• usb key with one dos (fat 32, vfat) partition, the partition must be less than 100mb in size (well, any size is fine but not over 4Gb, limit fr the filesystem to handle.)
• clunc or plum, theses tools will let you interact with U-Boot (it's the equivalent on this board of what you may know as a BIOS).
• The MAC address of your product.
• The IP and MAC of your own machine.
• a few files, the url will be given along this how to.
• Internet for you and your NAS. The product must be connected on a network with a DHCP server.

• Prepare you key as said earlier, put the debian-installer on your key and rename it as uImage.
• Put the key in one of the product's usb port.
• Download clunc or plum here and install it. ( I used plum for this tutorial but the option and command are the same)

• sudo plum -i 192.168.0.5 -m 00:D0:4B:88:56:C8

• Reboot your product by unplugging and plugging the electrical cord.
• You should see after a small amount of time a prompt “Marvell» ”

Now, we are going to give U-Boot some command to boot the installer on our key. (Watch the second line, you must replace some parameters here.)

set mainlineLinux 2206;
setenv bootargs netconsole=6666@NAS_IP/,6666@YOUR_IP/YOUR_MAC auto=true file=/preseed.cfg;
usb reset;
fatload usb 0:1 0x800000 uImage;
usb stop
bootm 0x800000

That's what it should look like :

% sudo plum -i 192.168.0.5 -m 00:D0:4B:88:56:C8
Please /!\HARD/!\ reboot the device /!\NOW/!\ 
Marvell>> set mainlineLinux 2206;
Marvell>> setenv bootargs netconsole=6666@192.168.0.6/,6666@192.168.0.1/00:23:12:57:1c:70 auto=true file=/preseed.cfg;
Marvell>> usb reset;
(Re)start USB...
USB:    scanning bus for devices...  3 USB Device(s) found
       scanning bus for storage devices...  1 Storage Device(s) found
Marvell>> fatload usb 0:1 0x800000 uImage;
## Valid DOS partition found ##
reading uImage
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
 
4480440 bytes read
Marvell>> usb stop;
stopping USB..
Marvell>> bootm 0x800000;
## Booting image at 00800000 ...
   Image Name:   Linux-2.6.36-0-kirkwood
   Created:      2010-09-12  20:32:12 UTC
   Image Type:    ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed) 
   Data Size:    4480376 Bytes =   4 .3  MB
   Load Address: 00008000
   Entry Point:  00008000
   Verifying Checksum ...  OK
OK
 
Starting kernel ...
 
[    0.000000] Linux version 2.6.36-0-kirkwood (root@buildbot) (gcc version 4.4.2 (crosstool-NG-hg_default@1665_60a47ac6cae1) ) #6 PREEMPT Mon Mar 7 13:53:02 CET 2011
[    0.000000] CPU: Feroceon 88FR131 [56251311] revision 1 (ARMv5TE), cr=00053177
[    0.000000] CPU: VIVT data cache, VIVT instruction cache
[    0.000000] Machine: LaCie 5Big Network v2
[    0.000000] Ignoring unrecognised tag 0x41000403
[    0.000000] Memory policy: ECC disabled, Data cache writeback
 
[...]

Wait a few minutes, then connect to your product using SSH :

ssh installer@192.168.0.5

The password is “azerty” (without the double quotes)

Boom, you have a debian installer :

So what now ? It's pretty straight forward if you have already installed a debian system before, otherwise, follow the screenshots.

Select YES here, the installer will complain a few times during the procedure, just ignore it. The installer is downloading what it needs to install your system. Create your root users with a strong password (not like mine on theses).

Well after that create your users and type your password. You don't need screenshot for that, read what the installer tells you.

Choose your language and country.

After that, the installer will detect your disks and install what it will need for the next step : The partitioning of your disks.

We are not going to explain how or why you should partition your disks. In our case (5Big Network2), we want our system to be installed on a RAID right ?

Let's do it :

First select “Manual” at the partition disks menu. You will have total control over your partition. I have the following scheme :

• / - RAID 1 from one partition of 2Gb on each disks in the NAS (you can add disks to an array latter)
• swap - RAID 1 from one partition of 200Mb on each disks in the NAS (you can add disks to an array latter)
• data - RAID 5 from one partition of the rest of the free space on each one of my disks.

I build my system on a RAID 1, from this when a disk is down, I can always boot with the others before replacing the faulty disks.

Once your config is done, the installer will write your changes on your disks.

And begin the installation of the system.

When you see this : Do not panic and hit continue. Then go with “Installing the base system” steps. Let the installer do its job installing the packets that were downloaded during the previous step.

