MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - iLiad How I failed to catch the update process

arivero · 07-27-2006, 04:15 AM

Finally I tryed to control the update to 2.5 and I failed (ie I am fully updated) but it could be interesting to describe the process.

First there was a preupdate. It closes the network and tells you to shutdown the machine. If instead you enable networking again, you can see that the update installed a flashing process in rc0, ie in the shutdown process. This flash seems to install some improvements in the launch system and kernel modules, and it is numbered as 2.4.10 or similar. I copied it to the USB stick and left it update, as I was sure the main filesystem was not modifyed.

Then the real update was to begin. It proceeds by dowloading os.gz and fs.gz from iRex, storing it in a partition /mnt/protected/images/ and rebooting the machine so the update is done when starting again. Reading the starting script i imagined the trick: just rename os.gz and fs.gz and they will be not installed nor deleted. Then I should be able to copy/modify

fs.gz and reenable the update flags (according the strip) to follow the update.

But where to install the renaming instruction? Well, I did it in the wrong place:

, I tryed to modify the start script. It is unclear if such modifications survive reboot, and even if they did, it could be that "mv" is not defined in the /bin of the start system, I did not checked it. In any case, the process started, download from iRex was done (I could contemplate it via a sshd connection, the network being enabled) and it rebooted... and installed everything!!!

Now I think the good alternative was to follow exactly the same way that they did: to install a script in the rc0 section and rename the files at this opportunity, when it is doing the shutdown to reboot, just making sure the filesystem was still mounted.

While I was looking the download, I got a partial copy of fs.gz, and it is a compressed ext2, so really it was possible to mount and modify it if I had done it rightly. Damn!

07-27-2006, 04:15 AM	#1
arivero Guru Posts: 607 Karma: 2157 Join Date: Oct 2005 Device: NCR3125, Nokia 770,...	How I failed to catch the update process Finally I tryed to control the update to 2.5 and I failed (ie I am fully updated) but it could be interesting to describe the process. First there was a preupdate. It closes the network and tells you to shutdown the machine. If instead you enable networking again, you can see that the update installed a flashing process in rc0, ie in the shutdown process. This flash seems to install some improvements in the launch system and kernel modules, and it is numbered as 2.4.10 or similar. I copied it to the USB stick and left it update, as I was sure the main filesystem was not modifyed. Then the real update was to begin. It proceeds by dowloading os.gz and fs.gz from iRex, storing it in a partition /mnt/protected/images/ and rebooting the machine so the update is done when starting again. Reading the starting script i imagined the trick: just rename os.gz and fs.gz and they will be not installed nor deleted. Then I should be able to copy/modify fs.gz and reenable the update flags (according the strip) to follow the update. But where to install the renaming instruction? Well, I did it in the wrong place: , I tryed to modify the start script. It is unclear if such modifications survive reboot, and even if they did, it could be that "mv" is not defined in the /bin of the start system, I did not checked it. In any case, the process started, download from iRex was done (I could contemplate it via a sshd connection, the network being enabled) and it rebooted... and installed everything!!! Now I think the good alternative was to follow exactly the same way that they did: to install a script in the rc0 section and rename the files at this opportunity, when it is doing the shutdown to reboot, just making sure the filesystem was still mounted. While I was looking the download, I got a partial copy of fs.gz, and it is a compressed ext2, so really it was possible to mount and modify it if I had done it rightly. Damn!