Zyxel Armor Z2 (NBG6817) - 3GB extroot on 19.07

Installing and Using OpenWrt
#1

Hi everyone,
so after a day of tinkering, building and compiling from source code I have finally managed to mount the mmcblk0p10 3GB partition as an overlay extroot partition in OpenWRT 19.07-snapshot.

I have read the forum, specifically this thread , they were talking about adding kmod-fs-ext4, block-mount, blockd packages to the build, it was supposed to solve the problem, when even after going through the official extroot tutorial, the partition wasn't mounted, logs saying fstools can't find fstab file. I am not sure if this solves the issue on 18.06, but it certainly doesn't work on 19.07.

What solved the issue was using patch from this bug report. I wasn't able to find much info about it, so I had to find which file to patch, it is located here: /openwrt/build_dir/target-arm_cortex-a15+neon-vfpv4_musl_eabi/fstools... (the fstools folder can have different version in the name). I couldn't find any mention about it in the main thread which is now locked, so I hope it's okay to post this in the new one.
If anyone wants to build it themselves, it is ok to use the official extroot tutorial , but you have to mount the old overlay to /tmp/overlay, not /rwm as the tutorial says.

My question is.. is there any chance this patch will be pulled into the 19.07 official branch, so in the future I can use the pre-built images to flash new versions? Even though I had a lot of "fun" compiling my build, it is rather time consuming.

Also if anyone is interested, I can provide the final sysupgrade image from the current 19.07-snapshot (as of today).

OpenWrt 19.07.0 first release candidate
#2

The thread you're quoting was not about extroot, it was exclusively about fixing the problem that the normal (non-extroot) overlay[0] couldn't be mounted on the release image[1]. This particular issue has been fixed for 18.06.0 and later (but was -and still is- broken in 17.01.x).

Your quest for using the bu2 (/dev/mmcblk0p10) partition as on-device extroot, respectively the bugreport/ patch you're referencing, may[2] have uncovered a different issue. In order to get this fixed for 19.07.0, the referenced patch (or a revised version thereof) would have to be merged into master (snapshots) first, before it would be eligible for backporting (cherry-picking) to the openwrt-18.06 branch, so getting it fixed in master should be your primary concern.

On a very personal note, I wonder why you're looking for using bu2 as extroot in the first place? The nbg6817 offers you roughly 60 MB[3] for your overlay on a default release image, which is quite a bit for running OpenWrt[4]. If your intent would be more towards using bu2 for data storage, rather than runtime-installed binary packages, it would probably be a better approach to just mount it as normal (non-extroot) data partition[5].

--
[0] the normal extroot is behind the rootfs, on the same (sub-split) partition as the rootfs itself, namely (part of-) /dev/mmcblk0p5 or /dev/mmcblk0p8.
[1] it was lacking ext4 kernel modules, but the overlay is using an ext4 filesystem - which weren't preinstalled by default in the 17.01.x release images.
[2] I'm careful in declaring it as "may", as it's not quite clear to me if the blockd infrastructure is supposed to be safe to use under pre-init circumstances, this would be something to involve the blockd maintainers in for that bugreport.
[3] the openwrt-19.07 rootfs is roughly 3.6 MB in size at the moment, so 64 MB - 3.6 MB - $some_padding = ~60 MB free space. On my personal (quite a bit larger) builds I still have ~50.2 MB free space on my overlay.
[4] I'm not saying that it would be impossible to fill it up with OpenWrt packages (installed at runtime via opkg), but you do have quite some leeway before that constraint becomes an issue.
[5] e.g. /dev/mmcblk0p10 3.1G 21.4M 2.9G 1% /srv, which I am using to service profiles and firmware files for my SIP phones via tftp(d) from /srv/tftp/.

#3

Thanks for the response and clarification. I know that the thread I was quoting wasn't about extroot, but I found anyone metioned it there aswell, specifically here, that's why I was pointing to that one.

You are right about the space, I might be a bit paranoid about running out of space because it happened to me multiple times with the TP-Link Archer C7 (but that one had only 16MiB of flash) and I thought since it's already there and I play with it quite a lot, why not have all the space available, but I agree that only reason to have it as root would be for opkg packages, otherwise it could be mounted as separate partition.

I am not sure how this procedure with patches, backporting and pull requests works for OpenWrt git, so I thought I would just post it here in case somebody wanted to do the same (even if out of curiosity or having some other purpose for that)

1 Like
#4

Hi.
How can i use mmcblk0p10 as extroot? On this partition i have near 4Gb and there is enough for me.
I want to try to use docker on this router for my home pet projects. I need > 150mb on disk only for install docker package from this article.

