What Should I Do With a Second Raspberry PI?

šŸ’¬ Lounge
21

If anyone has any tips on working out why I can't boot from my ssd drive without my sd card inserted it would be appreciated.

I believe I went through the steps as I should have, updating the OS and firmware / bootloader, setting the boot from usb setting in raspi-config, cloning the sd card to the ssd drive using rpi clone. I have also gone through various manual updates to fstab and other config file, pointing them to the ssd.

Like I said, from the activity on the drive, the root being 400+ GB through df command and the speed of the system, I am confident I am ultimately running off the ssd, I just need the sd card inserted to boot. Figuring out where to enable hdmi on boot to see any messages may be my next move.

22

I'm having issues with mine too... if you are using ubuntu check this out:

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23

Which USB to SATA adapter are you using? Some are known to work well, while othersā€¦not so much.

Here is the one I use with a RPi 4/4GB.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00XLAZODE/ref=ya_aw_od_pi?ie=UTF8&psc=1

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24

I'm using the Argon 1 M.2 case which is in the "working" list.. also awesome but a little pricey.

I was able to get it to boot!!! I had to make sure the volume labels matched the sdcard's labels - in my case "system-boot" and "writable" - used "fatlabel" and "e2label" to change.

EDIT: if using rpi-clone like I am you might have to change the labels..

https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/rhel-centos-debian-fedora-mount-partition-label/

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25

Thanks guys. I'll respond in more detail later tonight, but these were some of the things I tried to check off as well. I am using a ugreen enclosure for a Samsung drive, I'll get the exact specs later. One thing I read was about using non-powered enclosures, so that may be a possibility in my case...

I did also change the labels in fstab on both the sd card and on the ssd in the end. But still it won't boot without the sd card.... Very frustrating... Still, it is running, and quite quickly :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

26

I am using an enclosure:

https://www.amazon.com.au/UGREEN-Enclosure-External-Adapter-Housing/dp/B07L4LYVC6/ref=pd_ys_c_rfy_rp_m_all_single_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B07L4LYVC6&pd_rd_r=F2GRNMQ3FXDSG1P5F262&pd_rd_w=JW0D1&pd_rd_wg=SGYDL&pf_rd_p=760bc86a-c77f-4327-9c78-44a51898bba0&pf_rd_r=F2GRNMQ3FXDSG1P5F262&psc=1&refRID=MTZ2DNBWH8F58R5PX44E

With this SSD:

https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B079FL9YQ6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The fact the enclosure is not powered may be the issue, hard to say at this stage...

I ended up changing the /etc/fstab on both the sd card and the ssd to be the same, both pointing to the ssd attached via USB, so sda6 and 7 from memory.

To be honest I am inclined at this point to probably leave it the way it is, if I can be confident once booted it is primarily using the SSD. It was for stability and speed that I changed to the SSD, after reading about the risks of using an SD Card and them failing, along with the better performance of an SSD.

Thanks again for all your help, happy to continue the conversation, don't feel I'm trying to shut it down or anything...

27

The issue I suspect has something to do with configuring the EEPROM.

After I got it to boot I was having the opposite issue - could only boot to the usb without the sdcard. I had to change my boot order using
rpi-eeprom-config --edit

and change "BOOT_ORDER" from "0xf41" to "0xf14"... it reads from right to left which seems a little counter-intuitive.

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28

Iā€™m also using one of these for my Pi-hole server.

Totally unnecessary, but itā€™s definitely a cool case :slight_smile:.

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29

I literally spent an hour or more on this exact fix this evening and could not make a difference in my case, i.e. f14 (set by the new firmware / bootloader) compared to f41 (recommended by the god's on the Internet).
Again glad you could get it working....

30

I hope you figure it out.. not sure why your are still having problems if you have your eeprom parameters set correctly - it should never get to the sdcard at all. Sounds very strange - maybe you have something odd in /etc/fstab for the usb drive.

My usb sata drive fstab - /dev/sda2

LABEL=writable  /        ext4   defaults        0 0
LABEL=system-boot       /boot/firmware  vfat    defaults        0       1

or in your /boot/firmware/config.txt - here is mine -
[/dev/sda1]/boot/firmware/config.txt I have all the uboot stuff commented out..

...
...
...

#[pi4]
#kernel=uboot_rpi_4.bin
#max_framebuffers=2

#[pi2]
#kernel=uboot_rpi_2.bin

#[pi3]
#kernel=uboot_rpi_3.bin

[all]
arm_64bit=1
device_tree_address=0x03000000
kernel=vmlinux
initramfs initrd.img followkernel

...
...
...

Note1: since I am running ubuntu server 64 bit I have the "arm_64bit" set to "1"... also note it's not "vmlinuz" but "vmlinux" it's an uncompressed kernel which is required at least for the 64 bit stuff... for the standard RPI config you could probably try using just vmlinuz..

Note2: I don't know what the default PI config.txt is for raspbian so maybe try just commenting out the "uboot" entries first..

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31

Thanks again for the info @erktrek. I had another look at this before I went to work this morning, but without any luck. In the end I have achieved what I was wanting, to increase my disk space and move off the sd card for the majority of the operation of the rpi.

I will probably rebuild the rpi at some point, so that will be another opportunity to look at this from a clean start, which may produce a better outcome.

This was actually my production rpi, not the second one I bought. I'm thinking I might buy another ssd and the same enclosure to also test this process.

Thanks again everyone for your help with this. I'll report back on my next steps when I get to them.

Simon

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32

Sorry could not help more.. I'm sure there is some minor detail we missed. Anyway happy automating!

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33

Holy :face_with_symbols_over_mouth: I decided to try out pivpn to setup Wireguard on an Ubuntu server before going out of town for a few days, and it couldnā€™t be easier to setup or faster while connected.

Iā€™ve used OpenVPN and the L2TP VPN built into my Unifi gateway, but Wireguard has blown both away.

Iā€™m sold.

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34

I set up my RPi with Home Assistant just for the HomeKit Controller capability. Allows (limited) local integration with my ecobee and I assume for most other HomeKit compatible devices.

I've been thinking about setting up another to use as a local media server for my roku devices and (after reading this thread) a WireGuard VPN.

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35

That was the intent behind posting. I had relatively solid ideas on what I wanted to do, but was happy to both open it up for ideas that I may use myself and to allow others to share ideas that they find useful, even if they don't relate to my setup.

That said, Wireguard is on my list as well.... Been a bit of a slow process setting up the new SSDs I bought, and too many other side-projects... :slight_smile:

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36

So after using the wireguard iOS app for a few days, I was initially excited about the on-demand activation feature with both cellular and WiFi, and even a per-SSID exclusion option.

But I noticed itā€™s not even possible to temporarily turn off the tunnel when the on-demand feature is active. It just immediately restarts the connection. Only way Iā€™ve found so far is to turn off the on-demand toggle completely (which wipes any SSIDs Iā€™ve saved).

Am I doing something wrong there?

37

Nope - that is an issue that Iā€™ve reported in the past. I just leave mine on all the time.

38

Excuse my ignorance, and having not followed through on this recommendation on my own thread.... but does that mean if you're Internet connection at home is "sketchy", i.e. is disrupted, then your Internet access on your phone becomes affected, if you are always connected to your vpn?

39

Do you manually turn your wireguard tunnel on and just leave it on?

Or do you use the ā€œon-demandā€ activation feature?

40

Honestly, I haven't set it up yet. I'm asking more so from the point of view of someone looking at setting this up and wanting to understand how it behaves... No dramas if you don't know... Happy to report back when I get around to setting it up myself...