{"id":461,"date":"2013-09-26T14:26:06","date_gmt":"2013-09-26T12:26:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.schmoigl-online.de\/?p=461"},"modified":"2017-04-15T22:20:59","modified_gmt":"2017-04-15T20:20:59","slug":"technical-details-on-excitos-bubba3-nas-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.schmoigl-online.de\/?p=461","title":{"rendered":"Technical Details on Excito&#8217;s Bubba3 NAS System"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Having now worked a bit with the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.excito.com\">Bubba3 Server by Excito<\/a> I came across several facts that I would like to provide in a summarized form again to the public world:<!--more--><\/p>\n<h4>General<\/h4>\n<p>Internally, the Bubba3 server is an <strong>ARMEL<\/strong> architecture (byte-order little endian) based on the <strong>ORION<\/strong> plattform making use of the <strong>KIRKWOOD<\/strong> architecture. Best this corresponds to the following GNU Arch string when setting up cross-toolchains: <strong>arm-unknown-linux-gnueabi<\/strong>. Apparently, there is also an <a href=\"http:\/\/download.excito.net\/kernel\/Excito_B3\/arm-toolchain-4.3.4-32bit.tar.bz2\">ARM cross toolchain package available at Excito&#8217;s FTP server<\/a> &#8212; though I did not test it out yet. Generally speaking, the developers do not recommend to make use of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Toolchain\">cross-toolchain<\/a>s, but recommend to <a href=\"http:\/\/forum.excito.net\/viewtopic.php?f=7&#038;t=851&#038;start=0\">use the box&#8217; native support for development<\/a>.<br \/>\nAdditionally technical information also be found at:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A <a href=\"http:\/\/wiki.excito.com\/w\/index.php?title=About_Bubba\">wiki post<\/a> on the general layout of the Bubba3 concept<\/li>\n<li>The <a href=\"http:\/\/download.excito.net\/web\/B3\/B3%20data%20sheet.pdf\">datasheet<\/a> published by Excito<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Hardware<\/h3>\n<h4>CPU<\/h4>\n<p>The processor reports the following details via <code>\/proc\/cpuinfo<\/code> under a Linux kernel 2.6.38:<\/p>\n<pre>\r\nProcessor\t: Feroceon 88FR131 rev 1 (v5l)\r\nBogoMIPS\t: 1199.30\r\nFeatures\t: swp half thumb fastmult edsp \r\nCPU implementer\t: 0x56\r\nCPU architecture: 5TE\r\nCPU variant\t: 0x2\r\nCPU part\t: 0x131\r\nCPU revision\t: 1\r\n\r\nHardware\t: BUBBA3 Kirkwood based miniserver\r\nRevision\t: 0000\r\nSerial\t\t: 0000000000000000\r\n<\/pre>\n<p>and thus is a <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/ARM9E\">ARMV5TE<\/a> running around 1,2 GHz. Similar processors thus are ARM946E-S, ARM966E-S, ARM968E-S, ARM996HS, ARM926EJ-S<\/p>\n<h4>Wifi card<\/h4>\n<p>The optional WiFi card connected to the motherboard is a Mini-PCI-X card. Based on <a href=\"http:\/\/forum.excito.net\/viewtopic.php?f=7&#038;t=2918\">this post on the Excito Forum<\/a>, it&#8217;s a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.unex.com.tw\/product\/dnxa-92\">Unex DXNA-92<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h4>Network\/LAN card<\/h4>\n<p>When starting up the following network drivers for the LAN cards are being booted:<\/p>\n<pre>\r\nmv643xx_eth: MV-643xx 10\/100\/1000 ethernet driver version 1.4\r\nmv643xx_eth_port mv643xx_eth_port.0: eth0: port 0 with MAC address [...]\r\n<\/pre>\n<p>Based on the specification the internal LAN cards may go up to 1 GBit\/s of speed.<\/p>\n<h4>Special Hardware<\/h4>\n<p>The LED on the front side of the box is a special development. Thus, additional patches\/drivers are necessary in the Linux kernel to allow accessing them. Details on this can also be found at <a href=\"http:\/\/wiki.excito.org\/wiki\/index.php?title=User:Asl:mainline-kernel_Mainline_kernel_patchs&#038;oldid=917\">this wiki post<\/a>. <\/p>\n<h4>Layout of the Flash Memory<\/h4>\n<p>The Flash Memory partitions have the following layout:<\/p>\n<pre>\r\nroot@b3:\/proc# cat \/proc\/mtd\r\ndev:    size   erasesize  name\r\nmtd0: 000c0000 00010000 \"u-boot\"\r\nmtd1: 00020000 00010000 \"env\"\r\nmtd2: 00120000 00010000 \"data\"\r\n<\/pre>\n<p>Though being interesting concerning the uboot information, <a href=\"http:\/\/wiki.excito.org\/wiki\/index.php\/Install_Bubba_on_RAID-1_volumes\">this article on enabling a Bubba 2 server box for making also the system partition RAID-1-enabled<\/a> does <b>not<\/b> fit for the Bubba 3. However, there is <a href=\"http:\/\/forum.excito.net\/viewtopic.php?p=17601\">another forum post<\/a> available on a similar topic which seems to be the basis for the Wiki article mentioned just a sentence before. The correct <code>\/etc\/fw_env.config<\/code> file seems to be:<\/p>\n<pre>\r\n# MTD definitrion for Bubba|3\r\n# MTD device name       Device offset   Env. size       Flash sector size       Number of sectors\r\n\/dev\/mtd1\t\t0x000000\t0x010000\t0x010000 \r\n<\/pre>\n<h4>UBoot content<\/h4>\n<p>With the <code>fw_env.config<\/code> file above, you can read the uboot configuration parameters which are:<\/p>\n<pre>\r\nroot@b3:\/proc# fw_printenv\r\nbootdelay=1\r\nbaudrate=115200\r\npreboot=\r\nloadaddr=0x800000\r\nconsole=ttyS0\r\nbootfile=uImage\r\nflashfile=u-boot.kwb\r\ninstallfile=install.itb\r\nsetdiskargs=setenv