I was make all settings from this article and have got this error on every boot of my device:
logread | sed -n -e "/- preinit -/,/- init -/p"
Fri Nov 1 00:31:41 2019 user.info kernel: [ 9.905354] block: attempting to load /etc/config/fstab
Fri Nov 1 00:31:41 2019 user.err kernel: [ 9.905569] block: unable to load configuration (fstab: Entry not found)
Fri Nov 1 00:31:41 2019 user.err kernel: [ 9.909456] block: no usable configuration
Fri Nov 1 00:31:41 2019 user.info kernel: [ 9.917423] mount_root: switching to ext4 overlay

I can mount this partition by hand using this command: mount /dev/mmcblk0p10 /overlay
and it works, but only until next reboot.

#5

Do not ruin the non-removable eMMC flash with continuous writes coming from docker, invest a fiver into a USB3 stick which can be replaced if broken.

2 Likes
#6

I want use emmc only for place system packages. All containers i will place on external usb hdd.

#7

Now i've tried to mount extroot on usb-hdd and got some error:

...
Fri Nov 1 19:00:26 2019 user.info kernel: [ 8.404336] kmodloader: done loading kernel modules from /tmp/overlay/upper/etc/modules-boot.d/* 
...
Fri Nov  1 19:00:26 2019 user.info kernel: [    9.836286] block: attempting to load /etc/config/fstab
Fri Nov  1 19:00:26 2019 user.err kernel: [    9.836509] block: unable to load configuration (fstab: Entry not found)
Fri Nov  1 19:00:26 2019 user.err kernel: [    9.840394] block: no usable configuration
Fri Nov  1 19:00:26 2019 user.info kernel: [    9.848129] mount_root: switching to ext4 overlay
...

All files on boot load from /tmp/overlay/upper/etc/, but the system searches fstab file in /etc/config/ and doesn't find it.

I found a bag report with similar problem: https://bugs.openwrt.org/index.php?do=details&task_id=2231
In this link I found 3 diff path-files. How can i apply them to my router firmware for testing?

#8

Hi, this is exactly what I said in this original post, I even posted the bug report, and yes, you need to apply this patch (it's actually just one file - all of them have the same contents). What you need to do is to clone the openwrt github repository, run the setup to download all necesary files, then apply the patch and then use the installer to build the firmware for your specific device, then compile it. If you trust me enough not to include any malicious code to the firmware :smiling_imp: I can provide you with my compiled firmware which has this working from a commit about a month old of 19.07

EDIT: btw, if you wanna compile it yourself, I made this tutorial on my personal wiki (mainly for my personal use, so no elaborate explanations): https://wiki.intossh.net/index.php?title=ZyXEL_Armor_Z2_(NBG6817)

2 Likes
#9

Thank you for this instruction! I will try to build my own image tomorrow and apply this patch.

Can you make pull request with this fix to https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt.git
I think - it will be great if request approved to master branch, added to the next stable release of openwrt and backported to current. There is instruction to make it: https://openwrt.org/submitting-patches

About article in you wiki: will be great if you use diff config file, not the full:
https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-developer/build-system/use-buildsystem
./scripts/diffconfig.sh > diffconfig
It 's shorter, easy to read and could be relevant much longer

#11

I discussed it with @slh and he pointed out that for most people those 60MiB of storage would be enough to install packages, and only few people would benefit the increased storage, that's why I made the tutorial for myself and didn't bother to make the pull request, but I guess the patch could still be applied and then people could decide whether they want to make it available using extroot or not.

You are right, I thought about it, but since I already made the changes to the file without saving the original I was just too lazy and a bit busy to clone a fresh copy and make the diff, since it was just for my use :grin: But I guess I will do it with the next upgrade.

2 Likes
#13

On Zyxel Armor Z2 (NBG6817) extroot doesn't work without this patch:
https://patchwork.ozlabs.org/patch/1082599/
https://bugs.openwrt.org/index.php?do=details&task_id=2231

Is there a developer of openwrt? Please add this patch to master! :slight_smile:

InToSSH, you do not need kmod-fs-autofs4, kmod-fs-ext4, kmod-fs-f2fs, kmod-lib-crc32 and mount /dev/loop0 to /tmp/overlay.
Only this packages are needed: block-mount, blockd and kmod-usb-storage.

