How to Install onto Raspberry Pi 4?

AnthGood · February 5, 2022, 10:00pm

Hi, is there anywhere a step by step guide on how to install Rockstor onto a Raspberry Pi 4?

I have went to the download section and seen the installer for the PI is a Raw.xz file. I am not sure what to do with that.

Do I just use something like BalanaEtcher and write this Raw.XZ file to a microsd card and boot the pi from it. Or do I need to do something else entirely?

Sorry if this is an obvious/simple question but I genuinely was not sure what to do.

Hooverdan · February 5, 2022, 10:27pm

@AnthGood welcome to the Rockstor Community. I believe, @GeoffA has successfully done an installation on a Pi4, so I’m sure he can give some insights if he has time.

But yes, you would create a self-bootable microSD card from which to boot the system using the Raw.xz file. I have not used BalanaEtcher, but, yes, I believe, that should work.

GeoffA · February 6, 2022, 2:43am

Hi @AnthGood welcome to the world of Rockstor.
Yes, get that Pi image file and simply burn it to a micro SD card. My favourite is to use Balena Etcher.
Then boot the Pi4 with that card.
Make sure you have a screen and keyboard attached to the Pi for the installation process.
It’s very straight forward.
Come back here with any questions or queries, I’m glad to help.

phillxnet · February 6, 2022, 3:38pm

@AnthGood I’d like to just chip in on @Hooverdan’s and @GeoffA’s instructions here:

For the downloads we, as you mention, have a raw.zx file and on the downloads page we given linux instructions to burn it to a system disk. But note that those instructions include an unzipping element.

I’m not sure if BalanaEtcher does this automatically. But it is required that the image burned to the proposed sdcard is not the compressed one you down load, but the multi-GB result of uncompromising the download first. From the downloads page we have:

Image Test: sha256sum -c Rockstor-Leap15.3-RaspberryPi4.aarch64-4.1.0-0.raw.xz.sha256
Transfer to (sdX): xzcat Rockstor-Leap15.3-RaspberryPi4.aarch64-4.1.0-0.raw.xz | dd bs=4M of=/dev/sdX iflag=fullblock conv=notrunc status=progress

And there the linux command first un xz’ed the image then burns it to the sdcard.

Just wanted to clarify that bit. Also it would be good to know if BalanaEtcher does this automatically as we could then add this to that download section if that is a common program to do this in the ‘other’ OS’s.

Cheers. And apologies if I’m just adding noise here.

MikeMcPherson · April 30, 2022, 1:34am

I’m afraid I’m stumped on the Raspberry Pi 4 installation, as well. I’m trying to install Rockstor 4 to test the updated MinIO Rock-on. I have tried on two different Pi4s, two different SD cards, and burned the RaspberryPi4 image on both Linux (with dd) and Windows (with Balena Etcher). With a USB-3.3V interface connected to the UART header pins, I can see the boot messages. In every case, I get as far as:

[ 46.266774] Bluetooth: hci0: BCM4345C0
[ 46.270581] Bluetooth: hci0: BCM4345C0 (003.001.025) build 0000
[ 46.280151] Bluetooth: hci0: BCM4345C0 ‘brcm/BCM4345C0.hcd’ Patch

and the boot hangs. I’ve left it for hours and it never proceeds.

I thought maybe I needed to have a USB drive plugged in, so I added a USB3 SSD to the mix. Now it gets past the Bluetooth section but ends up endlessly resetting the SSD. I suspect this may be the UAS problem I see referenced in lots of places, but I can’t figure out how to get past it.

I’m out of ideas and could really use some help, please.

Thanks. Mike

phillxnet · April 30, 2022, 8:07pm

@MikeMcPherson Hello there.
Re:

So that’s strange as I tested it here on my Pi4 and all seemed to be OK. Are you using an external monitor as that is what is expected. Regarding the image transfer I noted the command to use on the download page:
https://rockstor.com/dls.html
so it should be:

Image Test: sha256sum -c Rockstor-Leap15.3-RaspberryPi4.aarch64-4.1.0-0.raw.xz.sha256
Transfer to (sdX): xzcat Rockstor-Leap15.3-RaspberryPi4.aarch64-4.1.0-0.raw.xz | dd bs=4M of=/dev/sdX iflag=fullblock conv=notrunc status=progress

I’ve not tested it without an hdmi and only using a serial conection.

Also note that it should boot from the same image transferred to a USB stick, assuming the firmware on the Pi4 is new enough.

