TS-4100 MicroSD Backup/restore
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Click to download the latest tarball. |
These instructions assume an SD card with one partition. Most SD cards ship this way by default, but if there are modified partitions, a utility such as 'gparted' or 'fdisk' may be needed to remove the existing partition table and recreate it with a single partition.
| Note: | That the partition table must be "MBR" or "msdos", as the "GPT" partition table format is NOT supported by U-Boot. |
Using other OSs
At this time, we're unable to provide assistance with writing SD cards for our products from non-Linux based operating systems. We acknowledge however, that there are methods to write images and files from a variety of difference operating systems. If a native installation of Linux is unavailable, we recommend using a Virtual Machine. See the Getting Started section for links to common virtualization software and Linux installation.
Using a Linux workstation
An SD card can be written to allow it to be bootable. Download the above file and write this from a Linux workstation using the information below. A USB SD adapter can be used to access the card; or if the workstation supports direct connection of SD cards, that can be used instead. Once inserted in to the workstation, it is necessary to discover which /dev/ device corresponds with the inserted SD card before the image can be written.
Option 1: using 'lsblk'
Newer distributions include a utility called 'lsblk' which allows simple identification of the intended card.
| Note: | This command may need to be run as the root user: |
$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sdY 8:0 0 400G 0 disk
├─sdY1 8:1 0 398G 0 part /
├─sdY2 8:2 0 1K 0 part
└─sdY5 8:5 0 2G 0 part [SWAP]
sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom
sdX 8:32 1 3.9G 0 disk
├─sdX1 8:33 1 7.9M 0 part
├─sdX2 8:34 1 2M 0 part
├─sdX3 8:35 1 2M 0 part
└─sdX4 8:36 1 3.8G 0 part
In this case the, SD card is 4GB, so sdX is the target device and already contains 4 partitions. Note that sdX is not a real device, it could be sda, sdb, mmcblk0, etc. Technologic Systems is not responsible for any damages cause by using the improper device node for imaging an SD card. The instructions below to write to the device will destroy the partition table and any existing data!
Option 2: Using 'dmesg'
After plugging in the device, the 'dmesg' command can be used to list recent kernel events. When inserting a USB adapter, the last few lines of 'dmesg' output will be similar to the following (note that this command may need to be run as the root user):
$ dmesg
...
scsi 54:0:0:0: Direct-Access Generic Storage Device 0.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
sd 54:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
sd 54:0:0:0: [sdX] 3862528 512-byte logical blocks: (3.97 GB/3.84 GiB)
...
In this case, sdX is shown as a 3.97GB card with a single partition. Note that sdX is not a real device, it could be sda, sdb, mmcblk0, etc. Technologic Systems is not responsible for any damages cause by using the improper device node for imaging an SD card. The instructions below to write to the device will destroy the partition table and any existing data!
Running these commands will write the SD card to our default latest image.
# Verify nothing else has the disk mounted with 'mount'
# If partitions are mounted automatically, they can be unmounted with
sudo umount /dev/sdX1
sudo mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdX1
sudo mkdir /mnt/sd
sudo mount /dev/sdX1 /mnt/sd/
wget https://files.embeddedTS.com/ts-socket-macrocontrollers/ts-4100-linux/distributions/debian/ts4100-armhf-stretch-latest.tar.xz
sudo tar -xJf ts4100-armhf-stretch-latest.tar.xz -C /mnt/sd
sudo umount /mnt/sd
sync
| Note: | The ext4 filesystem can be used instead of ext3, but it may require additional options. U-Boot does not support the 64bit addressing added as the default behavior in recent revisions of mkfs.ext4. If using e2fsprogs 1.43 or newer, the options "-O ^64bit,^metadata_csum" must be used with ext4 for proper compatibility. Older versions of e2fsprogs do not need these options passed nor are they needed for ext3. |
After the image is written, the files can all be verified on disk against the original files created in the tarball. Reinsert the disk to verify any block cache is gone, then run the following:
mount /dev/sdX1 /mnt/sd
cd /mnt/sd/
sudo md5sum --quiet -c md5sums.txt
umount /mnt/sd
sync
The 'md5sum' command will report any differences between files and their checksums. Any differences are an indication of failure to write data or a damaged disk.