Re: Troubles booting Pi2 from USB using bootcode.bin method

I should have  stated earlier that the FreeBSD system on
the USB3 disk orginated from
FreeBSD-13.0-RELEASE-arm-armv7-GENERICSD.img
using dd and then repartitioning to add a swap and separate
/usr partition.

On Thu, Oct 28, 2021 at 04:53:29PM -0700, Mark Millard wrote:
> On 2021-Oct-28, at 15:21, Mark Millard <marklmi at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> > On 2021-Oct-28, at 12:16, bob prohaska <[email protected]> wrote:
> > 
> >> To make a clean start on this thread I've turned on the UART
> >> for bootcode.bin per Mark's instructions and done a few boot
> >> attempts with the USB2 and USB3 mechanical disks, singly and
> >> in unison.
> >> 
> >> The bootlogs are in
> >> http://www.zefox.net/~fbsd/rpi2/bootproblems/
> >> 
> >> An immediate curiosity is that on the first try, booting
> >> with the USB3 device alone worked. I didn't record that
> >> output, unfortunately.
> > 
> > Hmm. Too bad.
> > 
Indeed! I thought maybe the failure was fixed by turning on the UART...

> >> The second attempt failed, as expected,
> >> and is recorded in bootlog-fail. The third attempt booted both
> >> USB2 and USB3 disks together, recorded in bootlog.success.
> > 
> > The two logs do not have the same set of dtdebug messages
> > for loading bcm2709-rpi-2-b.dtb . This is long before
> > u-boot.bin is loaded and so is during the RPi* firmware
> > time frame not u_Boot or FreeBSD;s loader or FreeBSD's kernel
> > or FreeBSD's world.
> > 
> > From this I infer that there are two different msdosfs's
> > wtith differing content on the 2 drives and when both
> > drives are in place .
> >

That's correct. Actually there are three, counting the microSD.
 
> > You have not reported on the following for either drive's
> > msdosfs :
> > 
> > # strings ???/start.elf | grep "VC_BUILD_"
> > 

The are different. On the USB3 disk, which I want to boot, I get
bob@www:/boot/msdos % strings start.elf | grep "VC_BUILD_"
VC_BUILD_ID_USER: dom
VC_BUILD_ID_TIME: 12:12:09
VC_BUILD_ID_VARIANT: start
VC_BUILD_ID_TIME: Feb 25 2021
VC_BUILD_ID_BRANCH: bcm2711_2
VC_BUILD_ID_HOSTNAME: buildbot
VC_BUILD_ID_PLATFORM: raspberrypi_linux
VC_BUILD_ID_VERSION: 564e5f9b852b23a330b1764bcf0b2d022a20afd0 (clean)

On the USB2 disk, which seems to be needed for booting, I get
oot@www:/mnt # strings start.elf | grep "VC_BUILD_"
VC_BUILD_ID_USER: dom
VC_BUILD_ID_TIME: 16:43:13
VC_BUILD_ID_BRANCH: master
VC_BUILD_ID_VARIANT: start
VC_BUILD_ID_TIME: Nov 19 2019
VC_BUILD_ID_HOSTNAME: buildbot
VC_BUILD_ID_PLATFORM: raspberrypi_linux
VC_BUILD_ID_VERSION: 2354eac70a98807e06bed2149bc0c5613e751c15 (clean)



> > Another thing of interest would be something like (both
> > msdosfs mounts):
> > 
> > # diff -rq ... ...
> > 
> > in order to see what files have distinctions on the
> > two media. A diff of the two config.txt files would be
> > relevant (no -q involvement).
> > 
> > 
On the USB3 disk config.txt contains
bob@www:/boot/msdos % more config.txt
init_uart_clock=3000000
enable_uart=1
kernel=u-boot.bin
kernel7=u-boot.bin
dtoverlay=mmc
enable_uart=1
uart_2ndstage=1
dtdebug=1

On the USB2 disk config.txt contains
root@www:/mnt # more config.txt
init_uart_clock=3000000
enable_uart=1
kernel=u-boot.bin
kernel7=u-boot.bin
dtoverlay=mmc

> >> I'm trying to build u-boot-rpi2 and will try to update the USB3
> >> disk with it once complete. 
Still working on that part 8-) 

> >> 
> >> The actual boot sequence using bootcode.bin is still a bit hazy:
> >> Is it microSD/dos -> USB/dos ->USB/freebsd ? 
> >> 
> > 
> > Based on the log file for success the ordering is
> > 
> > bootcode.bin from the microsd card

So bootcode.bin runs from the microSD, but config.txt and all else
is picked up from whichever USB disk is recognized first?

> > config.txt (also re-read multiple times later, not listed)
> > start.elf
> > fixup.dat
> > bcm2709-rpi-2-b.dtb
> > overlays/mmc.dtbo
> > cmdline.txt (if it exists)
> > u-boot.bin
> > efi/boot/bootarm.efi
> > efi/freebsd/loader.env
> > /boot/defaults/loader.conf
> > /boot/device.hints
> > /boot/loader.conf
> > /boot/loader.conf.local
> > /boot/boot/kernel
> > /boot/kernel/fi.lemon.ko
> > /boot/kernel/umodem.ko
> > FreeBSD world
> > 
> > 
> > However the failing one has the following involved
> > (I omit various lines):
> > 
> > . . .
> > Loading 'bcm2709-rpi-2-b.dtb' to 0x100 size 0x6879
> > Unknown dtparam 'pwr_led_gpio' - ignored
> > dterror: no symbols found
> > dtdebug: /__overrides__ node not found
> > Unknown dtparam 'uart0_clkrate' - ignored
> > dtdebug: Opened overlay file 'overlays/mmc.dtbo'
> > brfs: File read: /mfs/sd/overlays/mmc.dtbo
> > dterror: not a valid FDT - err -9
> > . . .
> > 
> > That seqeunce makes no mention of: "using platform 'bcm2835'"
> > and the like. An example is: "found override pwr_led_gpio".
> > 
> > Again, all this looks like tehre are two msdosfs involved and
> > the two are not the same by content.
> > 
> 
> Another possibility is that you have more in the microsd card's
> msdosfs than just bootcode.bin so that that microsd card might
> be the source of alternative files. (That makes up to 3 media
> that might be sources of files.)

That's correct. The microSD's msdos partition contains
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  52456 Oct 28 02:12 bootcode.bin
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  52456 Oct 22 16:00 bootcode.bin-e
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  52304 Nov 22  2019 bootcode.old
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel      0 Jan 16  2021 timeout
drwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel   4096 Jan 16  2021 unused

I'm expecting that only bootcode.bin and timeout are involved.

Thanks for looking!

bob prohaska