The Syncing Apple An Exploration of Technology and Devices

Recovering from a Firmware Flash

So with new firmware images coming from Nokia (which is a good thing) you have to start to deal with picking up the pieces after a flash. The built in control panel 'Backup' does a questionable job - while it does seem to work, it also seems to have made my 770 totally wonky, and I've been better off not using it after re-flashing 51.

So what to do?

One solution is again the ever-maturing Synchronisation and backup using rsync & make by Andrew Flegg at Bleb- be sure and read his solution which is clearly outlined at his site.

Meanwhile, I've put together some very simple scripts which can help bootstrap your 770 right after a firmware flash.

I'm assuming that you have a MMC card, and you'll keep these scripts on the card along with your 3rd party packages- so that they are available right after a flash.

You'll have to install xterm using the 770 GUI and then run these scripts just one time. One for user and one for root.

As you can see, I keep the public RSA keys from my main desktop computers also on the MMC card, so that I can ssh right in after running these scripts. These scripts are very simple but hopefully they can save you some time after your next flash.

User script:

#!/bin/sh
echo 'export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/var/lib/install/usr/lib' >> /home/user/.profile
echo 'export PATH=$PATH:/var/lib/install/usr/bin:/var/lib/install/usr/sbin' >> /home/user/.profile
echo 'set nocompatible' >> /home/user/.vimrc

mkdir /home/user/.ssh
cat /media/mmc1/keys/id_rsa_mac >> /home/user/.ssh/authorized_keys
cat /media/mmc1/keys/id_rsa_XP >> /home/user/.ssh/authorized_keys
chmod 400 /home/user/.ssh/authorized_keys
chmod 700 /home/user/.ssh

Root script:

#!/bin/sh
echo 'export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/var/lib/install/usr/lib' >> /root/.profile
echo 'export PATH=$PATH:/var/lib/install/usr/bin:/var/lib/install/usr/sbin' >> /root/.profile
echo 'set nocompatible' >> /root/.vimrc
app-installer-tool install /media/mmc1/Installers/load-plugin_0.2.4-1_arm.deb
app-installer-tool install /media/mmc1/Installers/dropbear-client_0.46-2_arm.deb
app-installer-tool install /media/mmc1/Installers/dropbear-key_0.46-2_arm.deb
app-installer-tool install /media/mmc1/Installers/dropbear-server_0.46-2_arm.deb
app-installer-tool install /media/mmc1/Installers/vim-tiny_5.6.070-1.1_all.deb
app-installer-tool install /media/mmc1/Installers/fbreader-maemo_0.7.1b-1_arm.deb

ln -s /var/lib/install/etc/init.d/dropbear-server /etc/rc2.d/S20dropbear-server

Note: this does not address backing up any data... see Andrew's solution for that. At this point I really don't keep anything on the 770 that I can't reload after a flash from my Macintosh. But if you are keeping data on it, make sure to take some action and back it up before you flash.

What Happened in .51?

Issues with 51

Ok, since I've flashed 51 onto my 770, all hell has broken loose. So far I've had these issues:

• News Reader won't load (and it constantly refreshes)
• Sporadic reboots
• Out of Memory errors (I never had them before)
• Using swapon causes immediate out of memory and or reboot

I had to finally re-flash '51 again, and this time I didn't restore by data (which I had backed-up using the built in control utility) back onto the 770. It seems more stable now, except for the issues using swap. I don't mind resetting up my stuff by hand- my backup data must have corrupted something.

People I've talked with talk about initial reboots, but then 'things calm down over time' which seems impossible to me- how can things calm down? They should stay the same at least.

Does anyone have any solid information on what has changed in this release?

Gainroot and Root

Meanwhile, I've been banging my head with gainroot, and why it wouldn't read the .profile of the root user in /root... nothing was working, till I finally realized that perhaps this wasn't some new shell I was in.. and sure enough, invoking su - while in 'gainroot' put me into a proper root shell with a working environment. See below for the difference in environments...

~ $ sudo gainroot
Root shell enabled

BusyBox v1.00 (Debian 2:20041102-11) Built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

/home/user # env
SUDO_GID=29999
USER=root
HOME=/home/user
SUDO_UID=29999
LOGNAME=root
MALLOC_MMAP_THRESHOLD_=32768
TERM=xterm-color
PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin
SUDO_COMMAND=/usr/sbin/gainroot
SHELL=/bin/sh
SUDO_USER=user
MALLOC_TRIM_THRESHOLD_=4096
PWD=/home/user

Now with a proper root shell:

/home/user # su -

BusyBox v1.00 (Debian 2:20041102-11) Built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

Nokia770-51:~# env
USER=root
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=:/var/lib/install/usr/lib:/var/lib/install/usr/lib
HOME=/root
PS1=\h:\w\$
LOGNAME=root
MALLOC_MMAP_THRESHOLD_=32768
TERM=xterm-color
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:
/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin/X11:/var/lib/install/usr/bin:
/var/lib/install/usr/sbin
SHELL=/bin/sh
MALLOC_TRIM_THRESHOLD_=4096
PWD=/root

Nokia770-51:~# 

That's one small consolation.