ODroid H3+ Issues

[Keyxmakerx]

I know most people say to use the proxmox method but I prefer having it be bare metal. However 12+ hours into this and I've hit a brick wall.

Issue #1 (the obvious one): The realtek drivers are not installed, so I need to download them. Everyone says to use the re mod instead of the one from realtek. Took me awhile, as I'll discuss later, it did not want to connect to my WAN. finally got it downloaded, ran the make install, added the notations in the boot config aaaaand... Nope they aren't loading. As far as kstat tells me at least. Now the Ethernet lights come on, which I'm unsure if they did that prior to all this, but anyways.
Issue #2: auto detecting link just isn't working and I'm baffled as to why. None of the onboard or expansion board works, however even with a USB port Ethernet OPNSense autodetect doesn't detect anything. I have to manually set it to ue0 for it to work. Took me forever to find that out.
Issue #3 (more of #2 continued): So got the USB eth to finally work, pulled an IP, tried to update and I get certification invalid and nothing I do gets me around that. Rebooting, update, none of them fix it. So downloading the drivers that way is for not.
Issue #4: Trying to connect a laptop, by setting the USB eth to be Opt1 and as far as I can tell I've setup opt 1 with all the normal stuff. It is odd that it asks me do I want to use ipv4, I say yes then it asks me if I want to use ipv6, I say no. Then it asks me what ipv6 I should use. I just hit enter at this point because I don't know why it's asking me that. However it refuses to hand out a ipv4 lan ip to my laptop.

So I'm at a dead end. Initially getting the drivers onto the emmc based system was the hard part, but then it failed to make install due to missing folder, only for me to find a .pkg version which I thought worked fine. I'm completely stumped and I can't move my setup and everything until I get this router online. I don't exactly mind giving up and using proxmox but I feel that's just gonna reduce performance even if just by a little. But maybe I'm just being stubborn.

Any insights anyone may have I'd be greatly appreciated.

[0n3man]

A lot of times when you get the cert error it's because the time isn't set correctly on your system. 

[0n3man]

I just did an install today.  I used two usb nics to set up WAN and LAN.  On the WAN I had to configure a static IP.  This was fine because I was just connecting on my existing network, behind my existing router/fw, so I didn't need to get DHCP information directly from my ISP.  I did initially try to use DHCP on the WAN interface, but for some reason when doing this the interface was constantly going down and up.  Not an issue with static IP.  Then i put a laptop connected to the LAN interface so I could access the web interface.  I logged in and updated the firmware.  I had to run updates twice to get to latest versions.  Then I went to the plugins page under firmware and installed os-realtek-re.  Rebooted, removed USB NICs, logged in via console port and reassigned the new re0 and re1 interfaces to WAN and LAN.   After that I installed configuration from my old opnsense FW and put the device in line.  Works fine now.

You need to make sure you also install the network version of the bios mentioned here https://wiki.odroid.com/odroid-h3/hardware/h3_bios_update

[Keyxmakerx]

Bringing back this topic because I'm attempting it v2.

@0n3man I know the bios is fine because VyOS works without any setup on all Ethernets. I believe I did the BIOS thing first thing.

After continuing off and on to get it working, I think I've sorta figured the issue being that I'm in read only (or live CD) mode? None of the changes in making are saving. I cant use the nano version for some reason, and I can't install via a USB because the installer says "corrupted table". Which doesn't make sense since the live CD works fine out of the box, minus the drivers.

Not sure if anyone has any recommendations for emmc setups, or if Etcher is just the problem with the nano version or something.

[Greg_E]

Have you tried the VGA image and Etcher or Rufus to a USB? I was not able to get the DVD version to work with either Etcher or Rufus, complains that it is not a file system (or something like that).

Also have you tried a Ventoy USB with either (both) the VGA and DVD? One of these works, but I forget which image lets my computers boot.

I used Rufus with the VGA img to a USB and this worked to boot and install to my computers, I've done three this way and one of them about 5 times now while I got my process documented.

I haven't looked into the Nano image yet, I may need to do this just to round out my knowledge, I have more install attempts to make on my test stuff just to work out issues before I build my long term device.

[Keyxmakerx]

Have you tried the VGA image and Etcher or Rufus to a USB? I was not able to get the DVD version to work with either Etcher or Rufus, complains that it is not a file system (or something like that).

Also have you tried a Ventoy USB with either (both) the VGA and DVD? One of these works, but I forget which image lets my computers boot.

I used Rufus with the VGA img to a USB and this worked to boot and install to my computers, I've done three this way and one of them about 5 times now while I got my process documented.

I haven't looked into the Nano image yet, I may need to do this just to round out my knowledge, I have more install attempts to make on my test stuff just to work out issues before I build my long term device.

Yup! The only one that works is the DvD I believe, which ever one that one is. However the installer doesn't work because it says the EMMC storage is corrupt, yet if I install something else on the storage it's fine. So I'm unsure what's going on. I don't particularly like the idea of using a USB as the boot drive tbh, id rather stick with VyOS.

[Greg_E]

I would probably use either an nvme drive in the m.2 slot (says SATA not supported) or use a 2.5 inch SATA drive from one of the connectors. At least you could test it this way.

Are there any BIOS updates or EMMC firmware updates? I wonder if there is a different brand of EMMC that would work.

I wonder if something like this would let you write the Nano version directly to the EMMC https://www.amazon.com/ODROID-USB3-0-eMMC-Module-Writer/dp/B07BHQ615Q

[Keyxmakerx]

I would probably use either an nvme drive in the m.2 slot (says SATA not supported) or use a 2.5 inch SATA drive from one of the connectors. At least you could test it this way.

Are there any BIOS updates or EMMC firmware updates? I wonder if there is a different brand of EMMC that would work.

I wonder if something like this would let you write the Nano version directly to the EMMC https://www.amazon.com/ODROID-USB3-0-eMMC-Module-Writer/dp/B07BHQ615Q

The m.2 is taken up by the 4 Ethernet expansions.
I suppose I could put an SSD, just seems like a waste given ik the EMMC works for other OS's.

As far as what your referring to, that adapter I have already, you can get them directly from odroid which they recommend. However when I try to write the nano version of OpnSense it says that the nano version isn't bootable for some reason. However that is etcher saying that, I don't know if I ever tried just trying it anyways...

[Greg_E]

I would bet that Rufus also says it isn't bootable.

[Keyxmakerx]

Wealp,  I tried Nano anyways, using etcher and dd like the installation forums say to, and neither works. I'm guessing I'm SOL when it comes to getting OpnSense up and running on Odroid hardware for some reason...

[Greg_E]

Is there anything in the BIOS that might be protecting the EMMC?

[Keyxmakerx]

Is there anything in the BIOS that might be protecting the EMMC?

Doesn't seem like it. I installed VyOS via a live USB > EMMC just fine. I have to assume there's some driver somewhere is missing or something. In fact we found a VyOS bug that broke the install because of EEE not working correctly and just caused a kernal panic, so something like that may also be happening to the OpnSense possibly? Unfortunately I have no logs or anything to look through since I just get errors when trying to do anything.

Hopefully one day OpnSense will move to Linux based which has better driver support in the future I think is the only plan for now. That or VyOS gets a GUI with app store like OpnSense does.