Work

Work related stuff

Conceptronic CH3SNAS 1.03beta3 Firmware

Oeps.. the long awaited Sony Playstation 3 support for CH3SNAS was not functioning. After debugging we found out that the UPnP Server could not be started.

This was fixed quickly and now a new version has been released. UPnP Server working: PlayStation 3 Working (MP3 at least, movies seems to be difficult with PS3 .. )

and euh .. it’s beta .. so no warranty on working and the safety of your data ;-)

update: I see some ‘sudden’ disconnects from the UPnP server .. No idea how to trace and to find what is causing the disconnect (I am playing a 80min MP3 file and after about 45 minutes the server disappears .. Damn!)

Hacking into Conceptronic C54BRS4A router

Conceptronic is selling the C54BRS4A (Atheros Based Wireless Router) for a couple of month’s now. That device should be fully GNU/GPL compliant and therefor Conceptronic has released the SoureCode including Toolchain.

Using alternative configurations / images / firmware with the Conceptronic C54BRS4A should be possible as it is running Linux

Me as nono on Linux took the challenge to see if it was / is possible to create a custome made ‘AroundMyRoom’ firmware version

The steps I followed were:

1. Downloaded the NetInst of Debian (debian-40r1-i386-netinst). Debian is necessary to be able to compile sources. I burned the ISO to a CD-ROM and took an old notebook

2. Intalled Debian on it and installed some additional packages afterwards like MC, some GCC tools, other libs and stuff I saw were necessary to use, the NetInst is simple as it is downloading the content directly from the Internet so no hassle with many CD’s ..

3. after Installation I wgetted the SourceFile from the ftp of Conceptronic. Right now they supply two sourcefiles. I needed both files! especially as 1 file (called: ‘RGDB’) was generating an error and a working was was available in the older sourcefile (sigh.. )

4. After the Tar -xvzf [sourcefile] I read the included readme document and followed the guidelines. (C54BRS4A.GPL.readme.txt)

5. The process is clean and simple and if found any error (I found 2) it could be easily fixed

start with:
1. Building the toolchain
 ~# ./build_tool_chain.sh
Select: Generic (MIPS I) (CONFIG_MIPS_ISA_1) and keep the rest default

check the output and if found any error it must be your system missing some special tools (Bison etc.. )

2. Building the image
 ~# source ./setupenv
 ~# make
 ~# make
 ~# make
  ===================================================
  You are going to build the f/w images.
  Both the release and tftp images will be generated.
  ===================================================
  Do you want to rebuild the linux kernel ? (yes/no) : yes
Issues I found:

in folder: c54brs4a/tools/../rgdb the rgdb file creates a segmentation fault when called through the make process. If you download the first gnu/gpl and take the same file the size is different and replacing the exiting rgdb executable for the other one it works ..

in folder: c54brs4a/templates/../c54br4s4a/ the file gendef.sh was creating a make error due to a missing DDNS statement, when commenting out: issue solved. It seems not to affect the creation of the firmware ..
And finally your system will create the firmware files.. Upgrade through the webinterface and you can have your modified firmware .. Hey .. that is what geeks want .. !

If I have some time left tomorrow I will make some internal images ;-)

Conceptronic CH3SNAS 1.03beta2 Firmware

Just before the black box is hitting the shelves. 

Today a new firmware was released to some beta users .. 1.03beta 2

update: firmware withdrawn, version 1.03abeta 2 had issue that UPnP server did not start. New Version released!

release notes:

1. Users with RAID1 configuration could loose their data after the reboot of upgrade 1.02 to 1.03beta1. The device was asking if you want to re-format the device. Removing the HDD’s and restart the device empty could save the data, but some users were pig-headed and lost all their data. Some RAID parameter were wrong causing this issue. It’s fixed now.
Password courrupted :  user’s password could get corrupted after changing. We fixed that also.

Conceptronic CH3SNAS: The BlackBox Edition

I have just received the new Conceptronic CH3SNAS: the Blackbox Edition. The look of the device is different than the previous version of the CH3SNAS.

What has been changed you wonder? Cause maybe some of you have it in backorder ..

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Hit the images to enlarge

Changed is: a lock for the frontcover, the backside HDD slides have been moved to the front cause during assembly it was very hard to remove harddisks easily. Colour from grey black to black.

Firmware and hardware are equal to the first Conceptronic CH3SNAS version. So no changes there. Enjoy ..