There is my own instruction:

  1. clone src and change dir to it: git clone https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt.git ~/source && cd ~/source

  2. make directory for patch: mkdir ./package/system/fstools/patches

  3. write patch content from https://patchwork.ozlabs.org/patch/1082599/ to ./package/system/fstools/patches/001-add_propper_rootfs_and_fstab_discovery_on_a_block_device_partitions.patch

  4. build image:
    ./scripts/feeds update -a
    ./scripts/feeds install -a
    export MAKEFLAGS=-j5
    make menuconfig
    =============================================================
    system ⇒ Qualcomm Atheros IPQ806X y
    Target Profile ⇒ Zyxel NBG6817 y
    Base system ⇒
    ⇒ block-mount y (for extroot on mmcblk0p10)
    ⇒ blockd y (for extroot on mmcblk0p10)
    Kernel modules ⇒ USB Support ⇒ kmod-usb-storage y (for usb-hdd support)
    LuCI ⇒
    ⇒ Collections ⇒ luci y
    ⇒ Applications ⇒ luci-app-advanced-reboot y
    =============================================================
    make defconfig
    make download
    ionice -c 3 nice -n19 make

results you can find in:
./bin/targets/ipq806x/generic/

  1. flash this firmware to router
    scp ./bin/targets/ipq806x/generic/openwrt-ipq806x-zyxel_nbg6817-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin root@openwrt:/tmp
    ssh root@openwrt
    sysupgrade -v /tmp/openwrt-ipq806x-zyxel_nbg6817-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

  2. set extroot:
    ssh root@openwrt
    DEVICE="$(awk -e '/\s/overlay\s/{print $1}' /etc/mtab)"
    uci -q delete fstab.rwm
    uci set fstab.rwm="mount"
    uci set fstab.rwm.device="${DEVICE}"
    uci set fstab.rwm.target="/rwm"
    uci set fstab.rwm.enabled="1"
    uci commit fstab

DEVICE="/dev/mmcblk0p10" // or if you want to use usb-hdd: DEVICE="/dev/sda1"
mkfs.ext4 -F "${DEVICE}" // Careful, formats the disk without asking for confirmation!
eval $(block info "${DEVICE}" | grep -o -e "UUID=\S*")
uci -q delete fstab.overlay
uci set fstab.overlay="mount"
uci set fstab.overlay.uuid="${UUID}"
uci set fstab.overlay.target="/overlay"
uci set fstab.overlay.enabled="1"
uci commit fstab

mount "${DEVICE}" /mnt
cp -a -f /overlay/. /mnt
umount /mnt

reboot

How to edit system flash size in build for zyxel nbg6817
#14

`

Hello!

This is my first message here and the topic is reason for signing up, so please don't hate me))

Did I get it right that after new OpenWRT version released(we all know it will have not this patch) I should repeat the list BEFORE flashing this newer version? Does this mean that OEM firmware applied upon patched firmware will brick the router?

#16

As far i understand (i could be wrong) for update from old version of openwrt to new you just need to flash fresh sysupgrade.bin, than mount by hand extroot and delete .flashextroot-uuid on it.
A few days ago i compile fresh firmware (with this patch) version from master and install it:

scp ./openwrt-ipq806x-generic-zyxel_nbg6817-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin root@openwrt:/tmp
ssh root@192.168.1.1
sysupgrade -v /tmp/openwrt-ipq806x-generic-zyxel_nbg6817-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

than mounted extroot and removed marker:

ssh root@192.168.1.1
mkdir /mnt/mmcblk0p10
mount /dev/mmcblk0p10 /mnt/mmcblk0p10
rm /mnt/mmcblk0p10/etc/.extroot-uuid
umount /mnt/mmcblk0p10
rm -r rm /mnt/mmcblk0p10
reboot

after that my extroot started work again.
P.s. If anyone is interested - i maked a pull request on github with that patch.

#17
All this patch situation is like

"We buy it for you now but leave it till your birthday"

1 Like
#18

The provider of this router model says that it does not support the L2TP connection type. Do I understand correctly that this is a software problem?

Will the Zyxel Armor Z2 Router have an L2TP connection type in OpenWrt?

I can not find this information on the Internet. Can someone tell me?

#19
Here is filtering for "l2tp"

l2tp
l2tp955×820 52.5 KB

Could one set the connection using those packages? I have nowhere to check it, sorry.

#20

I am considering buying this router instead of asus rt-n18u and want to be sure that the router with OpenWrt will work with any provider.

#21

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