digitalhack's blog: January 2015

Thursday, January 29, 2015

pcDuino3 Nano - Debian / OpenMediaVault

This is another in the series documenting my setup of a new home server with the Linksprite pcDuino3 Nano. A listing for the entire series can be found here. More information on the pcDuino3 Nano can be found at Linksprite’s website and the pcDuino website.

Back in December when I started my pcDuino3 Nano Home Server Project I outlined how I was replacing my current home server which uses OpenMediaVault running on a Raspberry Pi. In my pcDuino3 Nano – NAS or ??? post I talked about deciding to use something else as OMV neither OMV nor Debian the flavor of Linux that it runs on has a large installed base on the pcDuino.

As I moved forward with the project and started pulling together the software that I wanted to use for my home server I decided that while a home server could certainly be built from scratch the integration that you get with OMV was worth seeing if I could get it up and running on the pcDuino3 Nano.

Thanks to the excellent build scripts from Igor Pecovnik I have had some initial success and now have OMV running on the pcDuino3 Nano. I plan to document the build and install process in future posts but I wanted to pass along what I have working in case anyone else is looking to run Debian on the pcDuino3 Nano.

Here are some links:

Igor Pecovnik’s web site with his A20 Debian releases.
Igor Pecovnik’s github repository with the build scripts.
My fork of the build scripts with patches to support builds on pcDuino3 Nano. This is still a work in progress so it may not work.
A zipped file suitable for an SD Card of Debian Wheezy for the pcDuino3 Nano. The root password is 1234.

If you have any feedback please post it in the comments section below. I will attempt to address any questions as quickly as possible.

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Quick Note - Windows 8.1 Corrupt OS Disk - Take 2

Here is another take on accessing the data on the corrupt Windows 8.1 BitLocker secured drive.

SystemResuceCd to boot the system from.

Rufus to create a bootable USB flash drive from an ISO file.

ddrescue to create a image of the deivce. I used an external USB drive so that when I was done with the image I could easily move the drive with the image to a working system.

Vhdtool to convert the image created by ddrescue to VHD format so it can be mounted under Windows. You need to rename the image after running the program to .vhd. Source on github.

Windows Disk Management to mount the VHD file as a drive.

You are prompted for the BitLocker password key.

Drive may require fixing. Mine did and it took a long time.

Thanks to Andy at cobaltfish.com for the posting that I created my process from.

It Worked for Me - WinPE, BitLocker and a Corrupt Windows 8.1 OS Disk

Recently my daughter’s Window 8.1 laptop developed problems with it’s SSD drive. Before I could get a good backup of the data on the system it stopped booting. I had setup this computer as a rush job earlier this year and hadn’t any time to play with it or another Window 8.1 computer.

The first challenged I faced was that the SSD drive was encrypted with BitLocker. Fortunately, I was able to get the recovery keys for the system and then was able using WinPE to build a USB flash drive that allowed me to boot the system, unlock the drive and backup the data to another USB flash drive.

Below are the steps / notes I took while doing this. I am posting them so that I have them for the next time and in the hopes that they might help someone.

The first step was to install WinPE and build a bootable USB flash drive. I had problems getting WinPE for Windows 8.1 to install on my Windows 7 desktop. Fortunately, there was still a copy of WinPE for Windows 8.0 that I was able to get installed.

WinPE Bootable USB Flash Drive

Install Windows ADK. Then open command window as administrator and run the batch file to define the environment variables. I installed using the defaults.

After searching the web and reading several sets of instructions I followed the steps below to create the bootable flash drive. Installed all cabs below but believe that only the ones in purple were needed.

The copype.cmd command creates a WinPE environment in the directory specified. I was using 64bit machines so I used amd64. For 32 bit you would use x86.

The dism commands mount the boot image file and allow you to manipulate it. I installed several additional packages using the /add-package feature. You will need to install these packages to manage-bde which is used to unlock the drive.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Deployment Tools\DandISetEnv.bat

copype.cmd amd64 c:\winpe_amd64

dism /mount-wim /wimfile:c:\winpe_amd64\media\sources\boot.wim /index:1 /mountdir:c:\winpe_amd64\mount

dism /image:C:\winpe_amd64\mount /add-package /packagepath:"C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Windows Preinstallation Environment\amd64\WinPE_OCs\WinPE-WMI.cab"

dism /image:C:\winpe_amd64\mount /add-package /packagepath:"C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Windows Preinstallation Environment\amd64\WinPE_OCs\WinPE-FMAPI.cab"

dism /image:C:\winpe_amd64\mount /add-package /packagepath:"C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Windows Preinstallation Environment\amd64\WinPE_OCs\WinPE-SecureStartup.cab"

On other thing that I did was to create text file key.txt in the WinPE root directory with the BitLocker recovery key in it. This allowed me using notepad once WinPE had booted to copy and paste the recovery key. While this isn’t required it sure saves typing.

Then I dismounted the boot image file committing my changes with the /commit option and used the MakeWinPEMedia command to copy my files to the usb flash drive e:.

dism /unmount-Wim /mountdir:c:\winpe_amd64\mount /commit

MakeWinPEMedia /UFD C:\WinPE_amd64 e:

Once the WinPE USB flash drive was created I put it in the laptop and booted it. The laptop was seutp to boot using UEFI and secure boot mode both of which had to be turned off in the BIOS so that I could select boot from USB mode.

Once I did this the system booted right up.

