Nixpanic's Blog

Improvements on displaying Gluster traffic with Wireshark

2012-02-04T18:07:00.000Z

Slow but steadily I am improving the packet dissector for Gluster. Once it is in a more complete state, it'll be submitted for inclusion in Wireshark. Until that time (which will likely take some more months), updated versions of Wireshark for RHEL6 and F16 will occur on the Fedora People Repository at http://repos.fedorapeople.org/repos/devos/wireshark-gluster/.

The current packages can not only detect most of the Gluster traffic as explained in a previous post, but also display some of the more complex XDR structures used.

A screen shot of one example with Wireshark on Fedora 16:

Some of the captions in the display contain FIXME or similar notes. These are mainly reminders for myself, but also should be helpful for people trying the packages and suggesting improvements. Just by reading the Gluster sources, it is not always clear what the specific fields in the communication should be called in a user friendly way.

There is an open invite to improve the decoding done by the dissector. The code is (hopefully) easy to understand and should provide a low entry level. There are quite some notes in the code where it needs improvement (search for FIXME in the main .c file).

Coding is one thing, documenting the protocol is something that is closely related to the Wireshark dissector. How would reading traffic help, when you can not check if what you see is what should be happening? A start with documenting this can be found in my github repository which contains the latest sources.

Displaying Gluster traffic in Wireshark

2012-01-18T18:19:00.000Z

As part of my job, I am doing some tests with the Red Hat Storage Software Appliance. The current version of RHSSA is based on Gluster 3.2.5. After some experiments, it seem that Gluster is pretty cool and surprisingly easy to setup.

In order to see what is going happening on the network, I captured some tcpdumps. Reading the files in Wireshark, does not show any Gluster specifics. It seems that Wireshark does not know how to decode (or rather dissect) the Gluster traffic. Very unfortunate, as quite some future troubleshooting and performance analysis may require investigating the network packets.

Luckily the Wireshark Developer's guide contains a chapter on Adding a basic dissector. After writing some code and tests, I now have some Wireshark packages that recognize some Gluster communication. The RPMs are available for testing, feedback over email is appreciated.

With the updated packages, the output of tshark (the terminal version of Wireshark) identifies some Gluster packets:

$ tshark -r gluster-communication.cap 'tcp.len > 0' | head
  7   0.002572 192.168.122.184 -> 192.168.122.137 Gluster Dump V1 DUMP Call
  8   0.002633 192.168.122.184 -> 192.168.122.137 Gluster Dump V1 DUMP Call
 11   0.002909 192.168.122.137 -> 192.168.122.184 Gluster Dump V1 DUMP Reply (Call In 7)
 12   0.002918 192.168.122.137 -> 192.168.122.184 Gluster Dump V1 DUMP Reply (Call In 8)
 15   0.003104 192.168.122.184 -> 192.168.122.137 Gluster Portmap V1 PORTBYBRICK Call
 16   0.003158 192.168.122.184 -> 192.168.122.137 Gluster Portmap V1 PORTBYBRICK Call
 17   0.003298 192.168.122.137 -> 192.168.122.184 Gluster Portmap V1 PORTBYBRICK Reply (Call In 15)
 18   0.003310 192.168.122.137 -> 192.168.122.184 Gluster Portmap V1 PORTBYBRICK Reply (Call In 16)
 31   3.013909 192.168.122.184 -> 192.168.122.137 Gluster Dump V1 DUMP Call
 32   3.013965 192.168.122.184 -> 192.168.122.137 PCEP Unknown Message (0).

As with several other protocols, Wireshark detects some packets as non-gluster ones. In this tcpdump, there surely is no PCEP traffic (last line in the above output). Each dissector for a protocol should do some sanity checks to see if a packet belongs to its protocol. These checks are not easy to do, and hence quite some protocols detect packets from Gluster as their communication stream.

Luckily it is possible to disable a protocol in the ~/.wireshark/disabled_protos file. Finding the correct names of a protocol isn't always straight forward. Use Wireshark to graphically create the file is the easiest, it also takes care of disabling the protocols that are possibly encapsulated. In Wireshark

go to Analyze in the menu
click "Enabled Protools"
uncheck PCEP (and while you are at it, also uncheck SSL as it gives the same issues)

After these steps, tshark should recognize all traffic to and from port 24007 as belonging to one of the Gluster protocols. I have only tested the Wireshark dissectors on Gluster 3.2.5, later releases use some newer versions of some protocols and these may not be detected yet.

Unexpected requirements for creating a video DVD with Brasero

2012-01-08T19:48:00.000Z

With the current standard of mobiles and photo cameras that can be used to film things, it would be fun to create a little video. It seems that Brasero is a standard tool for the GNOME desktop, which should work without issues in my preferred XFCE as well. Brasero (and seemingly all of its dependencies) is even included in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2 Workstation repository/channel.

Unfortunately, after creating a video project in Brasero, a little warning gets displayed:

It is not possible to write with the current set of plugins.

There is the need for a more detailed look into how Brasero does the detection/loading of plugins. In the search for more verbosity from the command-line, I found that the command
brasero --help shows that there is a --help-brasero-burn option. Giving that a try, dumps an immense list of things on the console. This includes the following:

ffmpeg_mpeg2video is missing

(brasero:19298): BraseroBurn-DEBUG: At burn-plugin-manager.c:452: loading /usr/lib64/brasero/plugins/libbrasero-vob.so
(brasero:19298): BraseroBurn-DEBUG: At burn-plugin.c:1041: Module encountered an error while registering its capabilities:
"ffenc_mpeg2video" element could not be created
(brasero:19298): BraseroBurn-DEBUG: At burn-plugin-manager.c:481: Load failure, no GType was returned "ffenc_mpeg2video" element could not be created

libdvdcss is missing

(brasero:19298): BraseroBurn-DEBUG: At burn-plugin-manager.c:452: loading /usr/lib64/brasero/plugins/libbrasero-dvdcss.so
(brasero:19298): BraseroBurn-DEBUG: At burn-plugin.c:1041: Module encountered an error while registering its capabilities:
Encrypted DVD: please install libdvdcss version 1.2.x
(brasero:19298): BraseroBurn-DEBUG: At burn-plugin-manager.c:481: Load failure, no GType was returned Encrypted DVD: please install libdvdcss version 1.2.x

dvdauthor is missing

(brasero:19298): BraseroBurn-DEBUG: At burn-plugin-manager.c:452: loading /usr/lib64/brasero/plugins/libbrasero-dvdauthor.so
(brasero:19298): BraseroBurn-DEBUG: At burn-plugin.c:1041: Module encountered an error while registering its capabilities:
"dvdauthor" could not be found in the path
(brasero:19298): BraseroBurn-DEBUG: At burn-plugin-manager.c:481: Load failure, no GType was returned "dvdauthor" could not be found in the path

vcdimager is missing

(brasero:19298): BraseroBurn-DEBUG: At burn-plugin-manager.c:452: loading /usr/lib64/brasero/plugins/libbrasero-vcdimager.so
(brasero:19298): BraseroBurn-DEBUG: At burn-plugin.c:1041: Module encountered an error while registering its capabilities:
"vcdimager" could not be found in the path
(brasero:19298): BraseroBurn-DEBUG: At burn-plugin-manager.c:481: Load failure, no GType was returned "vcdimager" could not be found in the path

After some googling, it seems that these packages are made available for RHEL6 in Repoforge (previously RPMForge). The additional packages that need to get installed (first pass):

gstreamer-ffmpeg
libdvdcss
dvdauthor
vcdimager

Getting closer, but not completely there yet, as brasero --brasero-burn-debug still misses something:

(brasero:19508): BraseroBurn-DEBUG: At burn-plugin-manager.c:452: loading /usr/lib64/brasero/plugins/libbrasero-vob.so
(brasero:19508): BraseroBurn-DEBUG: At burn-plugin.c:1041: Module encountered an error while registering its capabilities:
"mplex" element could not be created
(brasero:19508): BraseroBurn-DEBUG: At burn-plugin-manager.c:481: Load failure, no GType was returned "mplex" element could not be created

Knowing that Brasero uses the GStreamer framework, it seems logical to try to install a GStream plugin called mplex. All GStreamer plugins seem to be located in /usr/lib64/gstreamer-0.10, and installing the mplex plugin with yum seems to work:

# yum install /usr/lib64/gstreamer-0.10/libgstmplex.so
Loaded plugins: refresh-packagekit, rhnplugin
Setting up Install Process
...
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package gstreamer-plugins-bad.x86_64 0:0.10.19-3.el6.rf will be installed
--> Processing Dependency: libxvidcore.so.4()(64bit) for package: gstreamer-plugins-bad-0.10.19-3.el6.rf.x86_64
--> Processing Dependency: libmms.so.0()(64bit) for package: gstreamer-plugins-bad-0.10.19-3.el6.rf.x86_64
--> Processing Dependency: libmusicbrainz.so.4()(64bit) for package: gstreamer-plugins-bad-0.10.19-3.el6.rf.x86_64
--> Processing Dependency: libamrwb.so.3()(64bit) for package: gstreamer-plugins-bad-0.10.19-3.el6.rf.x86_64
--> Processing Dependency: libcdaudio.so.1()(64bit) for package: gstreamer-plugins-bad-0.10.19-3.el6.rf.x86_64
--> Running transaction check
---> Package amrwb.x86_64 0:7.0.0.3-1.el6.rf will be installed
---> Package libcdaudio.x86_64 0:0.99.12p2-13.el6 will be installed
---> Package libmms.x86_64 0:0.5-1.el6.rf will be installed
---> Package libmusicbrainz.x86_64 0:2.1.5-11.1.el6 will be installed
---> Package xvidcore.x86_64 0:1.2.2-1.el6.rf will be installed
--> Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

========================================================================================================================================================================
 Package                                     Arch                         Version                                 Repository                                       Size
========================================================================================================================================================================
Installing:
 gstreamer-plugins-bad                       x86_64                       0.10.19-3.el6.rf                        rpmforge                                        1.2 M
Installing for dependencies:
 amrwb                                       x86_64                       7.0.0.3-1.el6.rf                        rpmforge                                        180 k
 libcdaudio                                  x86_64                       0.99.12p2-13.el6                        epel                                             39 k
 libmms                                      x86_64                       0.5-1.el6.rf                            rpmforge                                         60 k
 libmusicbrainz                              x86_64                       2.1.5-11.1.el6                          rhel-x86_64-workstation-6                        88 k
 xvidcore                                    x86_64                       1.2.2-1.el6.rf                          rpmforge                                        555 k

