Btrfs migration on Turris 1.x routers⚓︎

Btrfs is the default filesystem on Turris Omnia and Turris MOX while Turris 1.x routers were using at first JFFS2 and these days UBIFS. In the recent versions, we added the possibility to use the Btrfs filesystem for our first routers. It has various advantages like providing backups via snapshots by using tool Schnapps for managing snapshots. However, while you can use the RESET button to rollback to previous snapshots on Turris Omnia, this is not possible on Turris 1.x routers, yet.

Requirements⚓︎

You will need:

• a Turris 1.0 or Turris 1.1 router,
• a microSD card with at least 8 GB free storage,
• a screwdriver.

Preparation of Turris 1.0 routers⚓︎

All Turris 1.0 routers comes by default with JFFS2 and this can be checked with the mount command or in the advanced administration LuCI. In Turris OS 3.10.9, which we released at end the of the year 2018, we automatically updated the operating system located in the NOR. It means that if you did a Factory Reset afterwards, you should be running at least Turris OS 3.8.5 and if you were using JFFS2 before, you will switch to UBIFS just by resetting to the factory settings.

Inserting microSD card⚓︎

You will need to unplug the router from the power supply. You need to unscrew a few screws from the top cover of the router to remove it. The microSD card slot is located underneath the RAM slot. Very cautiously remove the RAM from its slot by pressing the clips on both sides and the RAM should pop out itself. Then you can insert the microSD card slowly and without using force.

If the card is in it’s place, you can now put back the RAM, top cover and plug the power cord into the router.

Installing package⚓︎

Before you are able to install any packages using LuCI/SSH, you need to update the package lists and then you can install the turris-btrfs package.

opkg update
opkg install turris-btrfs

It does nothing by itself, so it is safe to install.

Formatting microSD card⚓︎

The next step is to execute the btrfs_migrate command, which is a script that will make sure that you want to really want to wipe all the data on the microSD card and afterward it will format the card to Btrfs. Then it will copy all the current content on the NAND (internal storage) to the microSD card and set the U-boot environment to boot from the microSD card.

btrfs_migrate

After the script is done, you will get a notification to reboot your router.

To check if you are booting from the microSD card, you can run the command mount | grep btrfs to verify that there is something like /dev/mmcblk0p2 on / **type btrfs**. If it is there, the migration was successful.

What happens if you remove the microSD card⚓︎

Turris boots from the NAND (internal storage) in the same state as before the migration.

How to have Turris OS 5.x+ from Turris OS 3.x⚓︎

If you will run one by the following commands, it will download the medkit from the HBS branch, import the medkit as the factory snapshot and reset to the factory defaults using the latest version of Turris OS. Reboot will do its thing that you will boot from the factory image.

cd /tmp
wget https://repo.turris.cz/hbs/medkit/turris1x-medkit-latest.tar.gz
schnapps import -f turris1x-medkit-latest.tar.gz
schnapps rollback factory
reboot

Be sure that you have installed wget, if not, you might want to install it by running these two commands:

opkg update
opkg install wget

How to perform factory reset (medkit)⚓︎

The factory reset as is implemented on Turris 1.x works only on the internal storage thus it can’t be used on an SD card. You have to instead manually perform factory reset that is native for other Turris routers.

If you will run one by one the following commands, it will download the medkit from the HBS branch, import the medkit as the factory snapshot and reset to the factory defaults using the latest version of Turris OS. Reboot will do its thing that you will boot from the factory image.

opkg update && opkg install wget

cd /tmp
wget https://repo.turris.cz/hbs/medkit/turris1x-medkit-latest.tar.gz

schnapps import -f turris1x-medkit-latest.tar.gz
schnapps rollback factory

reboot