CH3SNAS beta firmware 1.03

Be one of the first CH3SNAS users with the 1.03 new firmware

Conceptronic is announcing NEW features and FIXED features in this 1.03 release

Beta v1.03 was released on  11/16/2007 to a select number of beta testers. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK !!   

 DO BACKUP YOUR DATA BEFORE APPLYING THIS FIRMWARE ! THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR KEEPING YOUR DATA OR UNFORMATTING THE HARDDRIVES ! DO NOT USE AT PRODUCTION DEVICES !

What was addressed and fixed  

1.Stop at 94% issue.

Due to some various wierd issues some pre-formatted HDD’s are unable to be formatted. Than they stop at 94%

I think this bug finally is fixed

2.NFS Server modules added.

Requested by End-Users: add the NFS modules to apply ‘Fun Plug’ stuff: so we did !

3.PS3 Support.

Requested by End-Users: support for PS3 .. Hey this should work now .. Are you happy?  

4.”Removing files or folders in combination with Windows Vista”
 When using scheduled back-up in combination with Windows Vista it is not possible to remove files or folders in any way afterwards. 

Phew .. again happy!

USE AT YOUR OWN RISK ! [download here]

Many new and other issues will be addressed and released in the 1.03 series.. What kind of new stuff?

  • Give you the ability to skip the formatting of a HDD 
  • Add more option in the power management like: add 60 and 120 min options
  • Use also the IP address as sharename
  • Some stuff with anonymous FTP
  • Something to be valid with the e-mail system ..

Hey you can add your idea here ..  

LANDISK – RDC2891 Sourcecode

After long discussion, I finally got a written approval for getting the sourcecode for the RDC based LANDISK (in this case for the RDC 2891 chipset). But probably also usable for the RDC 2882 chipset as the way of firmware upgrade / firmware is the same.

As I am not into compiling and not want to brick any device I have on hand: greet my sponsors at http://www.aroundmyroom.com/landisk and than visit the rdc2891 folder to get the rdc2891.rar file

Use at your own risk. ;-)

Conceptronic CH3SNAS 1.02 Firmware #2

Just received new beta firmware 1.02, with bugfixes addressed in a previous 1.02 release.

http://www.aroundmyroom.com/ch3snas/ch3snas102a.rar

many issues / options resolved / added / fixed ..

among them:
File Transfer tools where able to damage files
Subtitle files are supported through UPnP A/V tool when playing divx
Progress bar with Itunes Server
Admin cannot be used as groupname anymore
wuftpd has been abandoned and pureftpd is now in use (utf-8 support)
Samba 2.2.8a replaced by Samba 3.0.24 (fix vista issue)

Please do not test this firmware in systems where precious data is stored .. use it for test ;-)

Archiving the E-mail

a_lot_of_e_mail_small.jpg

[hit image to enlarge]

I am using Copernic and I just discovered that my e-mail was not indexed properly. Some dude decided to disable the indexing of mailboxes >50MB .. Uch..
I use Outlook for several years now and I do not remove important business e-mail (never) .. so I have years of e-mail collected… Right now almost 100.000 e-mails (spam removed mostly)
wow.. and the keywords.. Finally I can find stuff again (b.t.w. my system is still indexing and I think Copernic will need more days / weeks to complete the total index of all archives.

Is there no better / faster way?

Schiphol, Gate F02

Ik zit nu op een stoeltje bij Gate F02. Een KPN hotspot is gevonden, XS4ALL username ingeklopt en waarempel: het werkt. Direct internet gebruik.

Vanmorgenvroeg om 05.55 opgestaan en om 06.25 in de auto naar Schiphol. Lilian kon lekker doorrijden en nu 7.50 ben ik EN ingechecked EN zit ik dus te wachten voor vertrek. Boarding time 8.45, Stoel 23C, vlucht KL0791 richting Sao Paulo met eindbestemming Buenos Aires. In Sao Paulo heb ik een boarding time van 17.55 (locale tijd), Gate 08, Stoel 11C, vlucht JJ8004

In het kort:

KL791 Vertrek/Aankomst Amsterdam to Sao Paulo Gru 10.00 – 17.00

JJ8004 Vertrek/Aankomst Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires 19.00 – 21.50

Zonnetje begint te schijnen dus laat die oversteek over het grote water maar komen.

Maandagmorgen zit ik in de buurt van de Obelisco om daar aan xx mensen training te geven. Life’s a bitch but someone has to do the dirty job ;-)

Dus na mijn commentaar op KPN Hotspots en XS4ALL werkt ‘WiFi’ nu dus wel (Gate F02).