Transaction Summary
========================================================================================================================================================================
Install       6 Package(s)

Total download size: 2.1 M
Installed size: 7.4 M
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Downloading Packages:
...
Running rpm_check_debug
Running Transaction Test
Transaction Test Succeeded
Running Transaction
  Installing : libcdaudio-0.99.12p2-13.el6.x86_64                                                                                                                   1/6 
  Installing : libmms-0.5-1.el6.rf.x86_64                                                                                                                           2/6 
  Installing : amrwb-7.0.0.3-1.el6.rf.x86_64                                                                                                                        3/6 
  Installing : libmusicbrainz-2.1.5-11.1.el6.x86_64                                                                                                                 4/6 
  Installing : xvidcore-1.2.2-1.el6.rf.x86_64                                                                                                                       5/6 
  Installing : gstreamer-plugins-bad-0.10.19-3.el6.rf.x86_64                                                                                                        6/6 

Installed:
  gstreamer-plugins-bad.x86_64 0:0.10.19-3.el6.rf                                                                                                                       

Dependency Installed:
  amrwb.x86_64 0:7.0.0.3-1.el6.rf         libcdaudio.x86_64 0:0.99.12p2-13.el6        libmms.x86_64 0:0.5-1.el6.rf        libmusicbrainz.x86_64 0:2.1.5-11.1.el6       
  xvidcore.x86_64 0:1.2.2-1.el6.rf       

Complete!

This whole troubleshooting took quite a while, and I do not know if all the new packages are really needed, or if a subset is sufficient. Glad it's over, working and documented for a next time too (and possibly others).

Booting a Pogoplug with Fedora ARM

2011-04-17T21:34:00.000+01:00

So, this week I received my Pogoplug, and it is currently running Fedora 13 for ARM (Beta-2). The Pogoplug has an ARM/Kirkwood board inside, just like a Sheevaplug and other Plug* computers. Below are some notes on how to get Fedora installed on an external USB-drive (and keeping most of the original Pogoplug software on it, but disabled).

The Fedora ARM Project provides a Beta root-disk for Fedora 13. Downloading the .tar.bz2 and extracting it to the first partition (formatted as ext3) of an USB-disk should make a good start for any Pogoplug related development.

The bootloader (u-boot) has been updated according to the well written instructions (includes a script for automation) from Jeff Doozan. The instructions are mainly targeted for Debian, but are a very useful source of information. Using the script, the bootloader gets replaced and it is possible to boot from an external USB-disk when placing the kernel (uImage) and initrd.img (uInitrd) under /boot on the USB-disk.

There is a kernel with initrd.img and modules available for ARM/Kirkwood boards. Unfortunately this kernel does not seem to fully boot on the Pogoplug. As there is no monitor or serial port connector on the outside of the pink box (who knows whats hidden inside), troubleshooting a boot issue is quite challenging. The updated u-boot supports netconsole. The output over netconsole shows that the kernel and initrd.img are loaded correctly and can be started. After which the kernel is supposed to take over the communication with any human being (or machine for that matters). Unfortunately the installation does not seem to get to a point where logs are written (checking the removable USB-storage after trying to boot). There is also no networking happening, eventhough the rootfs has been configured for DHCP.

Luckily there is an other kernel available for a GuruPlug (which is also a similar ARM board) which should function on any ARM/Kirkwoood. This specific kernel does not use an initrd/initramfs, so when trying to boot it, make sure to have only a /boot/uImage and no /boot/uInitrd. Booting a Pogoplug with the GuruPlug kernel-2.6.36.1 seems to work well:

Linux version 2.6.36.1 (root@Xion) (gcc version 4.4.1 (Sourcery G++ Lite 2010q1-202) ) #1 PREEMPT Mon Nov 29 06:21:49 EST 2010
CPU: Feroceon 88FR131 [56251311] revision 1 (ARMv5TE), cr=00053977
CPU: VIVT data cache, VIVT instruction cache
Machine: Marvell SheevaPlug Reference Board
Memory policy: ECC disabled, Data cache writeback
On node 0 totalpages: 65536
free_area_init_node: node 0, pgdat c058a5f4, node_mem_map c065e000
  Normal zone: 512 pages used for memmap
  Normal zone: 0 pages reserved
  Normal zone: 65024 pages, LIFO batch:15
Built 1 zonelists in Zone order, mobility grouping on.  Total pages: 65024
Kernel command line: console=ttyS0,115200 root=/dev/sda1 rootwait rootfstype=ext2 mtdparts=orion_nand:1M(u-boot),4M(uImage),32M(rootfs),-(data)
PID hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
Dentry cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Memory: 256MB = 256MB total
Memory: 253380k/253380k available, 8764k reserved, 0K highmem
...

Configuring the BeagleBoard to have network over usb0

2011-03-28T00:38:00.000+01:00

After some experimenting, I have a kernel .config based on the kernel from the Angstrom BeagleBoard Demo. The original provided kernel with gether did not boot on my (loaned) BeagleBoard Rev B5. Only after disabling USB completely (kernel parameter nousb). As gether is the part I am most interested in, booting without USB is pretty pointless. Fortunately the kernel provides /proc/config.gz. Using this configuration, some little tuning (i.e. turning off the staging-modules because they do not compile), a kernel and suitable modules could be built.

Fedora almost expects using a initramfs for booting, and well, it surely makes troubleshooting easier! Getting dracut to run on a system where no network is available takes quite a lot of reboots (the BeagleBoard has one SD-slot for the filesystem, one mini-USB for power, a serial port for the console and nothing else that makes transport of files easy). Installing all the dependencies and disabling some dracut-modules /etc/dracut.conf (crypt dmraid mdraid multipath plymouth) in /etc/dracut.conf allows creating an initramfs.img. Before u-boot can use the initramfs.img, it needs to be converted with a command like:

# mkimage -A arm -O linux -T ramdisk -C none -e 0 -a 0 -n initramfs-2.6.38 -d /boot/initramfs-2.6.38.img /boot/uinitramfs-2.6.38.img

Currently, the generated files are on a VFAT-partition on an SD-card. This BeagleBoard boots from this card and uses the following settings to start the Fedora 13 ARM system:

OMAP3 beagleboard.org # printenv bootargs
bootargs=console=ttyO2,115200n8 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 ro

OMAP3 beagleboard.org # printenv bootcmd
bootcmd=mmcinit ; fatload mmc 0:1 0x80000000 uimage-2.6.38 ; fatload mmc 0:1 0x81600000 uinitramfs-2.6.38.img ; bootm 0x80000000 0x81600000

OMAP3 beagleboard.org # boot

During boot, there are some messages that indicate that Ethernet-over-USB will be available:

[    0.334960] musb-hdrc: version 6.0, musb-dma, otg (peripheral+host), debug=0
[    0.335571] musb-hdrc musb-hdrc: USB OTG mode controller at fa0ab000 using DMA, IRQ 92
...
[    4.824340] g_ether gadget: using random self ethernet address
[    4.830505] g_ether gadget: using random host ethernet address
[    4.837341] usb0: MAC ba:98:d2:e3:60:36
[    4.841430] usb0: HOST MAC 4a:49:17:92:63:df
[    4.846008] g_ether gadget: Ethernet Gadget, version: Memorial Day 2008
[    4.853027] g_ether gadget: g_ether ready
[    4.857269] musb-hdrc musb-hdrc: MUSB HDRC host driver
[    4.863220] musb-hdrc musb-hdrc: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
[    4.885742] usb usb2: New USB device found, idVendor=1d6b, idProduct=0002
[    4.892913] usb usb2: New USB device strings: Mfr=3, Product=2, SerialNumber=1
[    4.900543] usb usb2: Product: MUSB HDRC host driver
[    4.905792] usb usb2: Manufacturer: Linux 2.6.38 musb-hcd
[    4.911499] usb usb2: SerialNumber: musb-hdrc
...
[    5.383911] g_ether gadget: full speed config #1: CDC Ethernet (ECM)

The musb-hdrc is the controller-chip and the g_ether is the implementation of the USB-client side of the USB-over-Ethernet gadget. On my laptop the BeagleBoard gets detected as a "RNDIS/Ethernet Gadget" product from vendor "Linux 2.6.38 with musb-hdrc":

usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 66
usb 3-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 45
usb 3-1: not running at top speed; connect to a high speed hub
usb 3-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0525, idProduct=a4a2
usb 3-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
usb 3-1: Product: RNDIS/Ethernet Gadget
usb 3-1: Manufacturer: Linux 2.6.38 with musb-hdrc
cdc_ether 3-1:1.0: usb0: register 'cdc_ether' at usb-0000:00:1a.0-1, CDC Ethernet Device, 4a:49:17:92:63:df
usb0: no IPv6 routers present
device usb0 entered promiscuous mode
virbr0: topology change detected, propagating
virbr0: port 1(usb0) entering forwarding state

The last lines are automatically triggered by my ifplugd-configuration which checks for usb0 devices and on a link, the usb0 is added to the virbr0 from libvirt so that BeagleBoard immediately gets access to the network.

On the side of the BeagleBoard, /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-usb0 is configured to request an IP-address over DHCP:

DEVICE="usb0"
BOOTPROTO="dhcp"
ONBOOT="yes"
MACADDR="ba:98:d2:e3:60:36"

I prefer to give the BeagleBoard the same MAC-address on every boot, by default it is a random one. Setting MACADDR in ifcfg-usb0 makes this happen. The g_ether kernel-module accepts a MAC-address as parameter, but as the module is builtin, this is not convenient (pass g_ether.dev_addr as kernel parameter, or echo it to /sys/module/g_ether/parameters/dev_addr).

Enabling the network on boot and activating usb0 was the only thing left todo:

# chkconfig network on
# ifup usb0

The compiled kernel, initramfs and modules are available for download and re-use. Please report any issues or success if you try them out.

