Re: [support-gang] Customization Sticks fails on 13.1.0 & 12.1.0 for XO-1

[Sridhar Dhanapalan]

On 12 March 2013 01:26, Daniel Drake  wrote:

> On Sun, Mar 10, 2013 at 12:58 PM, Richard A. Smith 
> wrote:
> > Perhaps I don't understand but I don't see how OOB can work for a setup
> like
> > Adam is describing in Haiti where they have laptops in the mix that are
> > secure.  Unless they first un-secure every laptop a custom OS build wth
> OOB
> > would have to be signed by OLPC or Reuben would have to give them a Haiti
> > key thats installed via keyjector.
>
> This is not a new situation for us, and the approach we have taken in
> the past is to help such deployments un-secure all of their laptops,
> or provide a keyjector to insert custom keys, upon their request.
>

I find it worrisome that such a useful tool (customisation stick) is no
longer being maintained. We've been able to achieve some very useful things
with it for our schools, expanding its capability to perform tasks like
bulk installing software and activities, and quickly deploying settings
across many XOs.

This is not an either/or question. Creating a custom build per classroom is
not practical, and installing such a build is destructive. We see the
customisation stick as an extremely useful complement to OOB, not a
replacement.

If there's no interest at OLPCA to maintain it, what we to continue it?


Sridhar Dhanapalan
Engineering Manager
One Laptop per Child Australia
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Re: Changing track

[Anna]

I can't tell you how many times over the years I've hollered out loud,
"Dammit, Martin, what in the hell?"  Usually with a config file thing.

But you always answered my questions on server-devel.  Over all these
years, you helped me up into some real Linux knowledge, for which I will
always be grateful.  Thank you for putting up with me while I learned from
you.

If you ever visit Birmingham, I owe you a beer.

Anna
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Re: [support-gang] gray dots forever: when 12.1.0 & 13.1.0 never fully boot (XO-1 especially? 11.3.1 too)

[Nancie Severs]

Hi Daniel!
The Support gang list has had threads on this over the past 6 months. Some 
things we had tried doing when I ran into it with 11.3.1 updates, was to go 
back to 8.2.1 or 8.3 and reflash up again. That worked in some cases, and not 
in others.


I had it with a brand new blue high school XO-1.5 (that booted normally before 
I flashed it to 12.1.0). I took that one to the Boston office & Richard Smith 
watched the boot and figured out the work around. Adam has it for Haiti now. I 
have XO-1's that do this that I can provide to someone to hook up & log as you 
suggest. And I have a few new 1.5's that we can try and reproduce it on also, 
if helpful. My point is that the problem is not limited to the XO-1s.

Richard, would it be helpful for me to bring some affected XOs down to the 
office if I can get to Boston later this week?


Here's more detail:

1. The first time I saw this problem was with 2 XOs that had been de-bricked 
and reflashed to 11.3.1, and sent out for loan for a film shoot. I got a call 
from the shoot that they were stuck at the grey dots. We didn't know the check 
boot workaround then and nothing worked. Embarrassing, but otherwise no harm 
done. 


My best guess: I thought that maybe it was a firmware issue because the laptops 
might not have been fully charged when reflashing. (Watching a reflash one day, 
I did see a message something about not having enough battery life to upgrade 
the firmware, procedding to reflash anyway.) Since then, now, I am plugging in 
laptops overnight before reflashing. And leaving the reflashed ones plugged in 
overnight again to fully charge the clock battery.


Yesterday I completed 12 with this procedure. (12 that previously had been 
reflashed to 11.3.1  This morning, all of these XO-1's boot without a grey dot 
problem. That's good news, but maybe just the luck of the draw.

Important grey dot conclusion. See below. Whether the laptop is secured or not, 
does not seem to matter. The secured and unsecured today all booted. 


2. (New thread but related- invalid system date) 4 of the above XOs booted with 
invalid system date. Each of those allowed me in at the root terminal (Ctrl Alt 
F2) to reset the date. It displayed the correct new date, and I shut down with 
sudo poweroff. When rebooting, the new date was not saved. It still says 
invalid system date. When trying the esc interrupted boot, I can't get to the 
ok prompt. The boot shows that these 4 XOs are each secured but proceed to 
boot. Other "secured" laptops have asked for a password at the Root Terminal. 
Are there different types of secured XOs? (Those 4 are now in the big pile that 
need developer keys.)

There are 2 XOs, reflashed as above that boot directly to the OK prompt.Is 
there an easy fix for that to make them boot directly to the Sugar Home View?
 