Let us know how you get on. And if anyone else could chip in here with some ideas then great.
In fact maybe the firmware needing to be upgraded may be it. As my test Pi4 did have this done, quite some time ago now, when they first enabled the ability to boot from USB devices.

Hope that helps.

MikeMcPherson · May 1, 2022, 2:28am

Thanks, Philip. I updated the firmware on both Pi4s to the latest. I tried an external HDMI monitor and keyboard, but never saw a thing on the screen. And that is exactly the dd command I used.

I’ll try a USB stick and report back.

Mike

MikeMcPherson · May 2, 2022, 1:18am

First mystery solved. I had a bad micro-HDMI adapter that was damaging the on-board connector, bending one of the shield fingers and causing a short. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to have done any permanent damage. Bending the shield finger back where it belongs and replacing the adapter got the video working again and Rockstor booted.

Now I’m wresting with a different issue: no Web interface. I’m seeing a bunch of NGINX error messages about “rockstor.cert”. Trying to track it down.

Mike

MikeMcPherson · May 2, 2022, 12:35pm

Bingo! My second problem was self-inflicted: I made the mistake of following the directions in the MOTD and used zypper to update the system. That was a bad idea!

So, with a good HDMI adapter that doesn’t try to break the socket, and with a clean install of Rockstor, the server came up with no problem.

And the MinIO Rock-on works perfectly!

Thanks for your help. Mike

phillxnet · May 3, 2022, 9:24am

@MikeMcPherson Thanks for the detailed reporting here and glad you tracked down the various issues. That hdmi cable potentially damaging the Pi4 socket was not a good show.

But re:

And:

That MOTD is our own, and intentional, from here:

github.com

rockstor/rockstor-installer/blob/master/root/etc/motd


Welcome to Rockstor built on openSUSE.
To update your system from here do:

        zypper refresh
        zypper up --no-recommends

Or use Rockstor's Web User Interface (Web-UI): recommended method.

Type 'myip' then Enter key to get my address for your Browser.
Enjoy ...

I want to maintain this compatibility with command line update as it’s all we do in the background anyway.

However I’ve recently suspected, from some reporting in this area, that an nginx update is upsetting things with one of our now deprecated ssl settings. I’ve not yet looked into this but you may have hit on this. Or we have an issue whereby a reboot is required if a command line update is performed before first setup. Should be an easy fix once we have it narrowed down. I.e. we simply use this file for our config:

github.com

rockstor/rockstor-core/blob/master/conf/nginx.conf.in

daemon off;
worker_processes  2;

events {
	worker_connections  1024;
	use epoll;
}

http {
	include		${buildout:directory}/etc/nginx/mime.types;
	default_type	application/octet-stream;

	log_format main
		'$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] '
		'"$request" $status $bytes_sent '
		'"$http_referer" "$http_user_agent" '
		'"$gzip_ratio"';

	client_header_timeout	10m;
	client_body_timeout		10m;

This file has been truncated. show original

And we have seen an ssl config deprecation warning that should be addressed as a Stable update if that is in fact what is breaking the Web-UI. Food for thought and investigation. I’ve not yet experienced this myself but have been a little distracted of late with some behind the scenes responsibilities.

Thanks again for the reporting and for proving the function of your newly submitted MinIO Rock-on fixes. Much appreciated.

phillxnet · May 4, 2022, 6:42pm

@MikeMcPherson Hello again.
Re:

Just done a full update on an already setup install and we look to be OK on the nginx front. So it may just be we need a:

A reboot may be required after updating.

or something; added to the MOTD.

The directive I mentioned that is deprecated but still used by us generates the following message:

2022/05/04 16:58:14 [warn] 6532#6532: the "ssl" directive is deprecated, use the "listen ... ssl" directive instead in /opt/rockstor/etc/nginx/nginx.conf:47

This test was with:

rleap15-3:~ # zypper info nginx
Loading repository data…
Reading installed packages…

Information for package nginx:
------------------------------
Repository     : Leap_15_3
Name           : nginx
Version        : 1.19.8-3.6.1
Arch           : x86_64
Vendor         : SUSE LLC <https://www.suse.com/>
Installed Size : 2.2 MiB
Installed      : Yes
Status         : up-to-date
Source package : nginx-1.19.8-3.6.1.src
Upstream URL   : https://nginx.org
Summary        : A HTTP server and IMAP/POP3 proxy server
Description    : 
    nginx [engine x] is a HTTP server and IMAP/POP3 proxy server written by Igor Sysoev.
    It has been running on many heavily loaded Russian sites for more than two years.