Now this is all written down, it seems really easy and quick. Keep in mind that compiling a very minimal kernel takes at least 120 minutes on the BeagleBoard, the kernel and modules from the Angstom distribution took much more... The BeagleBoard has since gained the elevated status of a mock-builder and rebuild java-1.5.0-gcj-1.5.0.0-32.fc13.bootstrap.src.rpm in "138 minutes 22 seconds", yay!

Archivemount is now in EPEL6

2011-02-23T22:08:00.000Z

The only (for now) package I maintain, archivemount is now available in EPEL6 too. It has been in Fedora 14 for a while now, EPEL5 is following when libarchive is ready.

For those who have no idea what archivemount is:
Archivemount is a piece of glue code between libarchive and FUSE. It can be used to mount a (possibly compressed) archive (as in .tar.gz or .tar.bz2) and use it like an ordinary filesystem.

Serial ports with a BeagleBoard and a (newer) Linux 2.6.36 kernel

2011-02-23T21:57:00.000Z

Today a Fedora 13 ARM Beta was released. This makes it obviously time for me to blog about my Fedora adventures from last weekend on my loaned BeagleBoard.

I managed to get kernel 2.6.38-rc3 compiled on a virtualized Qemu ARM system. Compiling the kernel really takes some time. A stripped down version, without compiling loadable modules took just over 880 minutes. An other test with make omap2plus_defconfig uImage took around 1400 minutes. I now believe the people that mentioned that the performance of a virtual system (on x86_64) is not very spectacular.

Booting the kernel, made my serial console unusable. A bug and patch has been filed for initscripts in Fedora 14 and below. Fedora 15 uses systemd and is likely not affected with the same. This kernel (well, actually from 2.6.36 an onwards) have a optimized serial-port implementation for OMAP-boards. This unfortunately does not use ttyS* for serial-ports, but ttyO*. Any application (including initscripts) expecting that serial-ports are starting with ttyS or other familiar identifiers, will need an update for the OMAP serial-port driver.

With the new beta release, I would need to rebuild initscripts with the patch that makes ttyO work as main console (giving console=ttyO2,115200n8 on the kernel command line). When all works fine, the boot process will be displayed on the serial-console and logging in works again.

Furthermore I found out how to boot the board in a more useful state than before. Passing the initramfs via u-boot does not seem to be very common, most sites advise to compile the initramfs into the kernel. I'd prefer to keep the standard Fedora way, and that means keeping kernel and initramfs seperate. It seems that u-boot needs a special kind of initramfs/initrd (possibly just a header added). This format can be created like the following:

mkimage -A arm -O linux -T ramdisk -C none -a 0x00000000 -e 0x00000000 -n initramfs -d initramfs-2.6.38-rc3.img uinitramfs-2.6.38-rc3.img

With this image, my Fedora 12 boots perfectly when setting the bootcmd to load both kernle + initramfs and passing both addresses via bootm

OMAP3 beagleboard.org # printenv 
stdin=serial
stdout=serial
stderr=serial
serial=3a5c00020000000004013ef109010017
bootargs=console=ttyO2,115200n8 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 ro
bootcmd=mmcinit ; fatload mmc 0:1 0x80000000 uimage-2.6.38-rc3.beagleboard_201102131201 ; fatload mmc 0:1 0x81600000 uinitramfs-2.6.38-rc3.img ; bootm 0x80000000 0x81600000

Environment size: 309/131068 bytes

Some of these steps took quite a bit to figure out, but it looks like it's going to work a little bit more everytime.

More details on Fedora on a Beagleboard

2011-02-15T20:11:00.000Z

It seems to be advised to build your own kernel for an ARM board. I have no idea yet if some kind of default kernel would (suboptimal) work, so I built a more fine-tuned kernel for the beagleboard. Luckily there was a default configuration for a beagleboard (make beagleboard_defconfig), sadly that default is not available in current kernels anymore. taking an old config and updating it a little, got me a recent kernel (2.6.38-rc3) that seems to work on the beagleboard.

After some more research through the kernel logs, it seems that the beagleboard_defconfig was renamed several times, currently it is available as omap2plus_defconfig. I probably need to build a new kernel now... Unfortunately it takes quite a while to build a new kernel on an emulated ARM board (I'm not into crosscompiling with a recent gcc version yet). The SD card I have is a little small, putting both the root filesystem and the kernel-sources on it seems difficult, an exercise I'll experiment with later.

The beagleboard uses u-boot as bootlader, and I have not found out how to use a initial RAM disk. This has not been an issue yet, as I did not feel like creating an initial RAM disk by hand. Fedora comes with dracut that can generate one for me, so why bother?

The current kernel has all requirements built-in. There is no need for an initial RAM disk. Well, actually there is... init seems to require the /proc fileystem mounted, if it is not mounted, init decides to reboot the system as there are some process-communication issues. Starting with an emergency shell (pass init=/bin/dash on the commandline) allows me to manually mount /proc (even if it claims to be mounted already).

Compared to an older version of the kernel, this kernel offers options to enable optimized OMAP-serial ports:

CONFIG_SERIAL_OMAP=y
CONFIG_SERIAL_OMAP_CONSOLE=y

With these options enabled, the standard /dev/ttyS2 does not seem to provide any output. Instead it seems to be required to use the OMAP-specific /dev/ttyO2 (that's an 'O' for Oscar, not a '0' as zero).

My final u-boot defaults (saved with saveenv) looks like this:

OMAP3 beagleboard.org # printenv
stdin=serial
stdout=serial
stderr=serial
serial=3a5c00020000000004013ef109010017
bootargs=console=ttyO2,115200n8 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 ro rootwait init=/bin/dash
bootcmd=mmcinit ; fatload mmc 0:1 0x80000000 uimage-2.6.38-rc3.beagleboard_201102131201 ; bootm 0x80000000

Environment size: 267/131068 bytes

Booting the system and starting dash as directed by the init parameter can be done as follows:

OMAP3 beagleboard.org # boot
## Booting kernel from Legacy Image at 80000000 ...
   Image Name:   Linux-2.6.38-rc3.beagleboard
   Image Type:   ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
   Data Size:    1751256 Bytes =  1.7 MB
   Load Address: 80008000
   Entry Point:  80008000
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
   Loading Kernel Image ... OK
OK

Starting kernel ...

Uncompressing Linux... done, booting the kernel.
Linux version 2.6.38-rc3.beagleboard (root@fedora-arm) (gcc version 4.4.2 20091019 (Red Hat 4.4.2-5) (GCC) ) #2 Sun Feb 13 22:26:07 EST 2011
CPU: ARMv7 Processor [411fc082] revision 2 (ARMv7), cr=10c53c7f
CPU: VIPT nonaliasing data cache, VIPT nonaliasing instruction cache
Machine: OMAP3 Beagle Board
Memory policy: ECC disabled, Data cache writeback
OMAP3430/3530 ES2.1 (l2cache iva sgx neon isp )
SRAM: Mapped pa 0x40200000 to va 0xfe400000 size: 0x10000
Built 1 zonelists in Zone order, mobility grouping on.  Total pages: 32512
Kernel command line: console=ttyO2,115200n8 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 ro rootwait init=/bin/dash
PID hash table entries: 512 (order: -1, 2048 bytes)
Dentry cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
Memory: 128MB = 128MB total
Memory: 126296k/126296k available, 4776k reserved, 0K highmem
Virtual kernel memory layout:
    vector  : 0xffff0000 - 0xffff1000   (   4 kB)
    fixmap  : 0xfff00000 - 0xfffe0000   ( 896 kB)
    DMA     : 0xffc00000 - 0xffe00000   (   2 MB)
    vmalloc : 0xc8800000 - 0xf8000000   ( 760 MB)
    lowmem  : 0xc0000000 - 0xc8000000   ( 128 MB)
    modules : 0xbf000000 - 0xc0000000   (  16 MB)
      .init : 0xc0008000 - 0xc002b000   ( 140 kB)
      .text : 0xc002b000 - 0xc033d000   (3144 kB)
      .data : 0xc033e000 - 0xc0369480   ( 174 kB)
NR_IRQS:402
Clocking rate (Crystal/Core/MPU): 26.0/332/500 MHz
Reprogramming SDRC clock to 332000000 Hz
GPMC revision 5.0
IRQ: Found an INTC at 0xfa200000 (revision 4.0) with 96 interrupts
Total of 96 interrupts on 1 active controller
OMAP clockevent source: GPTIMER12 at 32768 Hz
sched_clock: 32 bits at 32kHz, resolution 30517ns, wraps every 131071999ms
Console: colour dummy device 80x30
Calibrating delay loop... 471.61 BogoMIPS (lpj=1843200)
pid_max: default: 32768 minimum: 301
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512
CPU: Testing write buffer coherency: ok
print_constraints: dummy: 
NET: Registered protocol family 16
omap_device: omap_gpio.0: new worst case activate latency 0: 30517
OMAP GPIO hardware version 2.5
OMAP GPIO hardware version 2.5
OMAP GPIO hardware version 2.5
OMAP GPIO hardware version 2.5
OMAP GPIO hardware version 2.5
OMAP GPIO hardware version 2.5
omap_mux_init: Add partition: #1: core, flags: 0
OMAP3 Beagle Rev: unknown 3
omap_device: omap_uart.0: new worst case activate latency 0: 30517
omap_device: omap_uart.0: new worst case deactivate latency 0: 30517
Found NAND on CS0
Registering NAND on CS0
Unable to get DVI reset GPIO
OMAP DMA hardware revision 4.0
bio: create slab  at 0
SCSI subsystem initialized
omap_device: omap_i2c.1: new worst case activate latency 0: 30517
omap_i2c omap_i2c.1: bus 1 rev3.12 at 2600 kHz
twl4030: PIH (irq 7) chaining IRQs 368..375
twl4030: power (irq 373) chaining IRQs 376..383
twl4030: gpio (irq 368) chaining IRQs 384..401
print_constraints: VUSB1V5: 1500 mV normal standby
print_constraints: VUSB1V8: 1800 mV normal standby
print_constraints: VUSB3V1: 3100 mV normal standby
twl4030_usb twl4030_usb: Initialized TWL4030 USB module
print_constraints: VMMC1: 1850 <--> 3150 mV at 3000 mV normal standby
print_constraints: VDAC: 1800 mV normal standby
print_constraints: VDVI: 1800 mV normal standby
print_constraints: VSIM: 1800 <--> 3000 mV at 1800 mV normal standby
omap_i2c omap_i2c.3: bus 3 rev3.12 at 100 kHz
Switching to clocksource 32k_counter
Switched to NOHz mode on CPU #0
musb-hdrc: version 6.0, tusb-omap-dma, peripheral, debug=0
NET: Registered protocol family 2
IP route cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
TCP established hash table entries: 4096 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
TCP bind hash table entries: 4096 (order: 2, 16384 bytes)
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 4096 bind 4096)
TCP reno registered
UDP hash table entries: 256 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
UDP-Lite hash table entries: 256 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
NET: Registered protocol family 1
RPC: Registered udp transport module.
RPC: Registered tcp transport module.
RPC: Registered tcp NFSv4.1 backchannel transport module.
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.97 (double precision)
JFFS2 version 2.2. (NAND) © 2001-2006 Red Hat, Inc.
msgmni has been set to 246
io scheduler noop registered
io scheduler deadline registered
io scheduler cfq registered (default)
Serial: 8250/16550 driver, 4 ports, IRQ sharing enabled
omap_uart.0: ttyO0 at MMIO 0x4806a000 (irq = 72) is a OMAP UART0
omap_uart.1: ttyO1 at MMIO 0x4806c000 (irq = 73) is a OMAP UART1
omap_uart.2: ttyO2 at MMIO 0x49020000 (irq = 74) is a OMAP UART2
console [ttyO2] enabled
brd: module loaded
loop: module loaded
twl_rtc twl_rtc: rtc core: registered twl_rtc as rtc0
omap_device: omap_i2c.1: new worst case deactivate latency 0: 30517
i2c /dev entries driver
sdhci: Secure Digital Host Controller Interface driver
sdhci: Copyright(c) Pierre Ossman
TCP cubic registered
NET: Registered protocol family 17
NET: Registered protocol family 15
VFP support v0.3: implementor 41 architecture 3 part 30 variant c rev 1
omap_voltage_late_init: Unable to create voltage debugfs main dir
vdd_debugfs_init: Unable to create debugfs directory for vdd_mpu
vdd_debugfs_init: Unable to create debugfs directory for vdd_core
Power Management for TI OMAP3.
regulator_init_complete: VDVI: incomplete constraints, leaving on
regulator_init_complete: VDAC: incomplete constraints, leaving on
twl_rtc twl_rtc: setting system clock to 2000-01-01 00:03:14 UTC (946684994)
Waiting for root device /dev/mmcblk0p2...
mmc0: new SD card at address 9ced
mmcblk0: mmc0:9ced SD02G 1.89 GiB 
 mmcblk0: p1 p2
EXT3-fs: barriers not enabled
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs (mmcblk0p2): mounted filesystem with writeback data mode
VFS: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) readonly on device 179:2.
Freeing init memory: 140K
/bin/dash: can't access tty; job control turned off
#

