Topic: load kernel with kexec?

Is there a way to load kernel with kexec on Insignia 8"? There is a web page:

http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/c … Kexec_boot

I tried it on silvermoon but the system hangs when executing "kexec -f -e". :-( Does any one know how to make it work?

2 (edited by RunningLight 2011-05-29 19:57:22)

Re: load kernel with kexec?

tictactoe wrote:

Is there a way to load kernel with kexec on Insignia 8"? There is a web page:

http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/c … Kexec_boot

I tried it on silvermoon but the system hangs when executing "kexec -f -e". :-( Does any one know how to make it work?

Hi, tictactoe.

I've never used kexec but your post intrigued me.

Did you follow that web page literally? The script netboot.sh includes some kernel parameters that don't look correct for the Insignia Infocast 8.

Ssh to your Infocast and look at the output from running the command "cat /proc/cmdline"

On mine, at least, the kernel parameters are

root=/dev/mmcblk0p3 rootfstype=ext3 rootwait console=ttyS0,115200 mem=128M uart_dma init=/linuxrc sysrq_always_enabled ro logo.brand=insignia

You should modify the netboot.sh script accordingly and see if it still fails.

As an aside, I note that there is now a 2.0.2 release* of the kexec-tools source code. I've downloaded it and compiled it but haven't had a chance to take it out for a spin.

Regards,
Kent

* see http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/kexec/

Re: load kernel with kexec?

For kexec-tools, I tried to compile 2.0.2 without a patch.

For the kernel, I didn't apply any patch. It seems the Silvermoon 2.6.28 kernel is good enough. CONFIG_KEXEC is enabled in the kernel image.

For kernel command line, I used 'kexec --append="$(cat /proc/cmdline)" -l /path/to/kernel.image" to load the experimental kernel file.

So far it didn't work on my Infocast 8". Probably the JTAG output will help. But I don't have it setup yet.

>> I've downloaded it and compiled it but haven't had a chance to take it out for a spin.

Please let me know if it works on your box. :-)