Installation on Nokia IP530

provels

Hello. As the subject says, I'm attempting to install 1.2.3 on a retired Nokia IP530. I think it has great possibilties for my home network with a P3-700, 512MB, and quad DEC 21143 nics. I have been running Smoothwall for several years on other hardware, but have been unable to install that distro on the Nokia, due (mostly) to my own inexperience and my inability to change the boot drive. The Nokia has an 8mb CF card as D0 (removed as it boots IPSO) and an IDE HDD as D1. Smoothwall (modded to display console over serial) would run LILO, but then fail to boot the system. I tried many ways of installing in a donor machine (master/slave, primary/secondary) with 4 nics but none succeeded. Anywho, I got here somehow in my Googles to find a distro that would succeed. I have managed to get 2 installations (both hard disk and embedded) to boot to console in the Nokia, but now I'm faced with a console message about an "interrupt storm" on IRQ12. Boot messages show IRQ12 is being assigned to a cardbus slot. This may also be what is causing 2 of the 4 nic ports to not get activated after boot. Also, even though ifconfig shows two ports as being active, I cannot access/ping the Nokia by the LAN interface. Is it possible to disable the cardbus slots by software config? I cannot get into the BIOS (Insyde) to try and disable interrupts or devices, the "Press F2" presented at boot does nothing. I tried editting device.hints with these lines (not sure of either syntax or suitability), but didn't help anyway. Thanks for listening, any comments welcome.

hint.cbb.0.disabled="1"
hint.pccard.0.disabled="1"
hint.acardbus.0.disabled="1"
hint.cbb.1.disabled="1"
hint.pccard.1.disabled="1"
hint.acardbus.1.disabled="1"

provels

Well, enabling Device Polling has at least given me control of the helm….that's a start. I hope there are no unwanted effects.
Just as info, the NICs are Intel 21143, DC driver. So far so good. Top shows CPU use as negligible.

provels

With a little help from here and there and here again, I've managed to get my hardware up and online with a full install, serial access and package capability. Short summary follows, should anyone have the same hardware.

-Remove CF card and HD from Nokia IP530. CF card is no longer needed.
-Install full HD installation to HD in a second machine, HD jumpered to Master. My box could only support a 32GB HD, so I had to jumper my 40GB accordingly. ("The IP530 can either support up to a 32gig HD or a 40 gig HD. IP530 serial numbers prior to 9N0229XXXXX support 32GB. Serial numbers after 9N0229XXXXX support 40GB." -from another webpage)
-With HD still in second machine, enable Serial Console and Device Polling on the System\Advanced Functions page. Enabling Device Polling was required to eliminate "interrupt storm" messages in the console. This has to be done before transferring the HD back to the IP530 or you will never get control of the IP530.
-Reinstall the HD in the IP530 on the primary channel/slave position (still jumpered as master) and boot with serial cable attached. The setup script will recognize the change and step you through interface setup. After that, you can install any packages via the web interface. My interfaces came up as below:
DC0 ETH3
DC1 ETH4
DC2 ETH1
DC3 ETH2

provels

Update: Now happily running on a gmirror RAID1 with Squid, Adzap, Snort, Smartmon Tools and Denyhosts. Great job guys, thanks. :D

provels

2nd Update - After my installation kaboomed after some minor file editing on my part, I have replaced the gmirror set with a single 4GB Kingston Elite Pro 133x CF. Works fine, too, though enabling device polling in the Advanced setup was still required before removing the CF from the installation host. Only adding this in the remote chance a Googler from the future holding the same hardware wants to try something similar. Carry on.

edwork

As you said about the remote chance of a googler finding this, that's exactly what I am. I bought an IP530 at a used equipment store at the Penn State University. I have PfSense box running already, but seeing that the origional Nokia image was BSD based I looked to PfSense one more time. I found this and this is 100% exactly what I am doing down to the 4GB CF card I have coming in the mail. I just wanted to thank you for putting these instructions online. Thanks!

provels

Thanks for the thanks. I'm back to a gmirror RAID and using the CF for backup, since I'm using Squid, Squidguard, Adzap and Snort and need real disk for that. And I like seeing the disk lights blink. :D