NetBSD on PogoPlug notes

Note that these notes are confirmed working on a PogoPlug Mobile. When I get a PogoPlug Series 4 and a PogoPlug v2, I'll test them and update these notes accordingly.

I wanted to make it easy for anyone to be able to load and run NetBSD on a PogoPlug without having to disassemble the device and solder on a serial adapter. If you won't be using a serial port, skip the next part.

Pins on the PogoPlug are numbered one through four immediately behind the SD card (where behind means towards the rear where the plugs are). One is farthest back and four is closest to the SD card slot. TxD is really transmit and RxD, receive. Connect at 115200 baud.

1: power (3.3 volts)
2: TxD
3: RxD
4: ground

If you're not using a serial connection, you'll have to create an account at http://my.pogoplug.com/, activate the device, then navigate to Settings, select Security Settings, then enable ssh for your PogoPlug. Choose your own ssh password. Then, ssh as user root to the IP of your PogoPlug.

Connect ethernet to a network where the PogoPlug can get a DHCP lease and access to the Internet. Either with a serial console or via ssh, you're at a root prompt. Paste in these lines to get tools and the NetBSD kernel.

cd /tmp
wget http://download.doozan.com/uboot/nandwrite
wget http://download.doozan.com/uboot/flash_erase
wget http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/misc/jklos/netbsd.pogo
chmod +x nandwrite flash_erase

If you like, you can get nanddump (via wget http://download.doozan.com/uboot/nanddump) and back up mtd3 before overwriting.

Now we flash the actual NetBSD kernel. mtd3 is "failsafe" and is 8 megs from the start of flash and 8 megs long. The block size on the PogoPlug is 131072 bytes, so 64 blocks of 128k each works out to 8 megs. The "-p" option of nandwrite is to pad the kernel to fit whole blocks.

./flash_erase /dev/mtd3 0 64
./nandwrite -p /dev/mtd3 netbsd.pogo

Next, we write the environment variable bootcmd.

/usr/local/cloudengines/bin/blparam bootcmd='if ping 192.168.58.254; then run boot_nand; fi; nand read.e 0x800000 0x800000 0x800000; bootm 0x800000'

Note that the kernel's current size is 4381376 bytes (but it may change, so please check), or 0x42dac0 in hex, so we can change the nand read.e command to:

nand read.e 0x800000 0x800000 0x430000

We decide whether to boot NetBSD or GNU/Linux based on whether we can ping a machine on the network so we can download and install a new kernel using GNU/Linux if we like without a serial console. Creating an alias is as simple as something like:

ifconfig usmsc0 inet 192.168.58.254 netmask 0xffffff00

Once back in GNU/Linux, you can rerun the above but with a new kernel or your own kernel. A sample kernel configuration file for NetBSD-current is here:

http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/misc/jklos/POGO

These notes can be found here:

http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/misc/jklos/pogoplug_notes