I hope we can soon sort these issues out, so that XO-1s many of them which are 
almost new, can be redistributed in conditions where they can be used. In the 
field, when people have these sorts of problems, they easily give up and the 
laptops get traded for avocados.:)


Nancie:)

Nancie Severs

OLPC Support Volunteer



 From: Daniel Drake 
To: Holt  
Cc: IAEP ; Devel's in the Details 
; Community Support Volunteers -- who help respond to 
help AT laptop.org  
Sent: Monday, March 11, 2013 10:23 AM
Subject: Re: [support-gang] gray dots forever: when 12.1.0 & 13.1.0 never fully 
boot (XO-1 especially? 11.3.1 too)
 
Hi,

On Sun, Mar 10, 2013 at 2:41 PM, Holt  wrote:
> On 3/10/2013 3:39 PM, Nancie Severs wrote:
>
> Going to 12 and 13, I am still getting a % of XOs that get stuck at the grey
> dots when booting after the reflash is complete. Richard Smith figured out
> that this is a Pretty Boot issue. He had a workaround that worked on an XO
> 1.5, but I have not been successful had getting that to work on an XO 1.0.
>
>
> I've the same issue with an XO-1 running Release 11.3.1 -- it was previously
> running March 6th's 13.1.0
>
> Now it freezes at the end of prettyboot (once all grey dots have formed a
> circle).

I think this is the first report we have of this issue. To diagnose
further, it would be good if someone could hook up a serial console
and log the boot messages. I know it's not trivial to have this
available, but I can't think of other debugging approaches.

Also, it is always helpful to know at exactly which point the system
hangs. In Adam's case this was stated clearly (I interpret: once all
the dots in the circle go dark grey after they have 'spun around' for
a while) but in Nancie's case it wasn't.

The other thing to keep in mind is that first boot takes longer than
subsequent boot. So be sure to have a little patience before declaring
the system as hung.

Daniel
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SD Card boot for 12.1.0

[tkkang]

I have XO 1.75 which already have 12.1.0 installed. I created a SD for booting 
with the 12.1.0 image but get the following error while booting with the SD:

Emergency condition encountered, halting.
To obtain a debug shelll . boot with the 'olpc.emergency'kernal parameter

[ 27.438857] dracut warning: "dev/disk/mmc/mmc0p2" does not exist

... Kernal panic, etc

I have no problem with SD card ( running 13.1.0 (build 35) booting on my XO 
1.75.

Cheers



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Re: [support-gang] Customization Sticks fails on 13.1.0 & 12.1.0 for XO-1

[John Gilmore]

Wad said:
>> Please don't redistribute secure laptops --- OLPC's policy since
>> early 2009 has been to deprecate the security system.  The
>> exceptions have been deployments "large" enough to have dedicated
>> support staff capable of handling their own keys.

Richard said:
> That policy is fine but perhaps needs to be more visible to the people 
> going into areas where secure laptops were distributed ...

Can an upcoming signed software release automatically disable the
anti-owner "security" system on old lockdown laptops?  Any new, signed
Forth release could look for the original OLPC signing keys and
disable security on laptops that depend on those, avoiding changing
any laptop that has custom signing keys.

Including this code in each new, OLPC-signed release, would tend to
eliminate the problem.

John


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Re: [support-gang] gray dots forever: when 12.1.0 & 13.1.0 never fully boot (XO-1 especially? 11.3.1 too)

[John Gilmore]

(1)  If powerd fails when the clock is set to before the Unix epoch,
powerd is buggy, and this bug should be ticketed and fixed.

That bug is independent of the situation that causes the clock to get
set that way (which may well be another bug in another component, which
would deserve another ticket).

(2) Perhaps the reason there is trouble with reflashing some laptops
whose clocks are bad is that the signature on the new release has a
limited validity time period, and the security system is rejecting the
new release because the bad clock looks like it's outside the validity
period?

John
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Re: [support-gang] gray dots forever: when 12.1.0 & 13.1.0 never fully boot (XO-1 especially? 11.3.1 too)

[Paul Fox]

john wrote:
 > (1)  If powerd fails when the clock is set to before the Unix epoch,
 > powerd is buggy, and this bug should be ticketed and fixed.

i agree.  though i confess yesterday was the first time i'd ever
seen a negative number from "date +%s".  it kind of threw me.

ticket filed:  https://dev.laptop.org/ticket/12621

 > 
 > That bug is independent of the situation that causes the clock to get
 > set that way (which may well be another bug in another component, which
 > would deserve another ticket).

it's likely that bad validation of RTC register values is to blame, though
that remains to be seen.

paul

 > 
 > (2) Perhaps the reason there is trouble with reflashing some laptops
 > whose clocks are bad is that the signature on the new release has a
 > limited validity time period, and the security system is rejecting the
 > new release because the bad clock looks like it's outside the validity
 > period?
 > 
 >  John
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=-
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Re: [support-gang] Customization Sticks fails on 13.1.0 & 12.1.0 for XO-1

[Holt]

On 3/12/2013 3:44 AM, Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote:
On 12 March 2013 01:26, Daniel Drake > wrote:


On Sun, Mar 10, 2013 at 12:58 PM, Richard A. Smith
mailto:rich...@laptop.org>> wrote:
> Perhaps I don't understand but I don't see how OOB can work for
a setup like
> Adam is describing in Haiti where they have laptops in the mix
that are
> secure.  Unless they first un-secure every laptop a custom OS
build wth OOB
> would have to be signed by OLPC or Reuben would have to give
them a Haiti
> key thats installed via keyjector.

