RouterBOARD 1000 Series User's Manual
User's Guide
Assembling the Hardware
First to use the board:
●
In most cases you do not need to use any additional boot devices, as you can boot the RouterBOARD
from the onboard NAND memory. You can also install one or two CompactFlash modules or Microdrive
hard drives, which you can use as an alternative boot device (in
J4
slot only) or additional storage
media (in any or both slots);
●
If not already installed, install board in a case, connect other peripherals and cables.
You can also order a pre-assembled system with RouterBOARD and extension cards of your choice already
installed in a case.
Powering
Power options:
●
J10
power jack:
12V DC
●
J11
alternative power connector, used when device installed in a rackmount case, also 12V DC
Booting options
First, RouterBOOT loader is started. It displays some useful information on the onboard RS232C
asynchronous serial port, which is set to 115200bit/s, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity by default. Also
supports hardware (RTS/CTS) flow control. The loader may be configured to boot the system from the
onboard NAND module or from Ethernet network. See the respective section of this manual for how to
configure booting sequence and other boot loader parameters.
Onboard NAND Storage Device
The RouterBOARD may be started from the onboard NAND storage chip. As there is no partition table on the
device, the boot loader assumes the first 4MiB form a YAFFS filesystem, and executes the file called “kernel”
stored in the root directory on that partition. It is possible to partition the rest of the medium by patching
the kernel source.
Internal Storage Device
The RouterBOARD may be started from a CompactFlash module or a Microdrive hard drive installed in the
first (
J4
) CompactFlash slot. At least two partitions must exist on the device, first of which being the ELF
image the board is to be booted from (normally, it is a Linux kernel, appended with the kernparm ELF
section that specifies the root partition name and, optionally, other kernel parameters of your choice).
Booting from network
Network boot works similarly to PXE or EtherBoot protocol, and allows you to boot a RouterBOARD 1000
series boards from an executable image stored on a TFTP server. It uses BOOTP or DHCP (configurable in
boot loader) protocol to get a valid IP address, and TFTP protocol to download an executable (ELF) kernel
image combined with the initial RAM disk (inserted as an ELF section) to boot from (the TFTP server's IP
address and the image name must be sent by the BOOTP/DHCP server).
To boot the RouterBOARD computer from Ethernet network you need the following:
●
An ELF kernel image for the loader to boot from (you can embed the kernel parameters and initrd
image as ELF sections called
kernparm
and
initrd
respectively)
●
A TFTP server which to download the image from
●
A BOOTP/DHCP server (may be installed on the same machine as the TFTP server) to give an IP
address, TFTP server address and boot image name
See the RouterBOOT section on how to configure loader to boot from network.
Note that you must connect the RouterBOARD you want to boot, and the BOOTP/DHCP and TFTP servers to
the same broadcast domain (i.e., there must not be any routers between them).
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