Cannot login into GUI after restore firmware

[heyudude]

Hi

I recovered my Thecus 2100 from a bad flash to the original firmware
using the guide at www.cyrius.com/debian/iop/n2100/telnet.html

The Web Gui apears but I cannot login using the defaults admin/admin

Who can help me resolve this? Any suggestions?

[dbridges]

Have you tried the factory reset? That is supposed to reset the password.

It's detailed in the manual www.thecus.com/download/manual/N2100%20UM%20EN.pdf

If the factory reset doesn't work then post back here.

[heyudude]

Hi,

Problem is that the recovery procedure provides a working system in RAM.

The GUI is then needed to perform as admin a real update in flash.

So if I reset the stuf revert to the "bad flash" situation and I am back to the beginning again

But I will have a go with the procedure you mentioned, just in case.

[heyudude]

heyudude said:

But I will have a go with the procedure you mentioned, just in case.

No result, back to start as expected...
Stil hoping for a solution anyone?

[getmythe]

when performing a factory reset the archive default.tar.gz is extracted and the contents is written to the flash (will overwrite passwords, samba setup, ...). I uploaded a copy to www.freeside.ch/thecus/beta/default.tar.gz. You need to have the flash partition mounted before extracting the contents of the archive. Good luck!

[heyudude]

getmythe said:

You need to have the flash partition mounted before extracting the contents of the archive.

Thanks, seems a good approach but do you have a howto anywhere how to achive this...
(will do a search in this forum too but any help in welcome!)

[getmythe]

If you followed the instructions on www.cyrius.com you most likely already have the flash partition which stores all configurations mounted on /app. In this case just extract default.tar.gz from within directory / and the old configuration files will be overwritten.

If you do not have /app already, here's the /app/etc/mtab entry for the config partition
/dev/mtdblock3 /app jffs2 rw,noatime 0 0

[heyudude]

getmythe said:

If you followed the instructions on www.cyrius.com you most likely already have the flash partition which stores all configurations mounted on /app.

Yes I have followed that guide.

getmythe said:

If you do not have /app already, here's the /app/etc/mtab entry for the config partition
/dev/mtdblock3 /app jffs2 rw,noatime 0 0

Can anyone provide me with a dump of the "User" mtdblock3 as it was at install time? I cannot access the SSH shell and it is not possible to find it on the web or in the fw.bin of Thecus.

[dbridges]

I'm going to throw all of the solutions at you at once here so it will look confusing. Read through it all a few times first and get the plan together in your head before you proceed

Have a read of this www.onbeat.dk/thecus/index.php/N2100_Recovering_from_a_bad_config_change

It will get you SSH access to the flash.

Also have a look at this. thecususergroup.proboards106.com/index.cgi?board=installationissues&action=display&thread=1185467979

Now what is the status of your disks? JBOD? RAID 1 (please dont say raid 0).

Back up everything that you can and want to keep.
You need a disk that you can play with.

Put the disk into a PC and use system rescue CD to copy the default.tar.gz onto it.
Actually, follow these instructions to create the root share in samba (you haven't said if your samba is working or not). If the disk is not formatted or partitioned then you should format it to ext3 (I believe).

Expand the default.tar.gz on the disk so that you don't have to do it while SSH'd in through the debian installer.

Now put it in and boot it up. If you've got root share access then go and get the /app/cfg/conf.db and copy it to your PC then read the third last paragraph in this post. Otherwise continue.

Reboot the thecus and follow the recovery instructions from the wiki.

You'll need to mount your disk too (please double check this the sda1 could be incorrect. You may have to mount and unmount a few to see what works)
mkdir /b
mount -t ext3 /dev/sda1 /b


When you're in there either copy the existing /a/app/cfg/conf.db to the disk /b or try and overwrite the /a/app/cfg/conf.db with the one from default.tar.gz

It's your choice and depends on whether you want to keep anything that you've already configured.