This is not a new situation for us, and the approach we have taken in
the past is to help such deployments un-secure all of their laptops,
or provide a keyjector to insert custom keys, upon their request.


I find it worrisome that such a useful tool (customisation stick) is 
no longer being maintained. We've been able to achieve some very 
useful things with it for our schools, expanding its capability to 
perform tasks like bulk installing software and activities, and 
quickly deploying settings across many XOs.


This is not an either/or question. Creating a custom build per 
classroom is not practical, and installing such a build is 
destructive. We see the customisation stick as an extremely useful 
complement to OOB, not a replacement.


If there's no interest at OLPCA to maintain it, what we to continue it?


Great & tough question!

For now the small deployments I'm working with in Haiti here are taking 
a step back to Release 11.3.1, to protect themselves on a number of fronts.


We're hopeful (as is Gonzalo) that Releases 12.x, 13.x, 
Dextrose-or-similar will be as fast & reliable as 11.3.1 in future..and 
run WikipediaFR perhaps most important ;)


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Re: [support-gang] Customization Sticks fails on 13.1.0 & 12.1.0 for XO-1

[Holt]

On 3/11/2013 10:08 PM, John Watlington wrote:

Please don't redistribute secure laptops --- OLPC's policy since early 2009 has
been to deprecate the security system.   The exceptions have been deployments
"large" enough to have dedicated support staff capable of handling their own 
keys.


I wish :)  We have no choice but to continue to distribute secure 
laptops in Haiti as these are Give1Get1 redonations that are already 
(largely) moved from the USA to Haiti where the developer key process is 
unrealistic+overwhelming to largely offline deployments.


The only realistic solution (for Haiti here) is USB stick reflashing for 
evolving/expanding small deployments every few years (or months when 
we're truly lucky!  With Customization Stick or similar offline one-offs.


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Re: SD Card boot for 12.1.0

[James Cameron]

On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 12:04:19PM +, tkk...@nurturingeducation.com wrote:
> I have XO 1.75 which already have 12.1.0 installed. I created a SD
> for booting with the 12.1.0 image but get the following error while
> booting with the SD:
> 
> Emergency condition encountered, halting.
> To obtain a debug shelll . boot with the 'olpc.emergency'kernal parameter
> 
> [ 27.438857] dracut warning: "dev/disk/mmc/mmc0p2" does not exist
> 
> ... Kernal panic, etc

Yes, I've seen that.  It was fixed in 13.1.0 by a change to
olpc-boot-cmdline.sh in the dracut-modules-olpc git repository.  The
situation is quite complicated.  It may depend on the firmware
version.

We do not plan to release a 12.1.1, so the only fix is in git or in
13.1.0.  To use the fix in git you would need to re-run
olpc-os-builder, or reconstruct the initrd with the change.  I don't
know how to do that.

> I have no problem with SD card ( running 13.1.0 (build 35) booting on my XO
> 1.75.

Thanks for confirming that.

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James Cameron
http://quozl.linux.org.au/
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Re: [support-gang] gray dots forever: when 12.1.0 & 13.1.0 never fully boot (XO-1 especially? 11.3.1 too)

[James Cameron]

On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 02:05:18PM -0400, Paul Fox wrote:
> it's likely that bad validation of RTC register values is to blame, though
> that remains to be seen.

this has now been proven.  rtc.c does no validation of the values, so
zero day of month and zero month values are being used in a struct tm
unchanged.  garbage in garbage out.

other platforms probably reinitialise the values to a past but valid
date.

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Re: [support-gang] Customization Sticks fails on 13.1.0 & 12.1.0 for XO-1

[James Cameron]

On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 09:36:36AM -0800, John Gilmore wrote:
> Can an upcoming signed software release automatically disable the
> anti-owner "security" system on old lockdown laptops?  Any new, signed
> Forth release could look for the original OLPC signing keys and
> disable security on laptops that depend on those, avoiding changing
> any laptop that has custom signing keys.
> 
> Including this code in each new, OLPC-signed release, would tend to
> eliminate the problem.

Technically possible, but politically difficult, as OLPC would be
obliged to seek approval from every deployment that doesn't use custom
signing keys, since the update would break their security model.