bootargs root=$diskdev console=$console,$baudrate serial=${serial#} key=$key button=$button\r\nsetbootargs=setenv bootargs root=$rootdev rw console=$console,$baudrate $othbootargs\r\nusbbootroot=\/dev\/sda1\r\nusbbootdev=usb 0:1\r\nusbboot=usb start; setenv diskdev $usbbootroot; run setdiskargs; ext2load $usbbootdev $loadaddr \/boot\/$bootfile; bootm\r\nusbflashdev=usb 0:1\r\nusbflash=fatload $usbflashdev $loadaddr \/install\/$flashfile && sf probe 0:0 && sf erase 0 80000; sf write $loadaddr 0 $filesize\r\nsatadev=sata 0:1\r\nsataroot=\/dev\/sda1\r\nsataboot=setenv diskdev $sataroot; run setdiskargs; ext2load $satadev $loadaddr \/boot\/$bootfile; bootm\r\nusbinstallroot=\/dev\/ram0\r\nusbinstalldev=usb 0:1\r\nusbinstall=usb start; setenv diskdev $usbinstallroot; run setdiskargs; fatload $usbinstalldev $loadaddr \/install\/$installfile; bootm\r\nbootalt1=run sataboot || reset\r\nbootalt2=run usbinstall || run usbflash || run sataboot || reset\r\nstdin=serial\r\nstdout=serial\r\nstderr=serial\r\nbutton=0\r\nbootcmd=run sataboot || reset\r\nethact=egiga0\r\nethaddr=00:22:02:xx:yy:zz\r\neth1addr=00:22:02:xx:yy:aa\r\nserial#=1234\r\nkey=xyzabc1234567890123456789=\r\n<\/pre>\n<p>The manual of uboot can be <a href=\"http:\/\/www.denx.de\/wiki\/DULG\/WebHome\">found at DENX<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3>Software<\/h3>\n<h4>Linux Distribution<\/h4>\n<p>The Bubba3 server makes use of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.debian.org\">Debian<\/a> Release Squeeze (armel architecture). Standard packages fit also to the Bubba3 server. Excito also provides an additional Debian repository available at <code>http:\/\/b3.update.excito.org<\/code>. The Debian suite <code>squeeze<\/code>  matches to the Bubba3 internal suite name <code>elvin<\/code>.<\/p>\n<h4>Linux Kernel<\/h4>\n<p>As the Bubba3 server has some special hardware, additional drivers are required to be available with the kernel. The source code of these were available via <a href=\"http:\/\/download.excito.net\/kernel\/Excito_B3\/\">HTTP download from an Excito Download server<\/a> (see also <a href=\"http:\/\/wiki.excito.org\/wiki\/index.php\/Make_Strongswan_start_on_a_b3\">this wiki post<\/a> for the source of this link). In the meantime it appears that there is a GIT repository available at <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/Excito\/kernel\">GitHub<\/a>. Apparently that one is used for newer kernel versions than 2.6.38.<\/p>\n<p>Please remember that you do not need to get the source via the git repository if you just want to compile the Bubba3 kernel yourself. In most cases it is easier (and even more up-to-date) if you fetch the source code of your kernel that you are running on the Bubba3 server via<\/p>\n<pre>\r\n# apt-get source bubba3-kernel\r\n<\/pre>\n<p>For this, please note that you need the apt repository with the source code active in your <code>source.list<\/code> file. The corresponding apt line is:<\/p>\n<pre>\r\ndeb-src http:\/\/b3.update.excito.org\/ elvin main\r\n<\/pre>\n<h4>Default IP-Address<\/h4>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/forum.excito.net\/viewtopic.php?f=9&#038;t=2585\">By default the IP address<\/a> of the Bubba3 box is 192.168.10.1 reachable via the LAN interface. <\/p>\n<h4>Standard HDD layout<\/h4>\n<p>A Bubba 3 box with a pre-shipped 500 GB disk uses a GPT disk layout and has the following details based on parted:<\/p>\n<pre>\r\n(parted) unit s\r\n(parted) print                                                            \r\nModel: ATA WDC WD5000AADS-0 (scsi)\r\nDisk \/dev\/sda: 976773168s\r\nSector size (logical\/physical): 512B\/512B\r\nPartition Table: gpt\r\n\r\nNumber  Start       End         Size        File system     Name  Flags\r\n 1      34s         20971520s   20971487s   ext3            root\r\n 2      20973568s   974675967s  953702400s                  home  lvm\r\n 3      974675968s  976773119s  2097152s    linux-swap(v1)  swap\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n<p>This especially means that root partition is on ext3, and the \/home mount point is running via lvm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A summary of the hardware details available in the Bubba 3 NAS system by Excito.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bubba3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.schmoigl-online.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.schmoigl-online.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.schmoigl-online.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.schmoigl-online.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.schmoigl-online.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=461"}],"version-history":[{"count":45,"href":"http:\/\/blog.schmoigl-online.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1012,"href":"http:\/\/blog.schmoigl-online.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions\/1012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.schmoigl-online.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.schmoigl-online.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.schmoigl-online.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}