Questions about using Jumpdrive

Hello, I just got my Librem 5 less than a week ago and already I’ve got myself into a bind. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Background: I tried to use GNOME Disks to encrypt my SD card and enter the password at boot, but instead it has an error (which others have reported) where it prompts for the main encryption password, then prompts for the SD card password for about 2 seconds before shutting down.

So I’m trying to use Jumpdrive on my Qubes OS Librem 14 to fix this. Initial questions:

  1. For the aarch64-linux-gnu- toolchain dependency listed at GitHub - dreemurrs-embedded/Jumpdrive: Flash/Rescue SD Card image for PinePhone and PineTab. This is NOT a bootloader , which architecture should I choose from the Arm GNU Toolchain Downloads – Arm Developer page? (I am not advanced enough of a user to understand the choices)
  2. Same question for the arm-none-eabi- toolchain dependency

Thanks in advance!

1 Like

You may be better off doing a live boot of a suitable distro e.g. PureOS or Ubuntu - and then using that to boot Jumpdrive on the Librem 5 and then using the host computer to fix the mounting of the µSD card.

You shouldn’t need any toolchain at all unless you are intending to build Jumpdrive from source - which you don’t need to do.

1 Like

Thanks for the advice and the details.

I actually tried the build already created at Artifacts · sebastiankrzyszkowiak / Jumpdrive · GitLab . I could get the Librem5 to connect to my qube with the volume up/battery process, but then couldn’t get anything to work after that, so I thought maybe I was missing some packages.

Instead, I will just switch over to PureOS for this and see if I can get it working as you suggest. Cross fingers.

1 Like

You only need the toolchains when you want to compile Jumpdrive by yourself. You don’t have to, there’s a ready-made binary in CI artifacts that’s verified to work.

What do you mean by that?

1 Like

@dos thank you for creating the build and for the clarification. To answer your question, after I did the battery remove/volume up/connect cable/battery insert/let go of volume button process, I had a new device showing up under the Qubes Devices menu. I then connected the new device to the qube where I had downloaded and unzipped Jumpdrive. I ran Jumpdrive but not all the steps were a success. I tried reconnecting and restarting Jumpdrive several times to no avail.

In contrast, I just followed @irvinewade’s suggestion to just boot from another distribution (in this case I put PureOS on a USB thumbdrive), and those same steps did work. I’m now seeing the “Jumpdrive is running” screen on my phone and I am able to access the encrypted parts of the eMMC.

Now I’m stuck further along. Since I used the GNOME Disks menu to set up the automatic password entry for my SD card, I have no ideas what things need to be changed to reverse and stop the errors on my phone. Can anyone advise on what I should be looking for and changing, and where?

Many thanks!

1 Like

Oh yeah, the phone enumerates multiple times in different modes during the process, so setups that require you to accept/forward a new USB device are likely to cause troubles.

2 Likes

Good question. I guess that’s one of the downsides of GUI. I don’t actually know the answer but …

have a look in /etc/crypttab and/or /etc/fstab

You want to comment out anything that is referencing the µSD drive.

Caution: Remember that in this scenario you need to be attacking files that are on the eMMC drive of the Librem 5. That is, make sure that you don’t accidentally edit e.g. /etc/fstab of your host computer. So when I write /etc/fstab I really mean /your-mount-point/etc/fstab (for an appropriate value of your-mount-point).

Alternatively, you can telnet in to the Librem 5 that is running Jumpdrive and then do it locally on the Librem 5. You still need to be careful but at least you can’t accidentally edit a file on the host computer that way. (If doing it this way then make sure that you don’t mount the eMMC drive on the host computer.)

Alternatively, you may be able to do it on the host computer and use chroot (but that is not an approach that I have tried).

1 Like

@irvinewade That did work, thanks… i.e. getting rid of everything referencing the SD card in crypttab and fstab in the eMMC system files. Since the eMMC was encrypted, I used part of @Lliure 's excellent detailed instructions here to access the eMMC device How to investigate and fix a Librem 5 installation that hangs at boot

And you’re right, that’s the risk of using the GUI. Lesson learned. Thanks again for all the help.

3 Likes