A reproducible build system for creating a USB Rescue Boot image for the single-bay WD My Cloud Home (Realtek RTD1295, 4× Cortex-A53, 1 GiB RAM).
This project builds a complete USB rescue environment:
- Kernel:
symops/monarch-6.18(Linux 6.18.x, ARM64), all required drivers built in — no kernel modules are built - Rootfs: Alpine aarch64 minirootfs with Dropbear SSH + DHCP
- Boot: raw patched ARM64
Image+ WDMCH DTB - Rescue: standalone 4 MiB initramfs that can hand off to an installed Alpine root filesystem
vendor ROM/BL31/U-Boot
-> boot_rescue_from_usb (reads fixed filenames from the USB stick ROOT)
-> WDMCH rescue kernel + rescue initramfs
-> shell / DHCP / SSH
-> switch_root into installed Alpine (filesystem label wdmch-root)
-> optional kexec path, no stick needed
The vendor U-Boot cannot boot from the internal SATA disk. Every boot goes through the FAT32 USB stick — either by holding the reset button at power-on, or automatically when no factory partition is found.
# Verified path: partition, copy and PROVE the stick before touching the WDMCH.
# A failed hardware session costs far more than this five-minute check.
tools/prepare-usb.sh --device /dev/sdX # destructive; refuses a non-removable diskAlready have a mounted stick? Verify it in place (read-only):
tools/prepare-usb.sh --image /mnt/stickDoing it by hand instead:
mount /dev/sdX1 /mnt/stick
cp -a build/usb-tree-root/. /mnt/stick/ # note the /. - copies hidden files too
sync
cd /mnt/stick && sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS
# All three artifacts must report OK, and there must be NO boot/ directory:
ls -d boot 2>/dev/null && echo "WRONG LAYOUT" || echo "root-level layout OK"Then power off the box, insert the stick, and hold the reset button while powering on. See docs/usb-rescue.md.
From the rescue shell:
install-alpine /dev/sda # interactive
install-alpine /dev/sda --yes # non-interactiveThe installer writes only the existing p20 (SYSTEM_B), formatted ext4 with
the label wdmch-root. The factory 24-partition GPT is preserved; p1
(FW_TABLE), the A/B/GOLD firmware slots, your data (p22) and your storage
volume (p24) are untouched. It requires explicit confirmation.
On the next rescue boot the init finds wdmch-root and switch_roots into the
installed system. Add an empty file named norescue to the stick root to get
the rescue shell instead.
config/ - Source locks and build configuration
kernel/ - Kernel fetch, build, and patch scripts
dtb/ - Device tree build and validation
rootfs/ - Alpine rescue rootfs build scripts
image/ - USB rescue artifact packaging
tools/ - Host-side validation tools
tests/ - Repository validation tests
docs/ - Documentation
.github/workflows/ - CI/CD pipelines
| File | Description |
|---|---|
sata.uImage |
Raw patched ARM64 kernel Image + 512 KiB zero padding (not an mkimage/FIT wrapper) |
rescue.sata.dtb |
WDMCH device tree blob |
rescue.root.sata.cpio.gz_pad.img |
Alpine rescue initramfs, exactly 4194304 bytes |
SHA256SUMS |
Checksums for the release artifacts |
manifest.json |
Build metadata and artifact manifest |
- docs/usb-rescue.md — stick layout and boot procedure
- docs/architecture.md — boot chain and storage layout
- docs/INSTALL.md — build and install
- docs/RECOVERY.md — recovery procedures
- docs/DEBUGGING.md — troubleshooting
- docs/SOURCES.md — source classification
See docs/SOURCES.md for full source classification.
MIT License — see LICENSE.
- DO NOT boot GOLD partition — it is a factory-reset appliance, not a safe fallback
- DO NOT write A/B/GOLD slots as part of this project
- DO back up any existing WDMCH firmware table before future flashing work
(
tools/backup-fw-table.sh— neverdd if=/dev/sda1, which in a rescue shell copies the USB stick) - This is a rescue boot tool; it does not overwrite NAS firmware
- The factory GPT is preserved — never repartition the internal disk
- No private SSH key is stored anywhere in this repository or its artifacts