The way to boot into a multi-user system (or change the runlevel so something else) was the following:

# mount /proc
# mount /sys
# exec init

Unfortunately it looks as if upstart or udev from Fedora 12 does not recognise the /dev/ttyO* as serial console. Of course I do not have the possibility (hte beagleboard has, just I do not) to connect a monitor over HDMI or S-video and serial-console is the only working output available. Yet another thing to look into some other day.

My first experiences with Fedora on a BeagleBoard

2011-02-06T23:30:00.000Z

Last week I spent some time making libvirt able to start emulated (through QEMU) ARM systems. Today I was looking into starting Fedora on a BeagleBoard. A colleague of mine loaned me the BeagleBoard, for me a nice opportunity to check out the current status of Fedora ARM. There is some documentation on the Fedora ARM Wiki pages. Unfortunately the available downloads do not include a kernel that runs on the BeagleBoard.

Compiling a kernel for the BeagleBoard

The Fedora ARM Project provides a repository for Fedora 12 that contains cross-compilers. This allows one to compile a kernel on x86_64, and saves the need for a ARM CPU. As the packages were created with/for Fedora 12, the tools are not up to date. The available GNU Compiler Collection has version 4.1.2. And unfortunately there seems to be a known issue with kernels newer than 2.4.34. Of course, you only look for this when you run into the error:

linux-2.6/arch/arm/include/asm/atomic.h:42: error: impossible constraint in 'asm'
make[1]: *** [kernel/sched.o] Error 1
make: *** [kernel] Error 2

Switching to linux-2.6.34 was likely the easiest way to workaround this issue. Note to self: look into the option of updating the cross compiler toolchain?

Booting the BeagleBoard

Equipment used:

USB-to-serial converter
null-modem cable
BeagleBoard serial port connector cable
USB-Mini plug
SD-card

In order to see what the BeagleBoard is doing, I used minicom over the USB-serial converter to receive the output from the serial console. After transferring the root-filesystem to the SD-card, it is possible to send a u-boot image to the BeagleBoard over the serial-connection. Inside u-boot the command loady starts a filetransfer over the ymodem protocol. minicom can send a file after pressing "CTRL+A s". And while doing so, abrt created this bug.

The procedure to boot Linux on Beagle Board is straight forwards and with some tuning the kernel can get started:

Texas Instruments X-Loader 1.4.2 (Feb 19 2009 - 12:01:24)
Reading boot sector
Error: reading boot sector
Loading u-boot.bin from nand



U-Boot 2009.01-dirty (Feb 19 2009 - 12:22:31)

I2C:   ready
OMAP3530-GP rev 2, CPU-OPP2 L3-165MHz
OMAP3 Beagle board + LPDDR/NAND
DRAM:  128 MB
NAND:  256 MiB
MUSB: using high speed
In:    serial
Out:   serial
Err:   serial
Board revision Ax/Bx
Serial #3a5c00020000000004013ef109010017
OMAP3 beagleboard.org # mmcinit
OMAP3 beagleboard.org # fatload mmc 0:1 0x80000000 uimage-2.6.34_201102061623
OMAP3 beagleboard.org # setenv bootargs console=ttyS2,115200n8 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootwait nohz=off
OMAP3 beagleboard.org # bootm 0x80000000
## Booting kernel from Legacy Image at 80000000 ...
   Image Name:   Linux-2.6.34beagleboard
   Image Type:   ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
   Data Size:    1678404 Bytes =  1.6 MB
   Load Address: 80008000
   Entry Point:  80008000
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
   Loading Kernel Image ... OK
OK

Starting kernel ...

Uncompressing Linux... done, booting the kernel.
Linux version 2.6.34beagleboard (nixpanic@fedora12.builder.nixpanic.net) (gcc version 4.1.2 20070925 (Red Hat 4.1.2-33.fa1)) #3 Sun Feb 6 16:18:40 GMT 2011
CPU: ARMv7 Processor [411fc082] revision 2 (ARMv7), cr=10c53c7f
CPU: VIPT nonaliasing data cache, VIPT nonaliasing instruction cache
Machine: OMAP3 Beagle Board

Some Issues

For some reason init seems to be of the opinion that booting is not successful and a reboot is needed. Adding the 'kernel parameter' --verbose that does not get handled by the kernel, but by init, the following messages were written:

Waiting for root device /dev/mmcblk0p2...
mmc0: new SD card at address 9ced
mmcblk0: mmc0:9ced SD02G 1.89 GiB
 mmcblk0: p1 p2
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs (mmcblk0p2): using internal journal
EXT3-fs (mmcblk0p2): recovery complete
EXT3-fs (mmcblk0p2): mounted filesystem with writeback data mode
VFS: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) on device 179:2.
Freeing init memory: 136K
init: Control request to emit fedora.serial-console-available event
init: Handling fedora.serial-console-available event
init: serial goal changed from stop to start
init: serial state changed from waiting to starting
init: Handling starting event
init: serial state changed from starting to pre-start
init: Active serial pre-start process (453)
init: Control request for status of rcS
init: Control request for status of rcS
init: Control request for status of rcS
init: Control request for status of rcS
init: Control request for status of rcS
init: Control request for status of rcS
init: Event queue paused
init: Control request for status of rcS
init: Control request for status of rcS
Restarting system.

Booting with init=/bin/dash seems to work and one can do some diagnosis. However when doing an exec init --verbose a reboot get initiated again :-/

Next Steps

Whenever I have another day for playing, I will look into the booting issue. Until than, I'm very grateful for any pointers!

From what I understand, the USB-port on the BeagleBoard can be configured to provide a networking-device. It would be very useful if the BeagleBord can communicate over a network-card called usb0. Everything indicates that this is possible, as a test-kernel I tried to start, resulted in these messages on my laptop:

usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0525, idProduct=a4a2 
usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0 
usb 1-1: Product: RNDIS/Ethernet Gadget
usb 1-1: Manufacturer: Linux 2.6.28-omap1 with musb_hdrc 
cdc_ether 1-1:1.0: usb0: register 'cdc_ether' at usb-0000:00:1a.7-1, CDC Ethernet Device, 8a:18:75:d3:a6:10
usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_ether
usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_subset
usb0: no IPv6 routers present
usb 1-1: USB disconnect, address 43
cdc_ether 1-1:1.0: usb0: unregister 'cdc_ether' usb-0000:00:1a.7-1, CDC Ethernet Device

But of course, this test-kernel is affected by same reboot-problem.

And the Future?

It looks like there is quite something going on on the BeagleBoard. Futhermore there is the new DreamPlug (oder here)coming. Alternatively I might look into a Pandaboard. These are all nice and low-energy solutions for a little home server...

Playing with The GIMP and Gravatar

2011-02-06T13:26:00.000Z

Some blogs, archives for mailing lists, other site and even some application seem to be able to find a matching icon/avatar for the user that posts a message. Blogger, WordPress.com, but also for example Gmane use Gravatar (Gravatar is one of the avatar-services used by Gmane, not the only one.).

Personally I always like to know how the others I am working with look like. This makes is also easier in case one actually meets one other.

Gravatar is actually pretty easy to use, you only need to calculate the MD5-hash from an emailaddress and append that to a URL:

$ echo -n nobody@example.com | md5sum
9f9a7a129db9c1065c011dba45c3cee9

The emailaddress is a fake one, the md5sum is real though.