You will this screen after a while : Hit YES

When you see this screen : Hit Go Back and then “execute a shell” remember the error from the installer ? You don't have a kernel yet !

As said by the installer, it could not find any kernel for us but we need one, right ? So we must install one ourself.

We are going to create a chroot with our current install, this means that we will be logged in our fresh system with the kernel of the installer. This way, we will be able to install a kernel in our system.

Your install partition will be mounted in /target. Do a mount first and umount every point that is using your devices

Adapt theses command to your configuration.

mount  /dev/md2 /target
mount -o bind /proc /target/proc
mount -o bind /dev /target/dev
chroot /target /bin/bash

You should see this line :

 root@cacao:/#  

Now, we need to install the initramfs-tools so the installer will create the initrd file for us.

apt-get install initramfs-tools

Note : If Perl is whining about missing locales and prompt with a message like this :

perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
     LC_ALL = "En_US",
     LANG = (unset)
are supported and installed on your system.
perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").

you can fix it by exporting the correct locales :

export LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8
export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8

You will now download and install your kernel.

wget http://kiwi.f00.fr/_media/5big/linux-image-2.6.36-0-kirkwood_2.6.36~maxime_armel.deb
dpkg -i a.deb

Don't take any attention to any message like :

 Hmm. There is a symbolic link /lib/modules/2.6.36-0-kirkwood/build
 However, I can not read it: No such file or directory
 Therefore, I am deleting /lib/modules/2.6.36-0-kirkwood/build

or

 Hmm. The package shipped with a symbolic link /lib/modules/2.6.36-0-kirkwood/source
 However, I can not read the target: No such file or directory
 Therefore, I am deleting /lib/modules/2.6.36-0-kirkwood/source

If you have this message :

df: Warning: cannot read table of mounted file systems: No such file or directory

You can fix it by doing this :

grep -v rootfs /proc/mounts > /etc/mtab

If you have this message :

W: mdadm: unchecked configuration file: /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf
W: mdadm: please read /usr/share/doc/mdadm/README.upgrading-2.5.3.gz .

Well, just read the file mdadm told you too. To sum up, you must check that your mdadm.conf is correct. Once it's done just do that : (and please CHECK THE FILE !)

rm -f /var/lib/mdadm/CONF-UNCHECKED
update-initramfs -u -k all

To boot the device after that, we are going to need a kernel and an initrd, it's a small filesytems stored in you RAM with a few binaries, it is used to make preparations before the boot. In our case : mount our RAID array !

In /boot, you will find 4 files :

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   49729 Mar  7 13:52 config-2.6.36-0-kirkwood
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2451731 Mar 18 19:30 initrd.img-2.6.36-0-kirkwood
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1045308 Mar  7 13:53 System.map-2.6.36-0-kirkwood
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2175548 Mar  7 13:53 uImage-2.6.36-0-kirkwood

Copy the inird on your key (be sure to mount it first, find it using “dmesg | grep sd*” ) :

cp initrd.img-2.6.36-0-kirkwood /mount/usb

Then copy uImage (kernel) on your key :

cp uImage-2.6.36-0-kirkwood /mount/usb/uImage2

Now you may exit your chroot and umount everything you mounted, reboot !

You have a few solutions :

• Keep your key plugged in your NAS at all time
• Create a partition not in a RAID (or with superblock version < 1.0 because they are not handled by U-Boot) that will hold our two little files.

I go with the USB Key because I find it easier to change my kernel as I pleased, I don't have to remove any disks or mount them elsewhere. But that's just me !

While your product is rebooting launch clunc or plum as we did it earlier on this tutorial. Enter theses commands :

setenv bootargs netconsole=6666@NAS_IP/,6666@MY_IP/MY_MAC initrd=0xe00000,0x400000 root=NAS_ROOT_PARTITION panic=30;
usb reset;
fatload usb 0:1 0x800000 uImage2;
fatload usb 0:1 0xe00000 initrd;
usb stop;
bootm 0x800000;

Note : the kernel is called uImage2 as I kept the installer uImage on my key !

If it boots, then you're done. To boot with more ease in the future, you can set up a command by doing :

setenv usbcmd "setenv bootargs netconsole=6666@NAS_IP/,6666@MY_IP/MY_MAC initrd=0xe00000,0x400000 root=NAS_ROOT_PARTITION panic=30; usb reset; fatload usb 0:1 0x800000 uImage2; fatload usb 0:1 0xe00000 initrd; usb stop; bootm 0x800000;"
saveenv

Then you will only have to input “run usbcmd”, and your device will boot !