The password is displayed as clear text in the conf.db file.
If you've copied it to your disk then pull the disk again and put it in your PC and copy it to your PC.

Open it up in a good text editor and search for "admin_pwd"
The existing password will be displayed in pain text immediately after. You can use that to log in.


If need be i believe that i have an old tar of the app directory that i did for another member.

You need to get your device booting on it's own first though.

[heyudude]

Its worse than I thought, no ssh/telnet or samba available

1 recovering from a bad config change option:
after booting kernel no response (waited 10 minutes or more)
no eth0 / eth1 ip address
2 with the currently flashed Debian version:
"Begin: Waiting for root file system." for a long time without disks
and with a USB stick attached: BusyBox v1.1.3
So at least some commands possible!

With option 2 I can assign an Ip address but no telnet or SSH
Now figuring out what to do next...
Keep you updated...

[dbridges]

What you've posted makes little sense and does not seem to follow what i posted (which will work by the way).

What were your disks like?

Why were you using USB?

With the debian installer you get SSH access...

Posting back some screen shots, etc (from a camera) if need be can be really helpful.

[heyudude]

dbridges said:

What you've posted makes little sense and does not seem to follow what i posted (which will work by the way).

I am sure your walk through will work, looks ok.
Started with the first step and that fails:
"Recovering from a bad config change" using the debian n2100.bin
as a starter.

What were your disks like?

I purchased this one second hand, and did not install any disks yet.
On second thought trying that was maybe not a good idea.

Why were you using USB?

Just to try if I could access the system anyhow, as step 1 failed.

Posting back some screen shots, etc (from a camera) if need be can be really helpful.

Yep will do, last thing I would is to frustate somebody.
You can imagine the amount of time I already spent on this machine... Please bare with me..

[dbridges]

heyudude said:

I am sure your walk through will work, looks ok.
Started with the first step and that fails:
"Recovering from a bad config change" using the debian n2100.bin
as a starter.

I purchased this one second hand, and did not install any disks yet.
On second thought trying that was maybe not a good idea.

Just to try if I could access the system anyhow, as step 1 failed.

Yep will do, last thing I would is to frustate somebody.
You can imagine the amount of time I already spent on this machine... Please bare with me..

Edit: I've just noticed that the link in the guide to the debian installer is missing. I'll try and resolve that.

Nowhere in the instructions does it say "n2100.bin" and in fact you've already achieved the first steps by being able access redboot and load the n2100 images to get it to boot.

Instead of the n2100 firmware images you want to load the debian install images.

But to make it worthwhile you need a working "supported" disk.

If you want to be sure, format the disk in ext3 before inserting it in the thecus for the first time. It might help get things going if the thecus can recognise the disk in some way.

You should put the single disk in it and boot it.

It should try to set the disk up automatically (it has for others) after which you pull it and put it in a pc and have a look.

If it's created a sys folder then you can go the root share option.

Otherwise continue on the debian installer option.

When you get in to the debian installer and mount the flash you can then get to /app/cfg/conf.db which is your goal. You want that file! and you want it on the hard disk because you need to get it to the PC.

It's not an issue of frustrating anybody

If you want me to go into more detail in certain areas then I will. I will need more feedback about what works or not in order to provide better information.

I'm very much aware of how much time can be spent recovering the n2100 as I wrote both of the guides The recovery from a bad config was after my own mistake and the other one came from helping a number of people who lost their web gui after a firmware update.

On the positive side though the guides work and it's possible to recover a n2100 from anything except a hardware failure or loss of the redboot.

[dbridges]

I've just managed to dig around and find the installer and kernel and I've changed the guide to point to the new location.

Installer
Kernel

If they move after this then i can only blame myself

[heyudude]

dbridges said:

I've just managed to dig around and find the installer and kernel and I've changed the guide to point to the new location.

Thanks!

Will get me decent supported disk first and
then report back with any problems in a new post if needed.