Factory Defaults

• About
• How It Works
• Factory Defaults
• Configuration

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About

thingOS allows the user to restore their device to the "factory" defaults, normally upon pressing and holding a reset button.

How It Works

If properly configured in os.conf, a GPIO is continuously monitored by the S39factoryreset init script. If held for a given amount of time to a given "active" level (i.e. reset button pressed), the script will start the factory reset procedure, consisting of (in this order):

• executing the script /usr/libexec/before-factory-reset, if present and executable
• removing the data partition (so it will be created from scratch at next boot)
• executing the script /usr/libexec/after-factory-reset, if present and executable
• rebooting the system

At the very next boot, the system will recreate the data partition and will initialize it with the factory defaults, if present.

Factory Defaults

If the /boot/factory-defaults.tar.xz file is present on a device, it will be used to initialize a freshly created data partition. The archive is decompressed and its contents are extracted directly in the root of the /data folder, effectively supplying initial configuration files with their directory structure. This is done by the S01mountall init script.

The file factory defaults file is preserved across firmware updates, meaning that once copied on the root of the boot partition, whenever the /sbin/fwupdate command flashes a new boot partition, it will make sure to restore this file from the previous boot partition.

Configuration

Make sure to set the following variables in os.conf:

• OS_FACTORY_RESET_GPIO=<your gpio> (e.g. 23)
• OS_FACTORY_RESET_INPUT=<your input> (e.g. event0)
• OS_FACTORY_RESET_LEVEL=0|1
• OS_FACTORY_RESET_HOLD_SECONDS=10

Either set OS_FACTORY_RESET_GPIO or OS_FACTORY_RESET_INPUT, not both, depending on whether your reset button is attached to a GPIO or an input (e.g. /dev/input/event0)

Additionally, if you want to signal a successful reset to the user, you could, for example, flash or turn off a LED in /usr/libexec/after-factory-reset.