Unlock Bitlocker with manage-bde

Once the system was booted I unlocked the BitLocker OS drive using the command below.

manage-bde -unlock c: -recoverypassword <recovery key>

Copy Files off the System

Once the drive was unlocked I used robocopy to copy the files to another USB flash drive.

robocopy c:\<dir> e:\<dir> /copyall /e /r:0 /dcopy:t

Given the number of files it took a good bit of time but at the end I had all the files on the USB flash drive and could load them back on the system after replacing the drive.

Saturday, January 3, 2015

Olimex MOD-WIFI-ESP8266-DEV - Software Setup

Getting to the point where I had a workable software setup for the ESP8266 took me a bit.

ESP8266 Software Setup – Linux

I made use of CNLohr’s excellent instructions and youtube video and the Toolchain wiki page on the ESP8266 Community Forum GitHub repository.

The setup that I ended up with is running on Lubuntu 14.04 with the ESP8266 software under /opt/Espressif based on the ESP8266 Community Forum wiki instructions.

ESP8266 Sample Programs

I have successfully gotten the AT v20 Demo to compile and load and the blinky source code example from the ESP8266 Community Forum following the instructions on the wiki.

For the blinky example you need to connect an LED to GPIO2 which is pin 20 on the MOD-WIFI-ESP8266-DEV. This was the first program I got running correctly. I got the basic_example to compile and download but wasn’t ever able to get any output from it.

I had some problems getting the AT v20 Demo to compile. When I was finished with the wiki instructions I had an include directory in /opt/Espressif and also one in /opt/Espressif/ESP8266_SDK. The ESP8266 Community Forum template includes /opt/Espressif/include as EXTRA_INCDIR. However to get the AT V20 Demo to compile I had to combine /opt/Espressif/include into /opt/Espressif/ESP8266_SDK/include.

I also had some problems realizing it was compiling and flashing correctly as I didn’t realize that it was looking for the command line to end with CR LF until I read a post in the ESP8266 Community Forums about needing to press CTRL-J.

ESP8266 Software Setup – Windows (Updated Jan 4, 2015)

For windows I found the very well put together ESP8266 DevKit by CHERTS on the ESP8266 Community Forum. It comes with an installer and for me with two minor changes “worked right out of the box.” I was already running CYGWIN64 and am not a bit Eclipse user so I just downloaded the x64 DevKit for windows.

I have to update the COM port used for make flash from COM2 to COM3 and the path to the esptool.py script needed the slashed flipped to work in CYVGWIN. From the examples directory I ran the following:

$ find . -name '*Makefile' -exec sed -i -e 's/COM2/COM3/g' {} \;
$ find . -name '*Makefile' -exec sed -i -e 's/c:\\Espressif\\utils\\esptool.exe/c:\/Espressif\/utils\/esptool.exe/g' {} \;

One other thing that I did was to put a shell script in /usr/local/bin for screen. CYGWIN has the screen command but there doesn’t appear to be a way to change RTS and DTR which creates problems for the ESP8266. The shell script runs Realterm with DTR and RTS set to 0 which sets the control lines to 3.3v which allows normal operation of the ESP8266.

/usr/local/bin/screen

#!/bin/sh
"c:/Program Files (x86)/BEL/Realterm/realterm.exe" BAUD=9600 RTS=0 DTR=0 PORT=3

My thanks to CHERTS for making this so easy.

Olimex MOD-WIFI-ESP8266-DEV - Hardware Setup

Over the past couple of days I have taken a break from my home server upgrade and have been working with the Olimex MOD-WIFI-ESP8266-DEV board. It took me a bit but I have come up with the setup below which is working very well for me.

Hardware Setup

The MOD-WIFI-ESP8266-DEV is plugged into the left end of a 400 tie point solderless breadboard. In the middle of the breadboard is a modified Modern Devices USB BUB I. On the right side of the breadboard is a v3.3 K$931 low voltage regulator that is plugged into a 5v wall wart power supply.

The connections are as listed below.

ESP8266-DEV	Connection
1 – 3.3v	3.3v
2 – GND	GND
3 – GPIO1 / U0TXD	RX1 on the USB BUB I
4 – GPIO3 / U0RXD	TX1 on the USB BUB I
13 – RSTB	Pull to GND to reset. RTS on the USB BUB I To one leg of a momentary switch. The other leg of the momentary switch is connected to GND. This provides a reset button.
19 – GPIO15	GND / 3.3vJumper (currently unused)
20 – GPIO2	GND / 3.3vJumper (currently unused)
21 – GPIO0 / MTD0	Pull to GND on boot to enter UART flash upload mode. DTR on the USB BUB I

This setup allows esptool.py to toggle DTR and RTS to reboot the ESP8266 and put it in UART flash upload mode.

Serial Terminal Emulator Setup Notes

If you have DTR and RTS from your “serial port” connected to the ESP8266 you need to be careful when you are using a terminal emulation program for output from the ESP8266. You need to make sure that the terminal emulator doesn’t set RTS low and DTR low for normal operation or the ESP8266 will always boot into UART flash mode.

For linux I am using gtkTerm which has the ability to toggle RTS and DTR.
For windows I am using Realterm which allows you to set RTS and DTR

One other note about terminal emulators, for the AT demo programs version 19 and 20 the ESP8266 is looking for a CR and then LF (aka CTRL-M and then a CTRL-J) as a the command line terminator. This means that with most terminal emulators which generally only send a CR (or only an LF) when you press the enter key you will not get an OK back when you type in “AT ENTER”. This can be overcome by typing “AT CTRL-M CTRL-J”.

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