watchdog will reboot the machine after a some time.