[c-nsp] partition-table and file-system type on Cisco 4500 SUP compact-flash

[Martin T]

Hi,

older Cisco 4500 series supervisor engines support compact flash
cards. However, Cisco-branded 32MB compact-flash taken from Cisco 1800
series router is not recognized by SUP:

Catalyst4500#dir slot0:
%Error opening slot0:/ (Bad device info block)
Catalyst4500#

After executing "format slot0:", the compact flash became accessible:

Catalyst4500#format slot0:
Format operation may take a while. Continue? [confirm]
Format operation will destroy all data in "slot0:".  Continue? [confirm]
Enter volume ID (up to 64 chars)[default slot0]:

Format of slot0 complete
Catalyst4500#dir slot0:
Directory of slot0:/

No files in directory

31784960 bytes total (31784960 bytes free)
Catalyst4500#


The problem is, that now I'm not able to access this compact-flash in
my PC. Looks like it even does not have a partition-table:

T42 ~ # dmesg | tail
[1983944.880491] ata5.00: 62720 sectors, multi 0: LBA
[1983944.888476] ata5.00: configured for PIO0
[1983944.888794] scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      STI Flash
8.0.0  01/1 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[1983944.889398] sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[1983944.891205] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] 62720 512-byte logical blocks:
(32.1 MB/30.6 MiB)
[1983944.891403] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[1983944.891414] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[1983944.891501] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache:
enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[1983944.910031]  sdb: unknown partition table
[1983944.910632] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
T42 ~ # fdisk -lu /dev/sdb

Disk /dev/sdb: 32 MB, 32112640 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3 cylinders, total 62720 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table
T42 ~ # file -s /dev/sdb
/dev/sdb: data
T42 ~ # dd if=/dev/sdb bs=512 count=1 | hexdump -C
00000000  88 06 35 76 ea 01 00 00  01 00 00 00 00 00 04 00  |..5v............|
00000010  ff ff ff ff 01 00 06 00  03 00 00 00 e5 01 00 00  |................|
00000020  00 00 00 01 02 00 7c 60  00 00 00 00 02 00 c2 ff  |......|`........|
00000030  00 00 3e 00 e8 01 00 00  01 00 00 00 e9 01 00 00  |..>.............|
00000040  01 00 00 00 6c 73 74 6f  00 30 00 00 00 00 00 00  |....lsto.0......|
00000050  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
*
000000a0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00  |................|
000000b0  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
*
00000100  d0 ba 1e 0b 02 00 f8 5f  b8 80 ff ff ff ff ff ff  |......._........|
00000110  6f 79 61 64 66 2d 6c 73  62 69 6d 2d 00 00 00 00  |oyadf-lsbim-....|
00000120  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
*
00000140  45 7f 46 4c 02 01 00 01  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |E.FL............|
00000150  02 00 70 00 00 00 01 00  00 01 00 00 00 00 34 00  |..p...........4.|
00000160  02 00 68 5e 00 00 00 00  34 00 20 00 01 00 28 00  |..h^....4. ...(.|
00000170  0a 00 09 00 00 00 01 00  01 00 00 00 00 01 00 00  |................|
00000180  00 01 00 00 01 00 b4 57  29 00 a4 c2 00 00 07 00  |.......W).......|
00000190  01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
000001a0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
*
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
512 bytes (512 B) copied, 0.0158727 s, 32.3 kB/s
00000200
T42 ~ #


"format" command creates a "Class A" file-system? Is this "Class A"
file-system some kind of Cisco-proprietary file-system? is there a way
to access this file-system under modern(2.6/3.x) Linux kernel?


regards,
Martin