How would you fix a borked Odroid HC1 install?

gma · 16. September 2018

Hi. I recently got an Odroid HC1 (the only ports on which are for ethernet, USB and a mini SD card).

I installed OMV on it last month, and added the LUKS plugin. Then I got distracted before I finished setting it up.

Today I did an `apt-get update && apt-get upgrade`, before trying to encrypt `/dev/sda`. The web UI wouldn't let me select any devices.

After a bit of poking around I discovered that the `dm_crypt` kernel module wasn't loaded. `uname` said I was running 4.9.103-odroidxu4, but the only `linux-image` deb package installed was for 4.14.55-odroidxu4.

"Oh yes!", I said, "I've probably pulled in a new kernel when I upgraded all those packages!"

So I rebooted, to find that I can no longer connect to the HC1 at all.

When it first rebooted I could ping it but SSH and HTTP were down. I pulled the power and tried booting it again shortly after that and now find that it hasn't even brought its interface up.

Have I uncovered a design flaw in the Odroid HC1? (that there's no console). Or is there a way of connecting a monitor that I've not thought of? What do others do under these circumstances? I'm not sure I can bring myself to invest effort into configuring a machine whose boot process I can't debug if it goes west like this...

Thanks in advance.

Adoby · 16. September 2018

Just flash OMV to another SD-card and start over. Or use the same.

It may be prudent to have the HDD removed the first 2 startups. Update and add LUKS. Then connect the HDD and configure OMV to use the existing contents..

You can access the contents of the old SD-card, if needed, using any SD-reader, provided you run a computer that understands BTRFS. For instance a Linux computer.

Once you are up and running again, make a backup of the SD-card. And update the backup after any (major?) changes, when they have been tested. With headless servers this is EXTRA important. And silly not to do... Like driving a car at speed without a safety belt on.

If you want to experiment with OMV then do that in a VM on a PC or on a server that is not headless. That can save you a lot of time...

Jetzt mitmachen!