[How-To] Kirkwood USB rescue rootfs (no replies)

How to create and boot with a USB rescue rootfs for Kirkwood boxes with bodhi's u-boot 2017.07-kirkwood-tld-1 already installed.

1. Create a brand new USB rootfs using the instruction in the kernel/rootfs release thread. At the time of this writing, the latest rootfs is Debian-5.13.6-kirkwood-tld-1-rootfs-bodhi.tar.bz2 (26 Sept 2021).

2. Mount this USB rootfs on another Linux box. Assuming it is mounted at /media/sdb1. You'll need to become root before doing the following.

3. Create the uEnv.txt

cd /media/sdb1/boot
touch uEnv.txt

And then edit this uEnv.txt file to have the following envs (copy/paste the envs in):

bootdev=usb
device=0:1
devices=usb
set_bootargs=setenv bootargs console=ttyS0,115200 root=LABEL=usb_rootfs rootdelay=10 $mtdparts $custom_params

4. Change the partition label of this USB rootfs.

Warning: make sure that the USB rootfs is actually /dev/sdb1. This could mess up the current Linux host, if it is not /dev/sdb1. Use the mount command to double check before changing label.

e2label /dev/sdb1 usb_rootfs

And then

sync
umount /media/sdb1

Bring the USB rootfs back to your Kirkwood box and cold start.

Wait for about 30 seconds and look for the box dynamic IP in the network (either in the router page, or using network scanning tool such as Linux nmap or IOS Fing). Or just ping the hostname

ping debian.local

Since this is a brand new rootfs, you can login with root/root credentials.