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Replacing /etc/init.d/autostart on Platinum systems

Contents

Scope

This procedure applies to EAMs and products containing EAMs. Compatible products are those without red crosses in the following table. If your product is not listed, please contact for advice.

  • DM24S3EAM
  • DM24S6EAM
DM24 in a metal cylindrical case
or
DM24SxEAM in a pali-case
  • 3TDE
3TDE
  • 3ESPCDE
3ESPCDE
  • 40TDE
40TDE
  • 5TCDE
5TCDE
  • EAM
EAM
  • Affinity
Affinity The Affinity requires a different procedure. Please contact for details.
  • DCM
EAM The DCM requires a different procedure. Please contact for details.

Introduction

This procedure is a response to two reports of a missing /etc/init.d/autostart file, which makes console access impossible.

This procedure relies on network access to an upgrade server. Please ensure that you have access to any relevant information about your network before proceding. In particular, if you do not use DHCPDHCP stands for Dynamic Host Configuration Pprotocol which is a widely used method to simplify the networking configuration of hosts on a LAN. It relies on a LAN having a DHCP server to allocate IP addresses and provide other relevant information such as default routes and the addresses of name-servers. For more information, please see Wikipedia's DHCP page. , you will need to know a valid IP address to use and the addresses of the network's default router and DNSThe Domain Name System is a world-wide directory that allows the identification of a networked computer using words - the Domain Name - instead of numbers - the I.P address. See Wikipedia's article on DNS for more information server.

Preparation

Physical access to the unit will be required.

Equipment required:

A suitable rsync/upgrade server is required. You therefore need either:

Booting

  1. Connect the console cable to the EAM and to the laptop/PC (the "recovery machine").

  2. Open the terminal emulator on the recovery machine and set it to 38400 baud, 8N1.

  3. Apply power to the EAM.

  4. Almost immediately, there should be some output. Approximately two screens (2×25 lines) of output will be displayed.

  5. There will be a series of yes or no questions. Answer no (by pressing the n key) to each question. Very old bootloaders have some minor differences, but the questions should be as below. If any question is accidentally answered yes, it is safe to simply remove and re-apply power, starting the process again.

    Boot-up procedure questions:

    Attempt rsync update ? (y/N) n Boot main via kexec ? (Y/n) n Boot main via switch_root ? (y/N) n Mount successful but no boot options available Attempt scripted NAND device reinstall ? (y/N) n

    At this point, you are now at a shell prompt:

    / #

    and can continue the process as below.

Replacing the missing file

This procedure is involved, and you may prefer to return the unit to Guralp support, but instructions are presented below for users willing to attempt the procedure.

Set up networking

The required configuration for the network depends on whether you use DHCP on your local network or not.

Set system date

The date must be set to something sensible because, otherwise, files will have incorrect modification times, which will cause various malfunctions. In the command below, replace:

The command should be entered as

date mmddHHMMYYYY

The data and time should be entered in UTC, regardless of your current time zone.

Copy the file on

In the example below it may be necessary to replace rsync.guralp.com with its IP address (currently 46.43.14.141) or with the name of your local rsync server. This step will download about 50Mb of image data.

rsync --verbose --times --perms --chmod=ugo+r,+X \ rsync://rsync.guralp.com/platinum-stable/CMG-DCM-mk4-eabi/etc/init.d/autostart /mnt/etc/init.d/

If this step fails at start-up (with error messages like temporary failure in name resolution, no route to host, etc.) then something is wrong with the networking configuration. If, instead, it fails part way through, or at the end, something is likely wrong with the unit and it will need to be returned to the factory.

Finalise

Now it is safe to power cycle the unit. You can also boot the new system without power cycling by running:

kexec -l /mnt/boot/zImage kexec -e

You can watch its boot progress on the console port. You should eventually have a login: prompt, at which point you can log in as root using your normal password.

It is strongly recommended that you now run a firmware upgrade to check for and replace any other missing files.

This completes the procedure.