NVRAM access on Raspi

NVRAM access on Raspi

[Eckard Brauer]

Hello,

after I finally managed to get a Raspberry running some more than the
original install image, a few more problems arise.

When trying to auth/wrkey I only get an error that accessing the nvram
is to an unknown device. src auth/nvram shows me that only readnvram()
is called there, but the man page doesn't even mention arm systems, and
what's stated there seems to indicate that the correct location,
/dev/sdM0/nvram isn't even tried.

So is there a trick to work around that? Could I simply dd to the
device, if I knew the correct format (I still don't) or bind /dev/sdM0
to /dev/sdC0 or the like?

Another point: as I have an SD card larger than the decompressed SD
image, how is it possible to expand the HJFS (or at least be able to
use the rest as file system space)?

Thanks in advance && best regards
Eckard

Re: [9front] NVRAM access on Raspi

[ori]

> Hello,
> 
> after I finally managed to get a Raspberry running some more than the
> original install image, a few more problems arise.
> 
> When trying to auth/wrkey I only get an error that accessing the nvram
> is to an unknown device. src auth/nvram shows me that only readnvram()
> is called there, but the man page doesn't even mention arm systems, and
> what's stated there seems to indicate that the correct location,
> /dev/sdM0/nvram isn't even tried.
> 
> So is there a trick to work around that? Could I simply dd to the
> device, if I knew the correct format (I still don't) or bind /dev/sdM0
> to /dev/sdC0 or the like?
> 
> Another point: as I have an SD card larger than the decompressed SD
> image, how is it possible to expand the HJFS (or at least be able to
> use the rest as file system space)?
> 
> Thanks in advance && best regards
> Eckard

nvram=#S/sdM0/nvram in plan9.ini (or whatever the acutal
device is. You also need to do this with nvme.)

Re: [9front] NVRAM access on Raspi

[Eckard Brauer]

Am Mon, 10 Aug 2020 11:19:45 -0700 schrieb ori@eigenstate.org:

>  [...]
>
> nvram=#S/sdM0/nvram in plan9.ini (or whatever the acutal
> device is. You also need to do this with nvme.)
>

Thanks for the response.

Just tried that, seems not to work. Errors are unchanged.

Can I check it's taken from plan9.ini, as it also doesn't seem to like
my -a tcp!*!564 and nobootprompt= lines?

lc '#S/sdM0' does show the nvram entry, but I don't trust that so far,
as it also shows an 9fat entry, and even 9fs 9fat (taken from FQA to
acceess plan9.ini) doesn't work. I have to do 9fs dos, maybe as only
/dev/sdM0/fs and /dev/sdM0/dos are mentioned with a short name at boot
(or in /dev/kmesg). But OTOH xd /dev/sdM0/nvram shows me a disk block
of zeroed storage, so I'd expect the device entry to be correct.

Eckard

Re: [9front] NVRAM access on Raspi

[Eckard Brauer]

Am Mon, 10 Aug 2020 11:19:45 -0700
schrieb ori@eigenstate.org:

>  [...]
>
> nvram=#S/sdM0/nvram in plan9.ini (or whatever the acutal
> device is. You also need to do this with nvme.)
>

Aah, ok, I was damned stuck on "You also need to do this..." - setting
nvram=... for auth/wrkey seemed to work. Sorry for misunderstanding

Eckard

Re: [9front] NVRAM access on Raspi

[Ramakrishnan Muthukrishnan]

Hi Eckard.


> >
> > nvram=#S/sdM0/nvram in plan9.ini (or whatever the acutal
> > device is. You also need to do this with nvme.)
> >
> 
> Aah, ok, I was damned stuck on "You also need to do this..." - setting
> nvram=... for auth/wrkey seemed to work. Sorry for misunderstanding

I am trying to do exactly this on a Pi4. This is what I did.

I created a file plan9.ini in the dos partition.

9fs dos
acme /n/dos/plan9.ini

and added:
nvram=#S/sdM0/nvram

I did not understand the bit about nvme. What is the line you added for that? There is no nvme in /dev/sdM0. I rebooted and auth/wrkey is still complaining about nvram. There is no /env/nvram. How did you progress from this? 

Thanks
-- 
  Ramakrishnan

Pi 4 CPU server problems (Was Re: [9front] NVRAM access on Raspi)

[Ramakrishnan Muthukrishnan]

On Sat, Aug 15, 2020, at 8:38 PM, Ramakrishnan Muthukrishnan wrote:
>
> I am trying to do exactly this on a Pi4. This is what I did.
> 
> I created a file plan9.ini in the dos partition.
> 
> 9fs dos
> acme /n/dos/plan9.ini
> 
> and added:
> nvram=#S/sdM0/nvram
> 
> I did not understand the bit about nvme. What is the line you added for 
> that? There is no nvme in /dev/sdM0. I rebooted and auth/wrkey is still 
> complaining about nvram. There is no /env/nvram. How did you progress 
> from this? 

Answering my own query. It looks like on Pi kernels with 9front, plan9.ini does not seem to have any effect. I had to add nvram=#S/sdM0/nvram and service=cpu in the 9fat cmdline.txt file. auth/wrkey did work after that. (I could have just done nvram=/dev/sdM0/nvram as that would create the entry in /env, but took a while to sink in that environment variables are also files and I could just create one on the terminal..)