Now the URL http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/9f9a7a129db9c1065c011dba45c3cee9 (optionally append .gif, .jpg, ...) can be used to retrieve the avatar: Of course this only makes sense if you have an icon of yourself. I created my current one, using The GIMP with some help from the following sites: Replacing a Background with The GIMP Simulating Shallow Depth of Field with The GIMP Adding drop shadows to images There are surely other tutorials that explain the same, but Google put these high in the results and they worked for me.

Connect automatically (and immediately) to a hidden WiFi 2011-01-29T15:30:00.001Z A minor annoyance on with wireless networking at home seems to easily resolved. I'm very happy that NetworkManager offers a CLI that works together with the GNOME-NetworkManager-applet. cnetworkmanager does, or at least did not work for me. The WiFi at home uses a hidden ESSID and it looks like NetworkManager does not connect to this automatically. Well, that's not completely correct, it just takes a lot of time for NetworkManager to attempt to connect. It's unclear to me why NetworkManager sometimes connect me automatically, and sometimes it seems to take ages and manually connecting to the hidden wireless network is quicker. This little script ~/bin/nm-connect-me.sh forces NetworkManager to connect to the hidden WiFi when wireless is enabled and there is no connection yet: #!/bin/sh # # Automatically try to connect to 'MyWiFi' when WiFi is enabled # # the output of nmcli should be in English LC_ALL=C # loop for a while until NetworkManager is accepting commands while [ "$(nmcli -t -f WIFI,STATE nm)" = 'enabled:disconnected' ] do nmcli con up id MyWiFi sleep 5 done exit 0 After making the script executable and adding it as a startup application over xfce4-session-settings, the network connection is established immediately when I login. It really bids me a little more comfort when turning on my laptop. The changelog from the NetworkManager package shows that nmcli was added about one year ago! Such a shame that I only found out about it recently... Running qemu-system-arm through libvirt 2011-01-28T16:42:00.000Z Being ill a couple of days and have the need to do something (more or less) productive, I thought of giving Fedora-ARM a go. As I use libvirt and virt-manager for work, running an ARM-emulation this way is my preferred setup. The Fedora Wiki provides with a nice HowTo a good start. Unfortunately there is already a mentioning that qemu-system-arm gets wrong arguments and a script that functions as a (temporary) workaround should be used. This was a note for Fedora 13, I'm running Fedora 14. So, of course I tried to start my VM without the script first: qemu-system-arm: -device lsi,id=scsi0,bus=pci.0,addr=0x5: Bus 'pci.0' not found Ups. This really does not seem to work out of the box :-( Reading the script reveals that bus=pci.0 gets replaced by bus=pci. Manually starting qemu-system-arm with some adjusted bus= parameters seems to start the VM. Obviously there are loads of others hitting similar issues. For Fedora 14 bug 667345 was filed against libvirt for PPC emulation. With help from gdb and manually executing qemu-system-arm and comparing it with qemu-kvm, it seems that the virtual hardware is configured differently. Most noticible (for me) seems to be the name of the PCI-bus, on qemu-system-arm it is pci and on qemu-kvm it is pci.0. The function qbus_find_recursive() can be used to breakpoint and to check the names of the available busses (bus->name). I would assume that at least the busses have the same names for emulated hardware, so either bus=pci or bus=pci.0 should work with any qemu-* command. Unfortunately it is unclear to me how qemu-kvm constructs the virtual hardware, the qemu-system-* are more transparent. Depending on the machine that is being emulated the hardware is 'connected' when the machine is created. The virtual hardware is constructed by qemu-kvm/hw/*.c and depends on the type of machine that is created. Under qemu-kvm/hw/*.c there are some uses of pci_register_bus() where pci as name for the PCI-bus is passed. It seems easy to rename the PCI-busses to pci.0. This change will break any existing scripts/tools that pass bus=pci on the command line, so the solution is not the best. However, packages are temporary available in case someone wants to try this solution. A post to the qemu-devel list will show if a patch for qemu, or rather libvirt is preferred. Fixing the name of the PCI-bus is not the only thing I had to do before I could start my Fedora-ARM VM, though. The emulated hardware versatileab does not have an ISA-bus, therefore -device isa-serial can not work. The Serial device in the Virtual Machine needs to be removed. An alternative would be a usb-serial, but at the moment, virt-manager does not offer this option (you can probably configure it with virsh edit or virsh define though). There are more limitations with the emulated versatileab machine. It can obviously not cope with the 512MB of RAM I gave it. The result was shown by virt-manager libvirtError: operation failed: could not query memory balloon allocation and in my /var/log/libvirt/fedora.arm.log qemu: hardware error: pl011_read: Bad offset 101f1018 Giving the machine only 256MB RAM instead of 512MB RAM seems to make this issue go away too. Configuring a Brother MFC-7820N on Fedora 13 2010-09-04T10:52:00.000+01:00 I always need to check what driver and RPM is needed to get my the best out of my printer and have it enabled to scan over the network. This are some notes mainly for myself, but maybe they are helpful for someone else too. Configure the printer and enable it: # lpadmin -p sheldon-court -L "Sheldon Court" -E \ -v ipp://172.31.24.253:631/ipp \ -P /usr/share/foomatic/db/source/PPD/Brother/BR7225_2_GPL.ppd.gz Install and configure the scanner add-on: download the brscan2 RPM from the Brother website Install the RPM: # rpm -ivh brscan2-0.2.5-1.x86_64.rpm Configure Sane to access the scanner: # brsaneconfig2 -a name=sheldon-court model=MFC-7820N ip=172.31.24.253 Now printing and scanning works! Creating a bootable USB-stick 2010-04-15T23:15:00.000+01:00 This is a short explanation on how to create a bootable USB-stick with GRUB. This stick can be used to boot an installer, rescue-mode or an on-stick installed Linux distribution. I mainly use my USB-stick to install different versions (and architectures) of RHEL. Booting from this USB-stick and starting and starting a kickstart installation is really convenient. Detect the USB-stick This is a very important step and the one where most attention is needed. Detecting the device-node where the USB-stick is connected should not go wrong. Picking the wrong drive will not make your system unbootable (as we're creating a bootable disk), but all data will be lost! To detect which device-node is used for the USB-stick, I tend to check the output from the command 'dmesg'. This commmand displays the contents of the kernel-log-buffer and the last lines contain the last events. Insert the USB-stick and shortly after that checking 'dmesg', results for me in the following output (truncated here, only the last importan messages are shown): usb 1-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 5 usb 1-2: New USB device found, idVendor=1e3d, idProduct=2093 usb 1-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3 usb 1-2: Product: usb 1-2: Manufacturer: USB 2.0 usb 1-2: SerialNumber: 26073604A307E205 usb 1-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice scsi4 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices usb-storage: device found at 5 usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning usb-storage: device scan complete scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access USB 2.0 5.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2 sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0 sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] 4067328 512-byte logical blocks: (2.08 GB/1.93 GiB) sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 0b 00 00 08 sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through sdc: sdc1 sdc2 The USB-stick just connected is called 'sdc' and obviously contiains two partitions: sdc1 and sdc2. The matching device-node for this USB-stick is '/dev/sdc'. Prtitioning the USB-stick There exist a lot of tools to perform partitioning of a disk. One of the most common tools is 'fdisk' and that is very esy to use, therefore I mostly use this tool too. 'fdisk' takes the device-node as parameter, starting 'fdisk' looks like this: # fdisk /dev/sdc The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 32280. There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024, and could in certain setups cause problems with: 1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO) 2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK) Command (m for help): In order to make the USB-stick usable on a lot of systems, it seems to be a good idea to create a MSDOS-partitiontable on it. Command (m for help): o Building a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0x077c807a. Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them. After that, of course, the previous content won't be recoverable. The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 32280. There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024, and could in certain setups cause problems with: 1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO) 2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK) Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite) The only purpose of this stick will be that it is able to boot a range of kernels. Using it to save or transfer files is not important and therefore this stick will contain one VFAT partition. This makes it possible to add files and change the configuration under practically any operating system. Create one primary partition: Command (m for help): n Command action e extended p primary partition (1-4) p The partition should be the first partition: Partition number (1-4): 1 The start of the partition should be the first cylinder on the disk: First cylinder (1-32280, default 1): Using default value 1 By default the size of the partition will be the whole disk: Last cylinder, +cylinders or +size{K,M,G} (1-32280, default 32280): Using default value 32280 Change the type of the partition: Command (m for help): t Selected partition 1 VFAT is most portable, so choose 'c' (the hex-value for VFAT): Hex code (type L to list codes): c Changed system type of partition 1 to c (W95 FAT32 (LBA)) Mark the newly created partition bootable (probably not needed though): Command (m for help): a Partition number (1-4): 1 Check if all has been configured correctly, nothing has been saved yet: Command (m for help): p Disk /dev/sdc: 2082 MB, 2082471936 bytes 2 heads, 63 sectors/track, 32280 cylinders Units = cylinders of 126 * 512 = 64512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x077c807a Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdc1 * 1 32280 2033608+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA) If all looks okay, write the changes to the partitiontable on the disk: Command (m for help): w The partition table has been altered! Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table. Syncing disks. After this, the kernel got instructed to read the new partitiontable. The result should be that there is a new /dev/sdc1. Before this new partition can be used, it should be formatted: # mkfs -t vfat -n ndevos /dev/sdc1 With the new filesystem on the USB-stick, it is now possible to mount the stick: # mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt and copy the required files for the bootloader: # mkdir -p /mnt/boot/grub # cp /boot/grub/* /mnt/boot/grub/ Before the bootlaoder can get installed in the Master Boot Record (MBR), it needs to get mapped, so that GRUB recognises the USB-stick as first bootable disk. This can be done by changing the device.map file (or creating it if missing): [root@localhost ~]# cat /mnt/boot/grub/device.map # this device map was generated by ndevos on eeepc (hd0) /dev/sdc This example shows that (hd0) is mapped to /dev/sdc. Installing GRUB with the updated device.map file is done like this: # grub --device-map=/mnt/boot/grub/device.map GNU GRUB version 0.97 (640K lower / 3072K upper memory) [ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For the first word, TAB lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists the possible completions of a device/filename.] grub> root (hd0,0) root (hd0,0) Filesystem type is fat, partition type 0xc grub> setup (hd0) setup (hd0) Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes Checking if "/boot/grub/fat_stage1_5" exists... yes Running "embed /boot/grub/fat_stage1_5 (hd0)"... 27 sectors are embedded. succeeded Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 (hd0) (hd0)1+27 p (hd0,0)/boot/grub/stage2 /boot/grub/grub.conf"... succeeded Done. grub> quit quit The USB-stick does now contain a working GRUB and can be used to bootstrap an installer (or rescue disk) for any Fedora, RHEL and possibly other Linux distributions. The only two things that needs to be done before this works are copy the vmlinz and initrd.img to the /mnt/boot directory update the /mnt/boot/grub/grub.conf with lines to boot the new kernel (with any options you like) with the matching initrd Debugging USB with VMware 2010-01-24T21:00:00.000Z This looks really cool! It includes logging the traffic, and even a graphical analyser is available: Virtual USB Analyzer - Tutorial Enabling access over a serial console 2009-07-11T22:29:00.000+01:00 To enable access to a (virtual) system over a serial console I'm doing following steps: 1) add a login-prompt on the serial console echo 'S0:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty ttyS0 115200 vt100' >> /etc/inittab 2) allow root to login over serial console echo ttyS0 >> /etc/securetty 3) let /sbin/init reload the inittab to make the login prompt active /sbin/telinit q Now you can connect to the serial console and after pressing 'return' you should see a login prompt. Optionally put the output of the kernel and boot process over the console 4) add parameters console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200 to the kernel line in /boot/grub/grub.conf title Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS (2.6.9-78.EL) root (hd0,0) kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-78.EL ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200 initrd /initrd-2.6.9-78.EL.img By adding both parameters console=tty0 and console=ttyS0,115200, the output of the kernel is sent to both consoles. For the boot messages the last console is used. This is useful if your main console is a serial one, but you also have a real (or virtual) monitor connected. This is what I see when booting one of my virtual systems on Fedora 11: # virsh start --console rhel4 Domain rhel4 started Connected to domain rhel4 Escape character is ^] Linux version 2.6.9-78.EL (brewbuilder@hs20-bc2-3.build.redhat.com) (gcc version 3.4.6 20060404 (Red Hat 3.4.6-10)) #1 Wed Jul 9 15:27:01 EDT 2008 BIOS-provided physical RAM map: BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009f000 (usable) BIOS-e820: 000000000009f000 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved) BIOS-e820: 00000000000e8000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved) BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000001fff0000 (usable) BIOS-e820: 000000001fff0000 - 0000000020000000 (ACPI data) BIOS-e820: 00000000fffbc000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved) 0MB HIGHMEM available. 511MB LOWMEM available. found SMP MP-table at 000fbd10 Using x86 segment limits to approximate NX protection zapping low mappings. DMI 2.4 present. ACPI: PM-Timer IO Port: 0xb008 ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x00] lapic_id[0x00] enabled) Processor #0 6:3 APIC version 20 ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x01] lapic_id[0x01] disabled) ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x02] lapic_id[0x02] disabled) ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x03] lapic_id[0x03] disabled) ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x04] lapic_id[0x04] disabled) ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x05] lapic_id[0x05] disabled) ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x06] lapic_id[0x06] disabled) ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x07] lapic_id[0x07] disabled) ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x08] lapic_id[0x08] disabled) ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x09] lapic_id[0x09] disabled) ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0a] lapic_id[0x0a] disabled) ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0b] lapic_id[0x0b] disabled) ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0c] lapic_id[0x0c] disabled) ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0d] lapic_id[0x0d] disabled) ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0e] lapic_id[0x0e] disabled) ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0f] lapic_id[0x0f] disabled) Enabling APIC mode: Flat. Using 0 I/O APICs ACPI: IOAPIC (id[0x01] address[0xfec00000] gsi_base[0]) IOAPIC[0]: apic_id 1, version 17, address 0xfec00000, GSI 0-23 ACPI: INT_SRC_OVR (bus 0 bus_irq 5 global_irq 5 high level) ACPI: INT_SRC_OVR (bus 0 bus_irq 9 global_irq 9 high level) ACPI: INT_SRC_OVR (bus 0 bus_irq 10 global_irq 10 high level) ACPI: INT_SRC_OVR (bus 0 bus_irq 11 global_irq 11 high level) Using ACPI (MADT) for SMP configuration information Allocating PCI resources starting at 30000000 (gap: 20000000:dffbc000) Built 1 zonelists Kernel command line: ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200 elevator=noop Initializing CPU#0 CPU 0 irqstacks, hard=c0418000 soft=c0417000 PID hash table entries: 2048 (order: 11, 32768 bytes) Detected 2394.771 MHz processor. Using pmtmr for high-res timesource Console: colour VGA+ 80x25 Dentry cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 7, 524288 bytes) Inode-cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes) Memory: 513840k/524224k available (2209k kernel code, 9752k reserved, 745k data, 172k init, 0k highmem) Calibrating delay using timer specific routine.. 4560.74 BogoMIPS (lpj=2280372) Security Scaffold v1.0.0 initialized SELinux: Initializing. selinux_register_security: Registering secondary module capability Capability LSM initialized as secondary Mount-cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes) CPU: L1 I cache: 32K, L1 D cache: 32K CPU: L2 cache: 2048K CPU: Intel Pentium II (Klamath) stepping 03 Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done. Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done. Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK. ENABLING IO-APIC IRQs ..TIMER: vector=0x31 pin1=0 pin2=-1 checking if image is initramfs... it is Freeing initrd memory: 1175k freed NET: Registered protocol family 16 PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfb510, last bus=0 PCI: Using configuration type 1 mtrr: v2.0 (20020519) ACPI: Subsystem revision 20040816 ACPI: Interpreter enabled ACPI: Using IOAPIC for interrupt routing ACPI: PCI Root Bridge [PCI0] (00:00) PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00) ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] (IRQs 5 *10 11) ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] (IRQs 5 *10 11) ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] (IRQs 5 10 *11) ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] (IRQs 5 10 *11) Linux Plug and Play Support v0.97 (c) Adam Belay xen_mem: Initialising balloon driver. usbcore: registered new driver usbfs usbcore: registered new driver hub PCI: Using ACPI for IRQ routing ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] enabled at IRQ 11 ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:01.2[D] -> GSI 11 (level, high) -> IRQ 11 ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] enabled at IRQ 10 ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:01.3[A] -> GSI 10 (level, high) -> IRQ 10 ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] enabled at IRQ 11 ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:03.0[A] -> GSI 11 (level, high) -> IRQ 11 ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:04.0[A] -> GSI 11 (level, high) -> IRQ 11 ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:05.0[A] -> GSI 10 (level, high) -> IRQ 10 apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x03 (Driver version 1.16ac) apm: overridden by ACPI. audit: initializing netlink socket (disabled) audit(1247389170.873:1): initialized Total HugeTLB memory allocated, 0 VFS: Disk quotas dquot_6.5.1 Dquot-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order 0, 4096 bytes) Initializing Cryptographic API ksign: Installing public key data Loading keyring - Added public key 9ADA2B4B1EC241DE - User ID: Red Hat, Inc. (Kernel Module GPG key) PCI: PIIX3: Enabling Passive Release on 0000:00:01.0 Limiting direct PCI/PCI transfers. Activating ISA DMA hang workarounds. pci_hotplug: PCI Hot Plug PCI Core version: 0.5 ACPI: Processor [CPU0] (supports C1) Real Time Clock Driver v1.12 Linux agpgart interface v0.100 (c) Dave Jones serio: i8042 AUX port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12 serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1 Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.90 $ 68 ports, IRQ sharing enabled �ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 16384K size 1024 blocksize Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00alpha2 ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx PIIX3: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:01.1 PIIX3: chipset revision 0 PIIX3: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later ide0: BM-DMA at 0xc000-0xc007, BIOS settings: hda:pio, hdb:pio ide1: BM-DMA at 0xc008-0xc00f, BIOS settings: hdc:pio, hdd:pio hda: QEMU HARDDISK, ATA DISK drive Using noop io scheduler ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14 hdc: QEMU DVD-ROM, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15 hda: max request size: 1024KiB hda: 16777216 sectors (8589 MB) w/256KiB Cache, CHS=16383/255/63, (U)DMA hda: hda1 hda2 hdc: ATAPI 4X CD-ROM drive, 512kB Cache, (U)DMA Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20 ide-floppy