Netgate Discussion Forum
    • Categories
    • Recent
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Users
    • Search
    • Register
    • Login

    Installing new M.2 in Netgate 2100 - How to change boot drive?

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Official Netgate® Hardware
    15 Posts 2 Posters 1.8k Views
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • P
      pazmanian
      last edited by

      Hi,

      I decided to add a M.2 to my 2100 for logging data. I requested and got the firmware from Netgate TAC following this doc link. I formatted a new 256GB M.2 and wrote the image using Etcher, per the emailed instructions. I then halted the 2100, and installed the M.2, and rebooted. It came back up working, but its not booting to the M.2. The mounted disk is still the built in eMMC (4GB).

      How do I get the 2100 to start booting using the M.2?

      Here is the info about the M.2. I can mount it & view the contents. Note that there are slight differences between the eMMC directory and the M.2 imaged disk.

      ada0 at ahcich0 bus 0 scbus0 target 0 lun 0
      ada0: <TS256GMTS430S 22Z2UCFS> ACS-3 ATA SATA 3.x device
      ada0: Serial Number H828370263
      ada0: 600.000MB/s transfers (SATA 3.x, UDMA6, PIO 8192bytes)
      ada0: Command Queueing enabled
      ada0: 244198MB (500118192 512 byte sectors)

      [23.05.1-RELEASE][root@pfSense.home.arpa]/dev: geom label status
      Name Status Components
      flash/uboot N/A flash/spi0s.uboot
      flash/ubootenv N/A flash/spi0s.ubootenv
      msdosfs/EFISYS N/A mmcsd0s1
      msdosfs/DTBFAT0 N/A mmcsd0s2
      ufsid/649bbd05e324673f N/A ada0s3a

      [23.05.1-RELEASE][root@pfSense.home.arpa]/dev: gpart show ada0
      => 1 500118191 ada0 MBR (238G)
      1 532480 1 efi (260M)
      532481 131072 2 fat32 (64M)
      663553 8388624 3 freebsd [active] (4.0G)
      9052177 491066015 - free - (234G)

      [23.05.1-RELEASE][root@pfSense.home.arpa]/: mount /dev/ada0s3a /m2/
      [23.05.1-RELEASE][root@pfSense.home.arpa]/: cd /m2
      [23.05.1-RELEASE][root@pfSense.home.arpa]/m2: ls
      .profile bin lib net sbin
      .snap boot libexec proc tmp
      .sujournal dev media rescue usr
      COPYRIGHT etc mnt root var

      [23.05.1-RELEASE][root@pfSense.home.arpa]/m2: ls /
      .cshrc boot dev m2 rescue var
      .profile boot.config etc media root
      .rnd cf home mnt sbin
      COPYRIGHT conf lib net tmp
      bin conf.default libexec proc usr

      stephenw10S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • stephenw10S
        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator @pazmanian
        last edited by

        @pazmanian said in Installing new M.2 in Netgate 2100 - How to change boot drive?:

        I formatted a new 256GB M.2 and wrote the image using Etcher, per the emailed instructions. I then halted the 2100, and installed the M.2, and rebooted.

        That reads like you maybe wrote the install image directly to the m.2 drive?

        That's not correct, you should write the installer image to a USB drive then put that in the 2100 and boot from it. Then install to the m.2 drive using the installer.

        P 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • P
          pazmanian @stephenw10
          last edited by

          @stephenw10

          I thought I was getting closer when I found the bootcmd in Marvell. I had tried changing it (by adding "run m2boot"), but unlike the 3100, apparently there is not a m2boot for the 2100 (at least it complained when I used it). My bootcmd was set to:

          setenv bootcmd 'run setLED; run mmcboot; run usbboot; run net;'

          So, what "installer" are you referring to? The M.2 install directions kind of leave one hanging on the next steps. The email instructions from the TAC didn't specifically say what to image either. I had installed the M2 into a Win11 machine and ran Etcher there.

          Thanks!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • stephenw10S
            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
            last edited by

            The uboot envs are set by the installer automatically you don't have to set anything there.

            Follow the reinstall instructions:
            https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/solutions/netgate-2100/reinstall-pfsense.html

            Just choose ada0 (the m.2 drive) when asked, step 7 in the instructions.

            Steve

            P 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • stephenw10S stephenw10 moved this topic from Hardware on
            • P
              pazmanian @stephenw10
              last edited by

              @stephenw10

              Thanks for that... unfortunately, I got an error just after the erase started:

              Erasing the AHCI contents.
              trim: open failed: /dev/ada: Operation not permitted
              Erasing the eMMC contents.
              Writing the firmware to AHCI.
              (this may take a few minutes to complete) dd: /dev/ada0: Operation not permitted**

              ...Why would it erase my eMMC if it errored on the open command? I would recommend not erasing the eMMC if it runs into any errors prior to that point.

