Newbie Help

[kerravon99]

Hi, I have used ipcop for a long time now, and just discovered your project.
Fantastic, talk about luck I've just been given a shed load of raqs.
I have done the winimage install using your vmdk file and all is working great.

Now what I need help with, how do I get the lcd display to wowk with it, I would be happy for it just to say raq cop as I am quite fond of the CLI.

Any help would be gratefully appreciated..
regards
kerravon99

[Davesworld]

Ok, I see where I went wrong. I forgot to make the perl file "lcd" in /usr/local/sbin executable. I also may reintroduce the embedded cobalt lcd driver which will at least allow the lcd twiddle effect while booting and tell the user they have a kernel panic if they forget to set hda4 is the device. I'll start another build and upload it after 11pm tonight pdt. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[Davesworld]

Ok, I have the iso image uploaded with the proper changes and the raqcop.vmdk is being uploaded right now. I also put the cobalt lcd driver back in the kernel so at least you will see something while it is booting up and also if you get a kernel panic it will show on the lcd. Of course the kernel panics are usually when the kernel starts and the rom image can't find the /lib/modules, this is in hda4 on ipcop 1.4.x but you knew that to get as far as you did. If you are otherwise happy with what you have right now, simply make the /usr/local/sbin/lcd file executable. It is a perl program in one file that writes directly to the LCD and does not care if the kernel module and device node for lcd are there or not. It still needs work to make it 16x2 friendlier since we are stuck with a parallel wired HD44780 compatible KS066U connected to a 16x2 lcd. The lcd file is invoked in /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit by the command lcd -loop. To see what else it can do, typing lcd will show you the options you can use to make it do more than show you the help screen. There is a command to output plain and simple text to the lcd as well. I'm thinking that I could use that function to tell what is starting as it boots since this is a headless device.

[kerravon99]

Cheers dave,, I was actually asking I was totally unaware it wasnt working.
I have enjoyed messing with this so much I had a go at builing my own vmdk image to copy to hard drive using the green orange red option. I place a 3c905B in the pci slot detected nicely am now playing with adding a few of the addons like dansguardian and cop filter etc.

BTW when you build your vmdk do you just add one nic and let the raq detect any others or do you add them all in the VM at the begiining.

regards
kerravon99

[Davesworld]

I just let it detect one nick in vmware and once I installed it into a raq, I run setup over the serial console after I hand edit green using nano. Once I have it set up the way I like, I plug a usb floppy in and then do a backup. I make a floppy image of that for subsequent VMWare installs. Now, once I have an iso made, it takes less than five minutes to make a new vmdk image. Still a crude method of installing but it works. I do have a Dell GX100 SFF around that I can use as well, I just disable the built in 3C905 in the bios and plug in an Intel 82559ER chipped nic I also have. This allows just plugging in whatever drive and installing it and then it's ready to go. Installing only untars a tarball of ipcop to a formatted drive and sets the config either by backup or setup, if you were to try to boot this version of ipcop on a normal pc, it won't work. I left the installer kernel as a normal pc one just for this dilemma. A network install will be possible using nfsroot which is what the cobalt installer cd's do.

Brian reminded me that small ide drives are getting harder and harder to come by if you want new and even 20GB is ridiculous for a firewall/router. I'm looking into solid state. It'd be neat to be able to make an external slot for such things.

[kerravon99]

might be able to help there, i am a volunteer at an IT recycling charity and we disgard drives less than 20GB so could help out hter if anyones interesred.
regards

kerravon

[kerravon99]

Hi Dave ,Everyone,
Have installed copfilter,BlockOutTraffic and dansguardian onto the raq and set them up and all is running better than I had it set up a year ago when I tried same on a standard pc.
Thanks guys for starting this project up, its got my mind working overtime what else can be made to work on these boxes.
thanks for the inspiration!

regards
keravon99

[Davesworld]

Thanks! Sorry about the LCD missing and chopping off info. I think it is pretty neat that a single perl file can drive it from IPCop though. It is one of those files that once we get it to really work for the 16x2 layout, some will want to edit it to monitor certain or more than one nic. The french IPCop community is where I got the lcd script and it has many versions. Mainly 0.2 to 0.9. I'll evaluate them. The nice thing is that any one of them could be dropped into /usr/local/sbin at any time to replace the one that is there.

[kerravon99]

Hi Dave,
I notice with the new uplaoded version if you have the console plugged in you will see the system stops at starting lcd.  a couple of hits on the enter line ends this.
I noticed  that the lcd-showip script is missing  but called by rc.local would it be possible for you to email me a copy of this script?

cheers
kerravon

[Davesworld]

the lcd showip will only work with all the cobalt programs and drivers in, I pulled all that out since it is rather outdated and server centric. Depending on how things go with new LCD program pursuits, it may stay out. You sure the latest build does this? I just checked my build tree and rc.local has nothing in it. By latest build are you talking about 1.4.18 in either the Winmage or VMware install folders and not the devel version? I just uploaded another build yesterday. I'm puzzled as to how you wound up with your setup?

[kerravon99]

Hi dave,
             This is the winimage I downloaded  5-6 days ago as the first one I downloaded the lcd didnt work at all (see previous posts).  It is not a problem as the firewall is still up and I can login a terminal session from a remote PC.  Its just something I notice while my laptop was still connected to the serial port.  I will be downloading your newer image shortly and have a play with that on a spare drive.
My questions about the compiler, was simply because some of the addons have to be compiled which is a bit of a pain.
Thanks for your help anyway I am learning slowly but surely.

regards
kerr