WD MyCloud archlinux installation

This is for any ARMv7 device that we do not officially support.

WD MyCloud archlinux installation

Postby jeremypv » Mon Jan 12, 2015 12:43 am

Been searching on how to put archlinux on this baby for a few months and couldn't find one so I took the liberty to dedicate a weekend to putting this together.

First, the product: WD My Cloud
It's a Mindspeed Comcerto C2200, a dual core 1.2GHz armv7h

It runs on Debian wheezy, with a 3.2 kernel, and luckily WD releases the kernel source code as soon as a new firmware is availablehttp://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=904&sid=233&lang=en

Based on this, it has a serial connection, and configuration and kernel is loaded from a partition, and based on this, the whole detail is quite clear.

The disk has 8 partitions
Partition 1 & 2 = /dev/md0 raid 1 partition
Partition 3 = Swap
Partition 4 = all the data
Partition 5 & 6 = Kernel, and backup
Partition 7 & 8 = barebox configuration

Barebox boots the configuration located on partition 7 if it's corrupt, it will load partition 8, both environment configuration loads kernel from partition 5 and uses /dev/md0 as root file system.

If you don't want to touch barebox configuration, the easiest way to install archlinux is:
1. get the latest armv7h tarball, then extract it into /dev/md0
2. recompile the Western Digital released kernel source code and configure it to add Systemd support (links to gentoo kernel config) -- make sure that /lib/firmware/{class_c2000.elf,tmu_c2000.elf,util_c2000.elf} are linked, and all _bin/* files are copied to /lib folder on /dev/md0
3. dd the uImage to Partition 5 of the drive, and boot


$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '[jeremypv@wd0] ~ [2015-01-12 08:25:45] [1046:1]
$ uname -a
Linux wd0 3.2.26 #4 SMP Mon Jan 5 20:19:39 PHT 2015 wd-2.2-rel armv7l GNU/Linux
[jeremypv@wd0] ~ [2015-01-12 08:25:51] [1042:2]
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
Processor : ARMv7 Processor rev 1 (v7l)
processor : 0
BogoMIPS : 1299.25

processor : 1
BogoMIPS : 1292.69

Features : swp half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tls
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture: 7
CPU variant : 0x2
CPU part : 0xc09
CPU revision : 1

Hardware : Comcerto 2000 EVM
Revision : 0001
Serial : 0000000000000000
')

if you don't want the default partition (as I did), you need to fiddle with the serial console, and interrupt barebox as it was booting and change the /env/bin/init script to load the env from a different partition


one thing I couldn't make is that the default WD supplied firmware can get 80MBps/50MBps download/upload from the NAS, but for me I'm getting 30MBps maximum upload speed on the archlinux setup.

I can upload the uImage I made and a configuration that boots the kernel from /dev/sda2 and uses /dev/sda5 as root partition.
jeremypv
 
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Jan 05, 2015 12:45 am

Re: WD MyCloud archlinux installation

Postby trya » Sat Feb 21, 2015 4:34 am

Really interesting. I've been looking for a way to install Arch on my own MyCloud for quite some time now and I've just soldered a UART cable unto its motherboard in order to access to Barebox. Ideally, I would like to load a generic, precompiled uImage, but I don't know if patches from Western Digital are exclusive to this hardware... Did you try to load a generic kernel before loading the patched one? Also, I'd like to test if I can load the rootfs from USB, so that I would save myself tinkering with my archived data in the internal HDD.
trya
 
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Feb 21, 2015 4:18 am

Re: WD MyCloud archlinux installation

Postby jeremypv » Tue Feb 24, 2015 5:47 am

I tried a generic kernel (from the armv7h tarball) and it just did a kernel panic somewhere -- haven't investigated enough on this since it just took 20minutes to compile the WD supplied kernel and it needs an additional module (pfe) for the ethernet so I just went to that route.

As for the USB rootfs, yes it can be done although the barebox config and kernel will be coming from the HD.
jeremypv
 
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Jan 05, 2015 12:45 am


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