However, after a reboot, I am dropped into a shell:

cirno#

I can't seem to start rio ("rio -i riostart" says:

rio: can't open display: initdisplay: /dev/draw/new: '/dev/draw' file does not exist.

Indeed, that file does not exist. But I can drawterm into it (via drawterm compiled from 9front website): drawterm -h <ip address of pi> -u glenda

On the terminals, it shows:

aux/kbdfs: warning: can't open /dev/mousein: '/dev/mousein' './dev/mousein' file does not exist
tee: cannot open /dev/eia0: '/dev/eia0' mounted directory forbids creation

I wonder what this is saying. The mouse seem to work and I don't know what the eia device is.

Cheers
-- 
  Ramakrishnan

Re: Pi 4 CPU server problems (Was Re: [9front] NVRAM access on Raspi)

[Eckard Brauer]

Am Sat, 15 Aug 2020 21:17:59 +0530
schrieb "Ramakrishnan Muthukrishnan" <ram@rkrishnan.org>:

> It looks like on Pi kernels with 9front,
> plan9.ini does not seem to have any effect. I had to add
> nvram=#S/sdM0/nvram and service=cpu in the 9fat cmdline.txt file.
> auth/wrkey did work after that. (I could have just done
> nvram=/dev/sdM0/nvram as that would create the entry in /env, but
> took a while to sink in that environment variables are also files and
> I could just create one on the terminal..)
>
> However, after a reboot, I am dropped into a shell:
>
> cirno#
>
> I can't seem to start rio ("rio -i riostart" says:
>
> rio: can't open display: initdisplay: /dev/draw/new: '/dev/draw' file
> does not exist.
>
> Indeed, that file does not exist. But I can drawterm into it (via
> drawterm compiled from 9front website): drawterm -h <ip address of
> pi> -u glenda
>
> On the terminals, it shows:
>
> aux/kbdfs: warning: can't open /dev/mousein: '/dev/mousein'
> './dev/mousein' file does not exist tee: cannot open /dev/eia0:
> '/dev/eia0' mounted directory forbids creation
>
> I wonder what this is saying. The mouse seem to work and I don't know
> what the eia device is.

That's the exact point where I'm left at the moment -- just didn't take
the time to investigate it further.

Best regards,
Eckard

Re: [9front] NVRAM access on Raspi

[ori]

> 9fs dos
> acme /n/dos/plan9.ini
> 
> and added:
> nvram=#S/sdM0/nvram
> 
> I did not understand the bit about nvme. 

I shouldn't have mentioned it -- it confused things.

What I meant is that I don't have a raspberry pi, but
that I needed to do the same for my CPU server, which
runs off of an nvme drive.

Re: [9front] NVRAM access on Raspi

[Romano]

> Am Mon, 10 Aug 2020 11:19:45 -0700 schrieb ori@eigenstate.org:
>> nvram=#S/sdM0/nvram in plan9.ini (or whatever the acutal
>> device is. You also need to do this with nvme.)
> Just tried that, seems not to work. Errors are unchanged.
> 
> Can I check it's taken from plan9.ini, as it also doesn't seem to like
> my -a tcp!*!564 and nobootprompt= lines?
> 
> lc '#S/sdM0' does show the nvram entry, but I don't trust that so far,
> as it also shows an 9fat entry, and even 9fs 9fat (taken from FQA to
> acceess plan9.ini) doesn't work. I have to do 9fs dos, maybe as only
> /dev/sdM0/fs and /dev/sdM0/dos are mentioned with a short name at boot
> (or in /dev/kmesg). But OTOH xd /dev/sdM0/nvram shows me a disk block
> of zeroed storage, so I'd expect the device entry to be correct.

For the rpi4, there's no default in /sys/src/libauthsrv/readnvram.c
for arm64.  Updating to have an arm64 default as /dev/sdM0/nvram
allows for the pi3 image downloaded from 9front to use that
autoamatically without having to set nvram=/dev/sdM0/nvram before
running auth/wrkey, or set it in cmdline.txt.

cmdline.txt is where the plan9.ini values are taken from, but it all
needs to be *on* *one* *line*:

	console=0 bootargs='/dev/sdM0/fs -A -a tcp!*!564' ...

Also, there's no default arm64 when creating a profile--there should
be.  Update /sys/lib/newuser to include that.

(I have the above in my notes and have been meaning to put out a patch to update readnvram.c and newuser, but haven't.)

Also note that if you're going to be running rio on the rpi4 as a cpu
server instead of drawterm'ing in, you might run into another problem.
 From time to time when running rio, I get this on /dev/kprint:

	rio: setname faled: unknown id for draw image'

which I tracked down to /sys/src/cmd/rio/wind.c.  But I don't know the
cause, and it makes the entire graphics messed up: a window seemingly
is maximized to take the entire screen, but it actually does not, and
the re-paint of the windows has to be done by moving the different
windows around.  I have to slay rio, and restart to get the graphics
"fixed".

I hope the above helps.  An rpi4 is my primary 9front device for now,
so that's where I'm writing this from.