              It ended up erasing my eMMC & left me with an initialized eMMC. I reinstalled back onto the eMMC, and then had to restore my router config.

              Any ideas how to resolve the OPEN FAILED error?

              Thank you!
              Paul

              P 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • stephenw10S
                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                last edited by

                Hmm, odd. Does it actually appear as ada0 in the boot log?

                It looks fine in the output you posted above though.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • P
                  pazmanian @pazmanian
                  last edited by

                  @pazmanian said in Installing new M.2 in Netgate 2100 - How to change boot drive?:

                  trim: open failed: /dev/ada: Operation not permitted

                  I am wondering if the fact that the M.2 SSD was formatted already is the reason why the trim failed? I decided to erase the SSD using trim myself. From what I saw this operation is a quick & direct way to erase an SSD:

                  trim /dev/ada0
                  gpart create -s GPT ada0
                  gpart show ada0
                  Which gets me to here:
                  => 40 500118112 ada0 GPT (238G)
                  40 500118112 - free - (238G)

                  I'd like to try the 'run usbrecovery' again, but I really don't want it to erase my eMMC again until I know that the software is successfully copied to the SSD.

                  Does anyone know if usbrecovery has any command line options to NOT erase the eMMC? Any other suggestions?

                  Thanks!
                  Paul

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • stephenw10S
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                    last edited by stephenw10

                    The eMMC is always erased by the installer because otherwise you end up with two ZFS pools with the same name or two similar named root partitions in UFS. That results in mounting root from the wrong device.

                    You can boot the installer without erasing it in uboot by running:
                    run usbboot
                    But I don't recommend it. The only time I use that is if I know the eMMC is already blank.

                    Steve

                    P 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • P
                      pazmanian @stephenw10
                      last edited by

                      @stephenw10

                      Bummer. Would it be possible to configure to remove the eMMC from being mounted so this does not occur? I'm guessing not since you would be doing this if it were possible...

                      Thank you!

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • stephenw10S
                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                        last edited by

                        It gets erased twice normally. Once in uboot, which you can skip, and once in the installer. Technically you could interrupt the installer and manually write the image to m.2 then update the uboot envs.
                        But there's a good reason it erases the eMMC. You don't want to have an install on both drives as it almost invariably causes problems.

                        It's unclear why the installer won't write to the m.2 in your case but I'd guess it's because there's a remaining filesystem on it from when you initially copied the installer image to it.
                        If you can I would try zeroing out the m.2 drive and then reinstalling from USB.

                        Steve

                        P 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • P
                          pazmanian @stephenw10
                          last edited by

                          @stephenw10
                          I tried this (run usbboot) & it seemed to work ok, but on reboot it errored. The bootcmd does not mention the M.2 SSD.

                            bootcmd=run setLED; run mmcboot; run usbboot; run net;

                          Any ideas?

                          Thanks!
                          Paul

                          This is the console output from the runusbboot & the reboot after that:

                          Select the file system to install (UFS/ZFS) or press the Enter key to install with ZFS:

                          Selected AHCI device: ada0 - ZFS

                          In addition to the AHCI, the eMMC is also erased by this operation.

                          Are you sure you want to continue ? (y/N) y

                          Erasing the AHCI contents...
                          Erasing the eMMC contents...
                          Writing the firmware to AHCI...
                          (this may take a few minutes to complete)
                          0+81920 records in
                          1280+0 records out
                          5368709120 bytes transferred in 85.842498 secs (62541390 bytes/sec)

                          Done!

                          The system will halt now, please power off and remove the firmware
                          recovery storage device.

                          Shutdown NOW!
                          shutdown: [pid 1132]
                          Waiting for system shutdown.
                          *** FINAL System shutdown message from root@pfSense-aarch64-recovery ***

                          System going down IMMEDIATELY

                                                                                          Aug 15 00:07:45 pfSense-aarch64-recovery shutdown[1132]: halt by root:

                          Stopping cron.
                          Waiting for PIDS: 1053.
                          Stopping devd.
                          Waiting for PIDS: 820.
                          Writing entropy file: .
                          Writing early boot entropy file: .
                          ^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[ATerminated

                          AFTER REBOOT-------------------

                          U-Boot 2018.03-devel-1.2.0ROGUE2-01.00.00.02+ (Feb 07 2020 - 14:33:22 -0500)