Just for the record and to round out what I’d mentioned here earlier.

Hope that helps.

D_Jones · August 17, 2022, 11:53pm

I’ve been busy reading Pi threads since I hope that’s my next Rockstor install, and came across this thread. I don’t have the ability to contribute or test right now, but I at least did some research and it looks like the change is minor. As far as I can tell it touches 2 lines in the current conf file
listen 443 default_server;
needs to be
listen 443 default_server ssl;
and
ssl on;
needs to be removed or commented out.
Hope this helps, if this is restating what you already know sorry to waste your time, I took out of the thread that the problem was known but not the solution.

phillxnet · August 20, 2022, 9:18pm

@D_Jones Thanks for double checking our pending requirements. Much apprecaited.

If you fancy having a go at a pull request to apply these changes you are of course most welcome:

https://rockstor.com/docs/contribute/contribute.html#developers

Should cover it hopefully. But also take a note of our following currently pending issue regarding our developer documentation:

github.com/rockstor/rockstor-doc

From 4.1.0-0 stable release, the new testing branch is default for contributions.

opened 02:27PM - 20 Jan 22 UTC

closed 04:47PM - 11 Sep 22 UTC

phillxnet

Our current developer on-boarding docs mention only the master branch. As from o…ur recent 4.1.0-0 stable git tag rpm release we are now to develop our testing channel rpms from a newly established testing branch within git. The master branch is now reserved for our stable releases and so our docs should reflect this new split. The new split to branch based development is to enable the massive code wide changes that are required for our pending Language and tools wide upgrade. E.g.: https://github.com/rockstor/rockstor-core/issues/1877 and it's indicated, in-development, sub-part dependency of: https://github.com/rockstor/rockstor-core/issues/2254 This 'movement' within the project should also be made clear on the developers page so that folks can choose where they think their contributions are to be submitted. But in almost all cases all code submissions will now go to our testing branch first. Cherry picking may then take place but the projects main focus is now to lift our dependencies across the board and move testing towards the next stable but via newer Python and django and associated libraries. The following issue in an example of this efforts beginning by moving what was one of our oldest dependencies ztaskd to be replaced by one one of our newest: https://github.com/rockstor/rockstor-core/pull/2283 However such 'up-lift' is nigh on impossible until we approach first our Django up-lift and then our Python up-lift. Which in turn will allow for a further Django upgrade and we can then approach the remaining dependencies piecemeal; including our now in need of some attention build system. The above details should at least be indicated to new contributors to provide context. But in short all new contributions hit testing first and only long time contributors should be contributing directly to master give it's essentially a stop-gap to maintain a usable build as we undertake much needed maintenance work. It should also be noted that testing is again soon to be non-functional as there is soon to be the contribution of ongoing Django updates that are extensive and will have breaking changes that are to be addressed in an ongoing manner in the new testing channel.

And the existing issue we have open for this newer ssl directive is from @Hooverdan here:

github.com/rockstor/rockstor-core

NGINX SSL directive should be aligned to new format

opened 05:33PM - 03 Feb 21 UTC

closed 09:52PM - 24 Jan 23 UTC

Hooverdan96

In some cases there seems to be an issue with the deprecated SSL directive in ng…inx.conf being commented out and the niginx service subsequently not enabling SSL for the WebUI. See this forum entry for the symptoms and interim resolution on a CentOs-based installation (tbd whether this can be a problem on the rebased OpenSUSE. https://forum.rockstor.com/t/solved-power-loss-reboot-successful-but-no-webui-access/7608/14 This should be investigated further and possibly changed so the file is consistent with the new format during initial installation of Rockstor.

Take a look particularly at the latter issue link as it mentions some caveates that we should be careful to watch for where we programmatically edit our nginx config under some circumstances.

Hope that helps.

D_Jones · August 20, 2022, 10:57pm

@phillxnet I’ve contributed to documentation in the past, then changed jobs, moved cross country, and I’m still catching up. Hope to be more active in the future, maybe even get brave and venture out of docs and into code.

wdc · February 21, 2024, 10:57pm

re: dd and BalenaEtcher… the rpi imager also works with the Rockstor image.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/

(Yeah, I know, this thread is 18 months old but I just stumbled on it)