driver 0.99.newide usbcore: registered new driver hiddev usbcore: registered new driver usbhid drivers/usb/input/hid-core.c: v2.0:USB HID core driver mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard on isa0060/serio0 input: ImExPS/2 Generic Explorer Mouse on isa0060/serio1 md: md driver 0.90.0 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27 NET: Registered protocol family 2 IP route cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 3, 32768 bytes) TCP established hash table entries: 32768 (order: 6, 262144 bytes) TCP bind hash table entries: 32768 (order: 7, 917504 bytes) TCP: Hash tables configured (established 32768 bind 32768) Initializing IPsec netlink socket NET: Registered protocol family 1 NET: Registered protocol family 17 ACPI wakeup devices: ACPI: (supports S3 S4 S5) Freeing unused kernel memory: 172k freed Red Hat nash version 4.2.1.13 starting Mounted /proc filesystem Mounting sysfs Creating /dev Starting udev Loading dm-mod.ko module device-mapper: 4.5.5-ioctl (2006-12-01) initialised: dm-devel@redhat.com Loading jbd.ko module Loading ext3.ko module Loading dm-mirror.ko module Loading dm-zero.ko module Loading dm-snapshot.ko module Making device-mapper control node Scanning logical volumes Reading all physical volumes. This may take a while... Found volume group "VolGroup00" using metadata type lvm2 Activating logical volumes 2 logical volume(s) in volume group "VolGroup00" now active Creating root device Mounting root filesystem kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Switching to new root INIT: version 2.85 booting Setting default font (latarcyrheb-sun16): [ OK ] Welcome to Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS Press 'I' to enter interactive startup. Setting clock (utc): Sun Jul 12 09:59:43 BST 2009 [ OK ] Starting udev: [ OK ] Initializing hardware... storage network audio done[ OK ] Configuring kernel parameters: [ OK ] Loading default keymap (de-latin1): [ OK ] Setting hostname localhost.localdomain: [ OK ] Checking root filesystem [/sbin/fsck.ext3 (1) -- /] fsck.ext3 -a /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00: clean, 64778/897600 files, 397753/1794048 blocks [ OK ] Remounting root filesystem in read-write mode: [ OK ] No RAID disks Setting up Logical Volume Management: [ OK ] Checking filesystems Checking all file systems. [/sbin/fsck.ext3 (1) -- /boot] fsck.ext3 -a /dev/hda1 /boot: clean, 35/26104 files, 12799/104388 blocks [ OK ] Mounting local filesystems: [ OK ] Enabling local filesystem quotas: [ OK ] Enabling swap space: [ OK ] INIT: Entering runlevel: 3 Entering non-interactive startup Applying Intel Microcode update: [ OK ] Starting monitoring for VG VolGroup00: [ OK ] Checking for new hardware [ OK ] Starting pcmcia: [ OK ] Setting network parameters: [ OK ] Bringing up loopback interface: [ OK ] Bringing up interface eth0: [ OK ] Bringing up interface eth1: Determining IP information for eth1... failed. [FAILED] Starting system logger: [ OK ] Starting kernel logger: [ OK ] Starting portmap: [ OK ] Starting NFS statd: [ OK ] Starting RPC idmapd: [ OK ] Mounting other filesystems: [ OK ] Starting lm_sensors: [ OK ] Starting automount: No Mountpoints Defined[ OK ] Starting smartd: [FAILED] Starting acpi daemon: [ OK ] Starting cups: [ OK ] Starting sshd:[ OK ] Starting xinetd: [ OK ] Starting sendmail: [ OK ] Starting sm-client: [ OK ] Starting console mouse services: [ OK ] Starting crond: [ OK ] Starting xfs: [ OK ] Starting anacron: [ OK ] [ OK ] atd: [ OK ] Starting system message bus: [ OK ] Starting Red Hat Network Daemon: [ OK ] Starting HAL daemon: [ OK ] Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS release 4 (Nahant Update 8) Kernel 2.6.9-78.EL on an i686 localhost.localdomain login: Using git for Fedora's CVS 2009-07-03T21:54:00.000+01:00 I prefer to use git over CVS. Unfortunately the main repository where all Fedora packages are located uses CVS. Takis blog contains a very useful guide for working with git on projects located on a CVS-server. Thanks Takis! Making Adobe Flash work on a 64-bit Fedora 11 2009-06-16T22:02:00.000+01:00 On the Fedora Wiki there is an excellent article which made my Fedora 11 (x86_64) run Flash 10. This is a copy-paste from the article: Adobe also has a pre-release version of a 64-bit plugin. Until this is supported via yum, you will need to do the following: 1. Download the .tar.gz version from Adobe here. 2. Use "gtar -xzvf" to extract libflashplayer.so and put it in either in /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins/ or ~/.mozilla/plugins/. 3. Restart Firefox. Splitting videos with mencoder 2009-03-20T11:23:00.000Z YouTube does not allow videos to be longer than 10 minutes. I really have the need to split videos... Googling for this issue brought me to MisterHowTo.com. Splitting a video looks like this (first 6 minutes and 5 seconds): $ mencoder -endpos 00:06:05 -ovc copy -oac copy leeuw-tuominen_0-2.AVI -o leeuw-tuominen_0-2_a.avi MEncoder 1.0rc1-4.1.2 (C) 2000-2006 MPlayer Team CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T5500 @ 1.66GHz (Family: 6, Model: 15, Stepping: 2) CPUflags: Type: 6 MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1 Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX MMX2 3DNow 3DNowEx SSE SSE2 success: format: 0 data: 0x0 - 0x2e8da65c AVI file format detected. VIDEO: [MJPG] 640x480 24bpp 30.000 fps 9219.7 kbps (1125.4 kbyte/s) [V] filefmt:3 fourcc:0x47504A4D size:640x480 fps:30.00 ftime:=0.0333 videocodec: framecopy (640x480 24bpp fourcc=47504a4d) audiocodec: framecopy (format=1 chans=1 rate=16000 bits=8 B/s=16000 sample-1) Writing header... ODML: Aspect information not (yet?) available or unspecified, not writing vprp header. Writing header... ODML: Aspect information not (yet?) available or unspecified, not writing vprp header. Writing index...51f (54%) 3343.82fps Trem: 0min 744mb A-V:0.033 [9219:128] Writing header... ODML: Aspect information not (yet?) available or unspecified, not writing vprp header. Video stream: 9219.507 kbit/s (1152438 B/s) size: 420678432 bytes 365.033 secs 10951 frames Audio stream: 128.000 kbit/s (16000 B/s) size: 5840000 bytes 365.000 secs And the second part with offset 6 minutes 5 seconds: $ mencoder -ss 00:06:05 -ovc copy -oac copy leeuw-tuominen_0-2.AVI -o leeuw-tuominen_0-2_b.avi MEncoder 1.0rc1-4.1.2 (C) 2000-2006 MPlayer Team CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T5500 @ 1.66GHz (Family: 6, Model: 15, Stepping: 2) CPUflags: Type: 6 MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1 Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX MMX2 3DNow 3DNowEx SSE SSE2 success: format: 0 data: 0x0 - 0x2e8da65c AVI file format detected. VIDEO: [MJPG] 640x480 24bpp 30.000 fps 9219.7 kbps (1125.4 kbyte/s) [V] filefmt:3 fourcc:0x47504A4D size:640x480 fps:30.00 ftime:=0.0333 ========================================================================== Opening audio decoder: [pcm] Uncompressed PCM audio decoder AUDIO: 16000 Hz, 1 ch, u8, 128.0 kbit/100.00% (ratio: 16000->16000) Selected audio codec: [pcm] afm: pcm (Uncompressed PCM) ========================================================================== videocodec: framecopy (640x480 24bpp fourcc=47504a4d) audiocodec: framecopy (format=1 chans=1 rate=16000 bits=8 B/s=16000 sample-1) Writing header... ODML: Aspect information not (yet?) available or unspecified, not writing vprp header. Writing header... ODML: Aspect information not (yet?) available or unspecified, not writing vprp header. Writing index...90f (100%) 377.05fps Trem: 0min 337mb A-V:0.033 [9219:128] Writing header... ODML: Aspect information not (yet?) available or unspecified, not writing vprp header. Video stream: 9219.688 kbit/s (1152460 B/s) size: 349195660 bytes 303.000 secs 9090 frames Audio stream: 128.000 kbit/s (16000 B/s) size: 4848059 bytes 303.004 secs After uploading these videos they will be available in their own playlist. Squash for 2016 2009-03-20T09:57:00.001Z It would be great if squash becomes an Olympic sport in 2016! More promotion at http://squash2016.info. Cloning xorg/freedesktop git projects over http 2009-02-10T12:47:00.000Z The network policy at my work makes me use a proxy-server. Unfortunately it looks like x.org or freedesktop.org does not support git usage over http. Just browsing to http://anongit.freedesktop.org does show an error which lets me guess that this server supports cloning over http. Indeed, afer some wrong URLs I've found a working one! export http_proxy=http://proxy:81 git clone http://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/xorg/xserver.git xorg-xserver A complete list of projects is available from http://cgit.freedesktop.org. Sync Google Contacts with Thunderbird 2009-01-22T21:41:00.000Z Google Contacts is an Add-On for Thunderbird which creates an additional address book with your Google contacts. Great tool! CentOS-5 and file sharing over bluetooth 2009-01-18T11:25:00.000Z Dag Wieers wrote a very nice and simple blogpost called "OBEX for dummies. This post helped me getting bluetooth file-sharing work in less than five minutes. Thanks Dag! Tried to post a comment on the blog, however that failed for some reason...) Switching from Linux to OpenBSD? 2009-01-12T14:53:00.000Z That grumpy BSD guy: Into a new year, slowly pounding the gates makes me think again about switching my Linux server (with lots of hacking attempts) to a more peaceful OpenBSD... Support special functions keys on laptops with Linux 2009-01-06T16:17:00.000Z It's very uncool that some of the keys on my HP/Compaq nc6400 are not working by default. I get following messages in dmesg: atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0xd9 on isa0060/serio0). atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e059 ' to make it known. atkbd.c: Unknown key released (translated set 2, code 0xd9 on isa0060/serio0). atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e059 ' to make it known. Jiri Koshina pointed me to HAL Keymap Quirks which is written by a Red Hat engineer. My Results For these (and a lot more) keys I (and you) need at least hal-0.5.10 as said in the link above from Jiri. The keys supported by hal are available in the 30-keymap-*.fdi files from the hal-info git: http://cgit.freedesktop.org/hal-info/tree/fdi/information/10freedesktop Takis blog: CVS to GIT and back 2008-12-26T10:32:00.000Z Takis blog: CVS to GIT and back contains very nice info for using a CVS-server and a git-client. Thanks Takis! A Fujitsu Siemens webcam on Linux 2008-07-27T15:00:00.000+01:00 Today I got a webcam (loaned from work) working under CentOS. It's a nameless model from Fujitsu Siemens Computers (USB Vendor/Product 0c45:613b). The sn9c102-driver I have packaged the suitable driver from Luca Risolia. There also seems to be a binary-only driver which is only available for Ubuntu 7.04. This driver should be better, however it can't be used for free on other Linux distributions. Downloaded the .src.rpm for the driver from my homepage (direct download). GTK+ UVC Viewer Having only a driver is of no use. There should also be a easy to use viewer software. I was unable to find a packaged version for guvcview, so created the RPM myself. The .src.rpm is also available from my site. No Skype :( Unfortunately Skype 2.0.0.72 does not support the MJPEG-format delivered by this camera. Looking for possible solutions, I found the ov51x-jpeg-driver and gstfakevideo. Tried both and got the same unsuccessful result. gstfakevideo seems most promising as it does everything in user-space. It is mainly a library which gets loaded before any others libraries (see LD_PRELOAD in man ld.so). This makes it possible to change the behavior of any function-call. In this case Skype uses libgstreamer and the API can be changed on the fly. But as it doesn't work and the camera is not my personal posession, I won't look into this much more. Developing with Google App Engine on CentOS-5 2008-07-26T14:01:00.000+01:00 Unfortunately CentOS-5 does not have python-2.4 yet. When using wsgiref.handlers.CGIHandler for handling get() and/or post() requests the following ImportError occurs: ImportError: No module named wsgiref.handlers This can be solved by installing the Python Extension wsgiref. I've created an SRPM which can be rebuilt quite easily. After the installation of WSGI, the google_appengine/dev_appserver.py still does not find the library. This can be solved by configuring the wsgire as a third party module. cd /path/to/my/google/app ln -s /usr/lib/python-2.4/site-packages/wsgiref Now it should be possible to run the Google App: google_appengine/dev_appserver.py /path/to/my/google/app More links: * Google App Engine * Application Gallery Let Firefox add RSS-Feeds to Thunderbird 2008-07-02T15:35:00.000+01:00 I'm using Thunderbird as mail client and RSS-reader. Firefox is the web browser of my choice. Now I would like Firefox to add links to RSS-feeds to Thunderbird. The next script makes that possible. #!/bin/sh # # Open an RSS-Feed with Thunderbird. # Idea from: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=4368033&postcount=7 # exec thunderbird -mail "feed:${1}" Unfortunately I was unable to make it work (using about:config) without a script. NSPluginWrapper in CentOS-5.2 (x86_64) 2008-06-26T15:24:00.000+01:00 This is an update for an older post by me: Installing Flash on CentOS-5.x86_64 CentOS-5.2 already includes NSPluginWrapper. Yust install it as usual with: yum -y install nspluginwrapper Sync time without VMware Tools installed 2008-06-26T14:19:00.000+01:00 Just a little note for those who are always looking for missing configuration parameters (like me). Guests can sync time with the host automatically if you set the following parameter in the .vmx file of the guest: tools.syncTime = "TRUE" The same can be achieved by using the VMware Tools, however these might not be installed and installing them could be troublesome on systems not containing a development environment. Chicken-Melon Soup 2008-06-21T16:13:00.001+01:00 Just had a (late) lunch at Gallia (corner Stargarderstr./Papelallee, Berlin). They change the menu every 3-4 weeks, so there is always something new to try. Today I had a chicken-melon soup (very exotic!). It's a very tasteful combination of chicken, gallia melon balls, lots of cream and some spices. It tasted really great and inspired me to Blog about it :) For the main course I chose Pasta Gallia. No melon on this dish, but therefor fried chicken, noodles and champions in a nice sauce. Some salad leaves and small pieces of tomato made it really look appetizing. I can highly recommend anyone to visit Gallia. For this menu, including a coke and my coffee afterwards, I paid around €15. You can definitely eat cheaper in the area, but the food is outstanding, service is nice and it is't overcrowded like lot's of other restaurants. Starting SafeBoot with GRUB 2008-06-16T10:38:00.000+01:00 Installation of SafeBoot SafeBoot can be installed over Tivoli. After installation, you need to authenticate on every boot and Windows will be started. Only the partitions used by Windows will be encrypted, the Linux partitions are not affected. Boot from a Rescue System Booted my CentOS x86_64 with the installation DVD, giving on the boot-prompt linux rescue. This rescue system automatically detects my /-filesystem and all used partitions. The dialogs explain how to change to the installed system: chroot /mnt/sysimage Now you are prepared to backup SafeBoot and setup GRUB as default bootloader. Note: If your Linux is installed with a x86_64 version, you'll need a x86_64 rescue system. Note: It is adviced to use a CD or DVD for booting. A USB-Stick (which is emulated like a harddrive) could give troubles installing GRUB. Backup the SafeBoot MBR dd if=/dev/sda of=/boot/safeboot.mbr bs=512 count=1 The master-boot-record will be saved in the file called /boot/safeboot.mbr. Install GRUB on the MBR /sbin/grub-install /dev/sda This overwrites the MBR with GRUB. By default GRUB will boot (no authentication needed). Starting SafeBoot from GRUB Edit /boot/grub/grub.conf (on Red Hat/CentOS) or /boot/menu.lst on other distributions. Add the next entry too the file: title Microsoft Windows XP Professional rootnoverify (hd0,0) makeactive chainloader (hd0,5)/safeboot.mbr Here (hd0,0) is the Windows partition and /safeboot.mbr is the backup of the SafeBoot-MBR. In this case it is missing the /boot directory, as /boot is a seperate partition ((hd0,5) which is /dev/sda6). Compose key magic 2008-06-09T16:05:00.000+01:00 A very good article about typing special characters under Linux: Compose key magic by cyberborean. Installing Flash on CentOS-5.x86_64 2008-05-16T08:42:00.000+01:00 With some help from a post in the CentOS-wiki I was able to install the 32-bit version of Adobe's Flash-Plugin on a 64-bit Firefox. Using the nspluginwrapper RPMs and the flash-plugin from RPMforge. This is what I have done: install nspluginwrapper (viewer) install nspluginwrapper (plugin) install the flash-plugin: yum -y install flash-plugin or manually from the RPM run the following command as root: nspluginwrapper --install /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so check the installation: in the firefox addressbar about:plugins or visit a site with flash ;) German Dictionary in Thunderbird-1.5 on CentOS-5 2008-05-14T11:05:00.000+01:00 It's very anoying that the dictionaries from the Thunderbird Add-ons are not available for the version of Thunderbird from CentOS-5. After getting some error messages, and trying around I found Localized Dictionaries for Mozilla Thunderbird on mozilla.org. Unfortunately the downloadable .xpi does not work for me?! However there is a nice note about OpenOffice.org Dictionaries and Thunderbird on the same page. This seems to work perfectly! Copenhagen and a RHCE exam 2008-04-11T21:01:00.000+01:00 Thursday So, staying in Copenhagen in the Copenhagen Business Hotel. The rooms are like little appartments and include a small kitchen, livingroom, bedroom and bathroom. After getting familiar with the appartment and relaxing a bit, we disided to wander a bit through the city center and find something to eat. We got a nice seat at Jensen's. They have a great offer and are not that expensive ;) Friday After doing the RHCE exam we (Björn and I) walked a bit through Copenhagen. First we found something to eat; a little restaurant called Butterfly. The food was quite nice and the atmosphere was all rigth. Copenhagen is really a nice city for tourists. We were told this already by our collegue Ole (we didn't know he does business here too). Saturday Only posting the slideshow for today: Including Picasa Slideshows in MediaWiki 2008-02-13T14:38:00.000Z Unfortunately I was unable to find a MediaWiki Extension for Picasa slideshows. Taking the idea (and PHP-code) from the MediaWiki GoogleCalendar Extension, I created a Picasa-Extension. It's very easy to get it running. Like all/most other MediaWiki Extensions the file should be placed in the /extensions directory. Save the code below as /extensions/Picasa.php: <?php /** * Picasa Slideshows * * Tag: * <picasa>picasaweb-URL</picasa> * * Example: * from url http://picasaweb.google.com/tester/GoogleSNewSantaMonicaOffice?authkey=3V8IljiqEO0 * <picasa>http://picasaweb.google.com/tester/GoogleSNewSantaMonicaOffice?authkey=3V8IljiqEO0</picasa> */ $wgExtensionFunctions[] = 'wfPicasa'; $wgExtensionCredits['parserhook'][] = array( 'name' => 'Picasa Slideshow', 'description' => 'Display a Picasa Slideshow', 'author' => 'Niels de Vos (based on GoogleCalendar from Kasper Souren)', 'url' => 'http://nixpanic.blogger.com/' ); function wfPicasa() { global $wgParser; $wgParser->setHook('picasa', 'renderPicasaSlideshow'); } /* The callback function for converting the input text to HTML output */ function renderPicasaSlideshow($input) { /* some defaults */ $width = 800; $height = 600; $feed_start = 'http://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/'; $url_feed = '/data/feed/base/user'; $api_feed = '/data/feed/api/user'; /* convert the input to a string */ $input = "$input"; /* if the input is a direct URL to the album, give an error */ if (strpos($input, $feed_start) !== 0) { $input = picasaGetFeed($input); } /* if the input is an RSS-feed, replace '../base/..' by '../api/..' */ $input = str_replace($url_feed, $api_feed, $input); /* the flash-applet expects a URL-encoded parameter (?) */ $input = urlencode($input); $output = '<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf" ' . 'width="' . $width . '" height="' . $height . '" ' . 'flashvars="' . 'host=picasaweb.google.com&' . 'captions=1&RGB=0x000000&' . 'feed=' . $input . '" ' . 'pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed>'; return $output . "\n"; } /* variable and functions needed for parsing the HTML to get a RSS-feed */ $picasaFeedURL = ''; function picasaGetFeed($url) { global $picasaFeedURL; $xp = xml_parser_create(); xml_set_element_handler($xp, 'picasaXEStart', 'picasaXEEnd'); $fp = fopen($url, 'r'); while ($data = fread($fp, 4096)) { xml_parse($xp, $data); } fclose($fp); xml_parser_free($xp); return $picasaFeedURL; } function picasaXEEnd($parser, $name) {} function picasaXEStart($parser, $name, $attrs) { global $picasaFeedURL; if ($name == 'LINK') { if (array_key_exists('TYPE', $attrs) && array_key_exists('HREF', $attrs)) { if ($attrs['TYPE'] == 'application/rss+xml') { $picasaFeedURL = $attrs['HREF']; return; } } } } ?> Now include in LocalSetting.php: /* Picasa slideshow extension */ require_once("$IP/extensions/Picasa.php"); Edit an article and write the Picasa-URL of an album between <picasa></picasa> tags. As an example a test album of Google could be used (http://picasaweb.google.com/tester/GoogleSNewSantaMonicaOffice?authkey=3V8IljiqEO0): <picasa>http://picasaweb.google.com/tester/GoogleSNewSantaMonicaOffice?authkey=3V8IljiqEO0</picasa> The result should look like the slideshow on http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/oh-places-youll-go.html. Fraggles on the Rock 2007-12-23T11:56:00.000Z I'm just remembering the Fraggles from my childhood... Got a book from the library with a Christmas story about them :) Looking for them around the net and found a huge Wiki article. And it seems like Oncle Matt is still traveling around :D Blogging by email 2007-11-21T08:18:00.001Z So, blogger lets me post by email?Just wondering if this mail gets published :) My first blog 2007-11-05T01:39:00.001Z Very cool, but nothing interesting to write...