[Freedombox-discuss] FreedomBox/Unhosted/PageKite for Access Innovation Prize 2012

[Nick M. Daly]

On Sat, 7 Jul 2012 16:28:46 +0200, Markus Sabadello wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 2:16 PM, Nick M. Daly wrote:
> > On Tue, 3 Jul 2012 16:25:16 +0200, Markus Sabadello wrote:
> > > We should also have some updating mechanism...
> > >
> > > 1. When the FreedomBox boots, it checks if a certain file
> > > (together with a signature) is present on an attached USB drive.
> > >
> > > 2. If yes, and if the user enters their password, that file is
> > > executed and can update the box.
> >
> > Why reinvent the wheel when we already have Debian's updating system?
> > Apt seems to work pretty well for the rest of the distribution.  Any
> > reasons it won't work here?
>
> Good point. Yeah I agree the standard updating mechanism should be
> used.  That would be presented through Plinth, right?  I.e.  there
> would be a button saying "Update my FreedomBox"?

Yup.  The update-notifier package handles this well.  It just pops a
little icon that you can click when there are new updates.  We can also
pre-configure the system to install security updates automagically,
which might be useful when Wheezy is released.  That's in the
plug-server setup guide [0] somewhere...

> Maybe the ability to stick a USB-drive-with-update-file into the box
> would still make sense.  Kind of a backup recovery-mode option in case
> something went wrong with the box?

Good idea.  The OpenPandora project [1] actually has this built out into
their system's firmware (hold a particular button while booting with
specific SD card in a chosen card slot, while singing /It's a Small
World/ backwards three times...).  Right now, we do have the JTAG
option, but we can't ask everybody to go that route.

Would you be able to bring that sort of thread to the mailing with any
questions you have?  I'd do it, but you've been thinking over this
problem for longer than I have and probably have more answers and better
questions.

My big question is: what files do we save off to recover later?  A
firmware reset (because that's essentially what it is) shouldn't lose
all your blog posts, for example.  An easy solution to this would be to
move specific directories to a different partition that isn't wiped on
reset.  Which directories?  Where's that partition stored?

Right now, I'm imagining putting /home and /var on an external SD card.

Upsides:

- Your data's safe in case of factory reset.

- Your data's easily transportable.

Downsides:

- The box won't work if you lose the card.  You'll have to reset if you
  accidentally pop out the card.

- Your data's easily steal-able.

Nick

0: bitbucket.org/nickdaly/plugserver
1: openpandora.org
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