ASUS ExpressGate -- beware of ripoff!

[ficsch]

I think that's the image for the "Full" ExG SSD version; anyway, the point is -- if you install it on a stick, will the BIOS loader see it? I tried a simple "copy to stick, reboot computer" test, but it didn't work. Maybe it needs more coaxing or a BIOS patch...

I booted windows and plugged an USB stick in. Then I called the ASUS installer and installed express gate to the USB. The wizard asked to which partition express gate shall be installed.
I chose booting from the stick (in BIOS) but that didn't work. Express gate's error message occurred while booting "... no express gate installed ..." or similar.
I didn't have a look at the files that were installed to the stick. But I think it was about 300 MB of space used.

[ficsch]

One possible snag is that this board has a Marvell PATA controller, which is supported out of the box for kernel 2.6.25 and up, but older distros might have some issues.

That's interesting. With my P5Q-Pro pata_marvell only works with 2.6.24 (Gentoo).
2.6.25 (Gentoo) and 2.6.26 (vanilla) doesn't work. Both built with 2.6.24's config (make oldconfig).
SATA is running in AHCI mode.

There's a log message when booting:


Jul 20 21:17:14 tuxford ata7: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m1024@0xfeaffc00 port 0xfeaffd00 irq 16
Jul 20 21:17:14 tuxford ata8: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m1024@0xfeaffc00 port 0xfeaffd80 irq 16
Jul 20 21:17:14 tuxford ata9: DUMMY
Jul 20 21:17:14 tuxford ata7: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
Jul 20 21:17:14 tuxford ata7.15: qc timeout (cmd 0xe4)
Jul 20 21:17:14 tuxford ata7.15: failed to read PMP GSCR[0] (Emask=0x4)
Jul 20 21:17:14 tuxford ata7: failed to recover some devices, retrying in 5 secs
Jul 20 21:17:14 tuxford ata7: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
Jul 20 21:17:14 tuxford ata7.15: qc timeout (cmd 0xe4)
Jul 20 21:17:14 tuxford ata7.15: failed to read PMP GSCR[0] (Emask=0x4)
Jul 20 21:17:14 tuxford ata7: failed to recover some devices, retrying in 5 secs
Jul 20 21:17:14 tuxford ata7: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
Jul 20 21:17:14 tuxford ata7.15: qc timeout (cmd 0xe4)
Jul 20 21:17:14 tuxford ata7.15: failed to read PMP GSCR[0] (Emask=0x4)
Jul 20 21:17:14 tuxford ata7: failed to recover some devices, retrying in 5 secs
Jul 20 21:17:14 tuxford ata7: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
Jul 20 21:17:14 tuxford ata8: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)

Onboard LAN doesn't work, too (tried with atl1 from the kernel).

[drosky]

I booted windows and plugged an USB stick in. Then I called the ASUS installer and installed express gate to the USB. The wizard asked to which partition express gate shall be installed.
I chose booting from the stick (in BIOS) but that didn't work. Express gate's error message occurred while booting "... no express gate installed ..." or similar.
I didn't have a look at the files that were installed to the stick. But I think it was about 300 MB of space used.

You shouldn't have to boot from the stick, the BIOS should find express gate when it first begins POST. I wonder if it's picky about formatting. If the stick was formatted FAT16, maybe you could try formatting it FAT32, and vise-versa.

[Kano]

Well using my method you can boot from usb stick, but i guess the "standard" way is to select express gate in the bios.

[drosky]

Well using my method you can boot from usb stick, but i guess the "standard" way is to select express gate in the bios.

Because of the error message, it sounded like he has a MB that has the express gate hook in the BIOS, so if express gate is installed properly, he should see the express gate menu almost immediately after powering up. One nice thing about the normal way of running express gate is that it runs very early in the POST process. My P5Q-E, for example, takes 25 seconds or so to go through POST to the point where I get my normal GRUB menu (even with "quick boot" turned on), whereas the express gate menu comes up in around 7 seconds or so after pushing the power button.

Asus boards seem to be pretty slow to POST all the way through to a normal boot.

[Kano]

Well found a way to test it with VirtualBox - saidly without network support. You can use a hd image to boot the ce_bz kernel. Also enable the USB support as it will access the usb stick to load the apps. Then you are done! If you already created the test.vmdk just use it

[deanjo]

Heh I like how this thread turned from a warning into a howto.

[Kano]

Yes, because I can run it with Vbox now, i figured out, that you have to partition the usb stick if you want to store data. Updated my script that it only uses 220 mb for the system and the rest for the data.

[drosky]

Well found a way to test it with VirtualBox - saidly without network support. You can use a hd image to boot the ce_bz kernel. Also enable the USB support as it will access the usb stick to load the apps. Then you are done! If you already created the test.vmdk just use it

That's cool. Maybe you could build a driver module for the virtual network adapter against the version of the kernel they use (2.6.20) and get networking working.

Also, you don't have to store data only on the USB stick. With a terminal available, I can mount my linux partitions and access my home directory. It's not perfect though, there is no command for adding users, so you have to manually add your user and group to /etc/passwd and /etc/group, then you can su to your username. Could make a script to do all this on startup.

[drosky]

Security

With a terminal available, I can mount my linux partitions and access my home directory.

Express gate represents a security hole. You could put rxvt on a USB stick and have root access to your machine. Probably would only want it enabled on machines that nobody else has physical access to.

Of course, this is no worse of a security hole than machines configured to boot from anything other than the HDD.