                          Model: Silicom Rogue-2
                          CPU 1200 [MHz]
                          L2 800 [MHz]
                          TClock 200 [MHz]
                          DDR 750 [MHz]
                          DRAM: 3.4 GiB
                          Comphy chip #0:
                          Comphy-0: SGMII1 3.125 Gbps
                          Comphy-1: PEX0 2.5 Gbps
                          Comphy-2: SATA0 6 Gbps
                          PCIE-0: Link down
                          MMC: sdhci@d8000: 0
                          Loading Environment from SPI Flash... mvebu_spi_ofdata_to_platdata: ofdata clock 200000000, frequency 20000000
                          SF: Detected w25q32bv with page size 256 Bytes, erase size 4 KiB, total 4 MiB
                          OK
                          Model: Silicom Rogue-2
                          Net: eth0: neta@30000 [PRIME], eth1: neta@40000
                          Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0
                          Setting bus to 1
                          ** No partition table - mmc 0 **
                          resetting USB...
                          USB0: Register 2000104 NbrPorts 2
                          Starting the controller
                          USB XHCI 1.00
                          USB1: USB EHCI 1.00
                          scanning bus 0 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found
                          scanning bus 1 for devices... EHCI timed out on TD - token=0xd8d80
                          EHCI timed out on TD - token=0x1f8c80
                          EHCI timed out on TD - token=0x1f8c80
                          EHCI timed out on TD - token=0x1f8c80
                          EHCI timed out on TD - token=0x1f8c80
                          EHCI timed out on TD - token=0x1f8c80
                          EHCI timed out on TD - token=0x1f8c80
                          EHCI timed out on TD - token=0x1f8c80
                          EHCI timed out on TD - token=0x1f8c80
                          EHCI timed out on TD - token=0x1f8c80
                          EHCI timed out on TD - token=0x1f8c80
                          EHCI timed out on TD - token=0x1f8c80
                          EHCI timed out on TD - token=0x1f8c80
                          EHCI timed out on TD - token=0x1f8c80
                          EHCI timed out on TD - token=0x1f8c80
                          Device NOT ready
                          Request Sense returned 00 00 00
                          2 USB Device(s) found
                          scanning usb for storage devices... 1 Storage Device(s) found
                          ** Bad device size - usb 0 **
                          BOOTP broadcast 1
                          DHCP client bound to address 75.73.200.145 (91 ms)
                          *** Warning: no boot file name; using '4B49C891.img'
                          Using neta@30000 device
                          TFTP from server 0.0.0.0; our IP address is 75.73.200.145; sending through gateway 75.73.200.1
                          Filename '4B49C891.img'.
                          Load address: 0x1000000
                          Loading: *
                          TFTP error: 'No such file or directory' (2)
                          Not retrying...
                          *** ERROR: serverip' not set *** ERROR: serverip' not set
                          libfdt fdt_check_header(): FDT_ERR_BADMAGIC
                          No FDT memory address configured. Please configure
                          the FDT address via "fdt addr <address>" command.
                          Aborting!
                          ERROR: invalid device tree
                          ERROR: failed to install device tree

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • stephenw10S
                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                            last edited by stephenw10

                            Ah is that a much older 2100?
                            Set the bootcmd manually like so:

                            setenv bootcmd 'run setLED; run mmcboot; run scsiboot; run usbboot; run net;'
saveenv

                            It should try to boot from each device in order and the eMMC is current blank so it should boot from scsi (m.2).

                            Steve

                            P 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • P
                              pazmanian @stephenw10
                              last edited by

                              @stephenw10

                              Hi, I reinstalled to the eMMC since I needed a working network at home. I'll try it again this evening, thank you for this information. I hope my 2100 isn't considered old, I just got it in Feb2023. :-)

                              Paul

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • stephenw10S
                                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                last edited by

                                Hmm, odd. I expect it to have the scsiboot in the list then. Adding it should allow it to boot as expected.

                                P 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                • P
                                  pazmanian @stephenw10
                                  last edited by

                                  @stephenw10

                                  Success!

                                  For the record, I used the following to format the M.2 SSD/SCSCI:

                                  trim /dev/ada0
                                  gpart create -s GPT ada0
                                  gpart show ada0

                                  Per your guidance I modified the bootcmd env var in Marvell (adding "run scsiboot"):

                                   setenv bootcmd 'run setLED; run mmcboot; run scsiboot; run usbboot; run net;'

                                  I then ran "run usbboot" to kick off my inserted usb thumb drive to install the firmware onto the M.2.

                                  I left my usb drive in after reboot & it picked up the config.xml & correctly reconfigured my firewall, per the documentation.

                                  Thanks,
                                  Paul

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                  • First post
                                    Last post
                                  Copyright 2025 Rubicon Communications LLC (Netgate). All rights reserved.