Btrfs migration on Turris 1.x routers⚓︎

Btrfs is the default filesystem on Turris Omnia and Turris MOX while Turris 1.x routers were using JFFS2 and UBIFS later. In the past, we switched to the Btrfs filesystem, which has various advantages, like providing backups via snapshots managed by our tool Schnapps.

Requirements⚓︎

You will need:

• a Turris 1.0 or Turris 1.1 router,
• a microSD card with at least 8 GB free storage,
• a PH1 screwdriver,
• a microUSB cable,
• a computer with microSD card reader (Linux recommended),
• a connection to the Internet - one ethernet cable.

Preparation of Turris 1.x routers⚓︎

To ensure everything works properly, you will need to perform a factory reset to a working Turris OS version.

Download the SD card image of a working Turris OS 3.x system from our repository to your computer.

Write the image to the microSD card.

On a Linux running machine, execute this command by replacing the if= path to the corresponding path to the SD card image and the of= path to the correct device (the microSD card):

lsblk

fdisk -l

sudo dd if=/path/to/sdcard.img of=/dev/path/to/microsdcard bs=4M status=progress && sync

On a Windows machine, you can use BalenaEtcher or Raspberry Pi Imager.

Remove the top cover of the router (4 PH1 screws) and the front panel if you have Turris 1.0 (3 PH1 screws) to access the microUSB serial port.

Carefully remove the RAM (located between the CPU and LEDs) by releasing the two latches.

Insert the microSD card in the slot located under the RAM module.

Replace the RAM module.

Locate the SW1 switch bar on the left side of the CPU if you have the router facing you with the LEDs.

Set the switches 1 and 3 to the pattern 011 010.

Connect the microUSB cable to the serial port located in the left corner of the front panel and connect it to your computer.

Connect to the serial console (115200 baud rate).

sudo screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200

Plug in the power supply and wait for the automatic installation to complete. The process will look like this (HOTOVO is printed out if the process is done):

Erase Flash Bank # 1 
........................................................................... done
Copy to Flash... 9....8....7....6....5....4....3....2....1....done
HOTOVO

Now you can unplug the power supply. After unplugging, remove the RAM again, remove the microSD card, and replace the RAM module again.

Set the switches on the SW1 switch bar to its original state 110 010.

Perform a Factory reset. Plug in the power supply and hold the reset button located on the rear panel for more than 10 seconds (or until the blinking LED becomes solid).

Wait until Router Turris succesfully started. is printed out to the serial console.

Turn off the router, format the microSD card to FAT 32, remove the RAM module, place the microSD card back into the slot, and replace the RAM module.

Connecting to the internet⚓︎

Plug in the power supply to turn on the router and change the network configuration of WAN to ensure internet connection and the configuration of the resolver to disable DNSSEC because of expired certificates.

sed -i "s/proto 'none'/proto 'dhcp'/" /etc/config/network
sed -i "s/ignore_root_key '0'/ignore_root_key '1'/" /etc/config/resolver

Restart the network and the resolver.

/etc/init.d/network restart && /etc/init.d/resolver restart

Give the router some time to restart these services, then check if everything went well:

ping 8.8.8.8

# You should see periodical replies from the server like these
root@turris:/# ping 8.8.8.8
PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=1 ttl=120 time=0.869 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=2 ttl=120 time=0.952 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=3 ttl=120 time=1.43 ms

This tests if there is a working Internet connection.

ping turris.cz

# You should se periodical replies from the server like these
root@turris:/# ping turris.cz
PING turris.cz (217.31.192.80): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 217.31.192.80: seq=0 ttl=61 time=0.884 ms
64 bytes from 217.31.192.80: seq=1 ttl=61 time=0.902 ms
64 bytes from 217.31.192.80: seq=2 ttl=61 time=0.899 ms

This tests if the DNS resolution works.

If this worked you are now connected to the Internet.

Installing current certificates⚓︎

Now you need to get the latest certificates in order to install the Btrfs migration script from the repo.

Download the certificates package:

cd /tmp && curl -k -O https://repo.turris.cz/hbs/turris1x/packages/base/ca-certificates_20250419-r1_all.ipk

And install them:

opkg install ./ca-certificates_20250419-r1_all.ipk

Installing the Btrfs migration script⚓︎

Before you are able to install any packages, you need to update the package lists, and then you can install the turris-btrfs package.

opkg update && opkg install turris-btrfs

MicroSD card migration⚓︎

The next step is to execute the btrfs_migrate command, which is a script that wipes all data on the microSD card, formats the card to Btrfs, copies all the current content on the NAND (internal storage) to the microSD card, and sets the U-boot environment to boot from the microSD card.

Run the script:

btrfs_migrate

# And type in 'yes' to confirm that all data on microSD card is wiped.

After the script is done, you will get a notification to reboot your router.

You can reboot with this command:

reboot

To check if you are booting from the microSD card, you can run this command:

mount | grep btrfs 

If you see this output, the migration has been succesful:

/dev/mmcblk0p2 on / type btrfs (rw,noatime,ssd,space_cache,commit=5,subvolid=257,subvol=/@)

Installing the latest Turris OS⚓︎

By running the following commands, you will download the medkit (system image) from the stable HBS branch.

cd /tmp && curl -k -O https://repo.turris.cz/hbs/medkit/turris1x-medkit-latest.tar.gz

Import the medkit as the factory snapshot and reset to the newly imported factory image.

schnapps import -f turris1x-medkit-latest.tar.gz
schnapps rollback factory

Reboot the router:

reboot

You can check the current version on the router in reForis or by running this command:

cat /etc/turris-version

schnapps rollback factory

What happens if you remove the microSD card⚓︎

Turris boots from the NAND (internal storage) in the same state as before the migration.