In case of future corruption of the flash memory chip on your iSpot (especially if you are ‘hacking’ your device), it’s a good idea to make a backup of the contents.\u00a0 Hopefully, having this backup will make it possible to recover from ‘bricking’\/etc in the future.<\/p>\n
There are 10 ‘partitions’ on the flash memory chip in the iSpot (at least on my device).\u00a0 You can get a list of the partitions by dumping the contents of the file “\/proc\/mtd”:<\/p>\n
# cat \/proc\/mtd\r\ndev: size erasesize name\r\nmtd0: 00040000 00020000 \"RedBoot\"\r\nmtd1: 00020000 00020000 \"param\"\r\nmtd2: 00120000 00020000 \"linux\"\r\nmtd3: 00600000 00020000 \"rootfs\"\r\nmtd4: 00100000 00020000 \"system\"\r\nmtd5: 00120000 00020000 \"linux_2\"\r\nmtd6: 00600000 00020000 \"rootfs_2\"\r\nmtd7: 00020000 00020000 \"ver_1\"\r\nmtd8: 00020000 00020000 \"ver_2\"\r\nmtd9: 0001f000 00020000 \"FIS directory\"\r\nmtd10: 00001000 00020000 \"RedBoot config\"<\/pre>\nEach of the partitions has a pair of corresponding “device files” in “\/dev” (one ‘character’ device, one ‘block’ device). For example, for “mtd0” you’ll find “\/dev\/mtd0” and “\/dev\/mtdblock0” files.<\/p>\n
NOTE: Actually, “mtd10” doesn’t seem to have these device\u00a0files by default. If you’d like to be able to access “mtd10” like other partitions, then type the following commands to create them:<\/p>\n
mknod \/dev\/mtd10 c 90 20\r\nmknod \/dev\/mtdblock10 b 31 10<\/pre>\nTo ‘back up’ a partition, use the “dd” command to dump the contents of the ‘character’ device file (“\/dev\/mtd0”, for example):<\/p>\n
dd if=\/dev\/mtd0 of=\/tmp\/mtd0_backup.bin<\/pre>\nBe careful about the “if=<\/strong>” (input file) and “of=<\/strong>” (output file) arguments – don’t mix them up!<\/em><\/p>\n
Execute the “dd” command on each of the 10 partitions in order to have a complete backup.<\/p>\n
The above\u00a0example leaves the backup binary file in “\/tmp”.\u00a0 I’ve found that backing up to “\/var\/wwwroot” instead makes it easy to get the files off of the iSpot (and on to your PC).\u00a0 “\/var\/wwwroot” points to the root of the iSpot’s web server, so you can download the backup file by downloading http:\/\/192.168.1.1\/mtd0_backup.bin<\/a> from your PC.<\/p>\n
Don’t forget to remove the mtd backup files from “\/var\/wwwroot” once you’ve grabbed it using your PC!<\/em><\/p>\n
In order to make things easier\/less prone to error, I’ve written a little script to backup all of the partitions to files in “\/var\/wwwroot\/mtd_backup”. Once you run the script, you can then browse to “http:\/\/192.168.1.1\/mtd_backup”, then right-click on each link and “Save Target As…” to save each file.<\/p>\n
Here’s a link to an mtd_backup.sh<\/a>, and\u00a0here’s the contents of the script:<\/p>\n
#! \/bin\/sh\r\n\r\nDESTDIR=\/var\/wwwroot\/mtd_backup\r\nmkdir -p $DESTDIR\r\necho \"<HTML><body>\" > $DESTDIR\/index.html\r\necho \"<br>Right-click and 'Save Target As...' on all of the following:<br>\" >> $DESTDIR\/index.html\r\n\r\nlet x=0\r\nwhile [[ $x -le 10 ]]\r\ndo\r\n if [[ -c \/dev\/mtd$x ]]; then\r\n echo \"--- Backing up mtd$x ---\"\r\n dd if=\/dev\/mtd$x of=$DESTDIR\/mtd$x.bin\r\n if [[ $? -ne 0 ]]; then\r\n echo \"=== ERROR backing up mtd$x! Check free space in $DESTDIR! ===\"\r\n exit 1\r\n fi\r\n echo \"<br><br><A HREF=\\\"mtd$x.bin\\\">mtd$x.bin<\/A>\" >> $DESTDIR\/index.html\r\n fi\r\n let x=$x+1\r\ndone\r\n\r\necho \"<\/body><\/html>\" >> $DESTDIR\/index.html\r\necho \"=== Backup to $DESTDIR complete:\"\r\nls -l $DESTDIR\/mtd*.bin<\/pre>\nThe script creates a backup directory (“\/var\/wwwroot\/mtd_backup”), backs-up all of the “\/dev\/mtd#” device files, and in the process creates an “index.html” file in “\/var\/wwwroot\/mtd_backup” (makes it easier to download the files from your PC).<\/p>\n
Don’t forget to remove the mtd backup files from “\/var\/wwwroot\/mtd_backup” once you’ve grabbed them using your PC!<\/em><\/p>\n
A future article will give some tips on recovering a device by making use of these backup files.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n
Disclaimer: information on this site is for educational purposes only, and intended to help iSpot owners experiment with their own devices. I do not condone any hacking for illegal purposes, such as stealing service, etc.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In case of future corruption of the flash memory chip on your iSpot (especially if you are ‘hacking’ your device), it’s a good idea to make a backup of the contents.\u00a0 Hopefully, having this backup will make it possible to … Continue reading