EJ Blom wrote:

Hi,
Thanks for the nice tutorial, I was looking for a good debian tutorial for Pogoplug since I wanted to run some components that are not available for Archlinux.
Everything seems to run fine while installing. However, after the reboot, the pogoplug consistently boots into its native OS…. any idea how that could be solved?

I have the very same problem. Has somebody resolved?

[…] in 2012 I wrote about how I set up a $30 linux server by installing Debian Squeze on a PogoPlug. I have been using the device for close to two years, but […]

@ EJ Blom:

Have you figured it out? I tried setting mine up on a larger drive with this exact same procedure and I’m having exactly this issue. The installer runs snoothly, then it asks me to reboot. Then the flash drive blinks few times, goes out and the device boots to the native readonly OS instance instead of Debian. Been fighting with it all night and I can’t seem to figure out why it’s doing it. If I do, I will post an update on the post.

@ da so:

You can actually mount Ext2 and Ext3 drives on windows. I thin I used this open source project to move files between Windows and Linux partitions on a dual boot machine in the past. Not sure if it handles USB drives well but it may be worth a try if you still have that drive lying around.

But yeah, something similar happened to me recently. I’ve been using the device for close to two years and it was running without problems. Then I changed my router and it disappeared from the network. Rebooted it multiple times and it would not grab and IP from DHCP unless I pulled out the thumb drive and booted it “naked”.

It came back to life then, and I was able to ssh to it, plug back the drive, mount it, and recover files.

I able to set up pogo plug as a home server and used my 500GB usb drive for transferring files like movies, mp3, photos . I was so happy but after a month the pogo plug crashes I cannot access it on my wifi, the green lights flashes, I reboot and still would not appear on my network. I can throw this shoot device away and forget about the whole thing but the problem is I cannot recover the files that was transferred to the USB drive, and I end up formatting it because I cannot use it with my PC and MAC. in other words I lost all my files, because of this POGO plug device. I smashed it and throw it away so that nobody would find it and try to hack it and have the same problem as mine.
IT DOESN”T WORK, ask for a refund like I did and throw it away.
thanks for amazon for returning my money.
TIME WASTED.
Back up your USB drive, do not rely on this device.

Hi,

Thanks for the nice tutorial, I was looking for a good debian tutorial for Pogoplug since I wanted to run some components that are not available for Archlinux.

Everything seems to run fine while installing. However, after the reboot, the pogoplug consistently boots into its native OS…. any idea how that could be solved? This is the output:

If everything looks good, type ‘ok’ to continue: ok
Connecting to projects.doozan.com (50.116.34.13:80)
install_uboot_mtd0.s 100% |********************************************************************* ********************************************************************** *************************************************| 18406 00:00:00 ETA
Installing Bootloader
# checking for /usr/sbin/nandwrite…
# checking for /usr/sbin/nanddump…
# checking for /usr/sbin/flash_erase…
# checking for /usr/sbin/fw_printenv…
# checking for /etc/fw_env.config…

# Validating existing uBoot…
Block size 131072, page size 2048, OOB size 64
Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00080000…
Connecting to jeff.doozan.com (50.116.34.13:80)
valid-uboot.md5 100% |********************************************************************* ********************************************************************** *************************************************| 1133 –:–:– ETA
## Valid uBoot detected: [pinkpogo davygravy-2012-02-20-current]
## The newest uBoot is already installed on mtd0.

# uBoot installation has completed successfully.
mke2fs 1.41.12 (17-May-2010)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
Stride=0 blocks, Stripe width=0 blocks
214272 inodes, 855398 blocks
42769 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=876609536
27 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
7936 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200

Writing inode tables: done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 22 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.
Setting up swapspace version 1, size = 535675904 bytes

# Starting debootstrap installation
I: Retrieving InRelease
I: Failed to retrieve InRelease
I: Retrieving Release
I: Retrieving Packages
I: Validating Packages
I: Resolving dependencies of required packages…
I: Resolving dependencies of base packages…
I: Found additional required dependencies: insserv libbz2-1.0 libdb4.8 libslang2
I: Found additional base dependencies: adduser cpio debian-archive-keyring devio gnupg gpgv initramfs-tools klibc-utils libbsd0 libcap2 libedit2 libgssapi-krb5-2 libk5crypto3 libkeyutils1 libklibc libkrb5-3 libkrb5support0 libncursesw5 libreadline6 libssl0.9.8 libudev0 libusb-0.1-4 libuuid-perl libwrap0 linux-base linux-image-2.6.32-5-kirkwood openssh-blacklist openssh-client procps readline-common vim-common
I: Checking component main on http://cdn.debian.net/debian…

etc downloading all components and asking for a reboot afterwards. Everything performed in /tmp

@ Luke Maciak:
It’d be possible to only have apache serve up a specific directory for files that don’t demand a super high demand of confidentiality though, right? Or is that just going to create a hole to access other directories?

@ Mart:

Yes, he could. But then of course he would have to make some security related decsions. As in, how he feels about keeping his files in web accessible directories, even if behind a password.

@ Andrew & @ Luke Maciak

Couldn’t one (theoretically) get file access via the web with a little apache-fu?

@ Andrew:

Yes, you will lose that ability. As far as I can tell that functionality is provided by pogoplug web portal. So you basically give them access to your mounted drives so that they can act as a web client for you.

When you install debian you remove all that stuff (which might be a good thing privacy wise). So you won’t be able to use it like that. That said, if you set it up with ssh, then you can ssh in from anywhere and get your files that way.

Really cool write-up! I’m thinking of doing this with the Pogo I just got, but I’ve got a question. If I do decide to run Debian on my Pogoplug, is there any way to access the drives attached from outside my home network? And if so, how feasible would it be to access this through a front-end in a browser?

Thanks!