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Re: [support-gang] Customization Sticks fails on 13.1.0 & 12.1.0 for XO-1

[John Watlington]

On Mar 12, 2013, at 3:54 PM, Holt wrote:

> On 3/11/2013 10:08 PM, John Watlington wrote:
>> Please don't redistribute secure laptops --- OLPC's policy since early 2009 
>> has
>> been to deprecate the security system.   The exceptions have been deployments
>> "large" enough to have dedicated support staff capable of handling their own 
>> keys.
> 
> I wish :)  We have no choice but to continue to distribute secure laptops in 
> Haiti as these are Give1Get1 redonations that are already (largely) moved 
> from the USA to Haiti where the developer key process is 
> unrealistic+overwhelming to largely offline deployments.

No more unrealistic than upgrading them.   All it takes is running a collector
USB key over the laptops, mailing or emailing the small text file generated to 
the
US, and receiving a small text file back.

wad

> The only realistic solution (for Haiti here) is USB stick reflashing for 
> evolving/expanding small deployments every few years (or months when we're 
> truly lucky!  With Customization Stick or similar offline one-offs.

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Re: [support-gang] Customization Sticks fails on 13.1.0 & 12.1.0 for XO-1

[Holt]

On 3/12/2013 10:21 PM, John Watlington wrote:

On Mar 12, 2013, at 3:54 PM, Holt wrote:


On 3/11/2013 10:08 PM, John Watlington wrote:

Please don't redistribute secure laptops --- OLPC's policy since early 2009 has
been to deprecate the security system.   The exceptions have been deployments
"large" enough to have dedicated support staff capable of handling their own 
keys.

I wish :)  We have no choice but to continue to distribute secure laptops in 
Haiti as these are Give1Get1 redonations that are already (largely) moved from 
the USA to Haiti where the developer key process is unrealistic+overwhelming to 
largely offline deployments.

No more unrealistic than upgrading them.   All it takes is running a collector
USB key over the laptops, mailing or emailing the small text file generated to 
the
US, and receiving a small text file back.


Hmm, we'll consider it but honestly when we head to rural Haiti 
deployment(s) without reliable mail services for some one-time orphanage 
deployment/update visits starting this wkd, the above might not work.


I supposed we could consider dev keys by text/SMS in theory?

Realistically I say far better to invite you down to carry them in by 
motorcycle--Haiti's a shockingly beautiful, eternally misunderstood and 
increasingly stable place--while Spirit's flights from the US remain not 
so much more than last year's $59.


Early photos here: http://flickr.com/tiAyiti

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Re: [support-gang] Customization Sticks fails on 13.1.0 & 12.1.0 for XO-1

[James Cameron]

At least use the collection stick on this trip, even if you don't get
the unlock stick done this trip because of lack of network
connectivity or time.

The collection stick also saves you the bother of figuring out whether
a laptop is locked.  It does nothing on unlocked laptops unless the
'x' game pad key is used to force it.

And at the end of the trip you'll have a list of serial numbers, which
is a bonus.  If you say "we already have that list", well, you could
give it to Richard to get an unlock stick prepared already.  ;-)

On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 11:16:22PM -0400, Holt wrote:
> On 3/12/2013 10:21 PM, John Watlington wrote:
> >On Mar 12, 2013, at 3:54 PM, Holt wrote:
> >
> >>On 3/11/2013 10:08 PM, John Watlington wrote:
> >>>Please don't redistribute secure laptops --- OLPC's policy since early 
> >>>2009 has
> >>>been to deprecate the security system.   The exceptions have been 
> >>>deployments
> >>>"large" enough to have dedicated support staff capable of handling their 
> >>>own keys.
> >>I wish :)  We have no choice but to continue to distribute secure laptops 
> >>in Haiti as these are Give1Get1 redonations that are already (largely) 
> >>moved from the USA to Haiti where the developer key process is 
> >>unrealistic+overwhelming to largely offline deployments.
> >No more unrealistic than upgrading them.   All it takes is running a 
> >collector
> >USB key over the laptops, mailing or emailing the small text file generated 
> >to the
> >US, and receiving a small text file back.
> 
> Hmm, we'll consider it but honestly when we head to rural Haiti
> deployment(s) without reliable mail services for some one-time
> orphanage deployment/update visits starting this wkd, the above
> might not work.
> 
> I supposed we could consider dev keys by text/SMS in theory?
> 
> Realistically I say far better to invite you down to carry them in
> by motorcycle--Haiti's a shockingly beautiful, eternally
> misunderstood and increasingly stable place--while Spirit's flights
> from the US remain not so much more than last year's $59.
> 
> Early photos here: http://flickr.com/tiAyiti
> 
> --
> Help kids everywhere map their world, at http://olpcMAP.net !
> 
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