Why AMTM format command (FD) requires a router reboot?

[Rhialto]

Title says it all. Just curious why this is mandatory. Would CTRL-C cancel the reboot?

Also I see I can format from the GUI, but there is no ext4 which required for Diversion. Why it's possible in SSH to format in ext4 but not from GUI? And when GUI completes a format does it also require a reboot? Unless this is only required for ext2, ext3 and ext4?

 

[Viktor Jaep]

Title says it all. Just curious why this is mandatory. Would CTRL-C cancel the reboot?

Also I see I can format from the GUI, but there is no ext4 which required for Diversion. Why it's possible in SSH to format in ext4 but not from GUI? And when GUI completes a format does it also require a reboot? Unless this is only required for ext2, ext3 and ext4?

There are most likely a myriad of services that would need to be restarted in order to fully make use of the EXT4 partition.

 

[JGrana]

Without looking at the source code, I wonder if it is due to the fact that the Asus portion of the firmware only knows the drive ”it” had mounted at boot went unmounted.
After formatting, I would think you could mount the freshly formatted new drive complete with label. But i’m not sure the Asus firmware (not the Linux kernel) knows about this ”new“ drive.

One thing to try (and I will next time I need to formare a drive) is to ctrl-C to exit the format utility when it asks to reboot.
Then unplug then re-plug in the drive (hot plug event) and it might work. Linux sees it and also Asus firmware knows about it.

In the end, a reboot takes time but is the safest and surest way.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Title says it all. Just curious why this is mandatory.

See this thread for some of the background. I tested multiple scenarios with @thelonelycoder at the time and uncovered lots of potential issues when trying to use a newly formatted drive without rebooting. Long story short, it's more reliable across all routers and firmware versions to simply reboot into a consistent state.

Would CTRL-C cancel the reboot?

Yes it would.

Also I see I can format from the GUI, but there is no ext4 which required for Diversion. Why it's possible in SSH to format in ext4 but not from GUI? And when GUI completes a format does it also require a reboot? Unless this is only required for ext2, ext3 and ext4?

The GUI option is stock Asus code. As such it's designed for the "standard" home user who will be using either NTFS, FAT32 or HFS. It makes no allowance for people running third party services from the USB drive.

 

[thelonelycoder]

In the end, a reboot takes time but is the safest and surest way.

@ColinTaylor and I did extensive testing at the time and results left us with this only option.
Play it safe folks.