Serial consoles using tip
If you plan to connect a Soekris to your NetBSD computer you need a tool for serial communication. The command tip(1) is such a tool and can handle this easily for you. The syntax is:
tipI've added a line in my
/etc/remote for the Soekris box.
soekris:dv=/dev/ttyU0:br#9600:pa=none:dc:I can use the command
tip soekris to connect to my Soekris
box. Please note that I am using a USB to Serial converter, which works
flawlessly. Thanks to martin@NetBSD.org who wrote alot of the converter
code.
written by: Ulrich Habel (rhaen)
Communication Settings
The Soekris 4801 usually uses the following setting for serial
connections: 19200 no parity, 8 databits, 1 stop bit, no-flow-control.
The NetBSD kernel is usually set to 9600 baud, no parity, 8 databits, 1
stop bit, no-flow-control. You have to make sure that your bootloader
and your kernel (for the Soekris) and the Soekris are talking at the
same speed or you'll see alot of garbage on the screen. E.g. if you have
set the Soekris at the correct speed but it differs with the bootloader
your screen starts with the usual boot messages from the Soekris BIOS
but will get garbled once it runs the NetBSD bootloader.
To adjust these settings just enter the Soekris BIOS menu by pressing
Ctrl-p at boot time. The parameter for this setting is:
set ConSpeed=9600Make sure to install the bootloader with the correct speed with the following command:
installboot -m i386 -oconsole=com0,ioaddr=0x3f8,speed=9600 \
/dev/wd0d /usr/mdec/bootxx_ffsv1
In order to get the correct kernel settings you have to rebuild your
kernel with a small configuration change. Just locate the following
line:
options CONSDEVNAME="\"com\"",CONADDR=0x3f8,CONSPEED=9600and make sure it's not commented out. Rebuild you kernel and you are ready to go.
written by: Ulrich Habel (rhaen)
07/29/2008Save your time(s) with blosxom
As some of you may have noticed, this blog runs bloxsom (link). This little Perl script uses
the mtimes of text files (the blog entries) for the chronological order
of the posts. If you are afraid of loosing the timestamps e.g. in a
backup or in a copy, you can just use the BSD command mtree
to save them into a file.
mtree -c > filename.txt
This will dump the current file specifications into a file. Use the same
command to correct the dates if needed. Nice! Try that on a linux host.
Usually they don't have mtree available - cfengine can also keep track
of filenames and dates, that might be an option, too.
written by: Ulrich Habel (rhaen)
More pkgsrc hacking
The next round will start soon. I saw alot of perl modules which do need
updating and I started to think over various mechanisms to keep that
automated. My pkgsrc2cpan report is quite useful for this, however the
CPAN.pm module which is shipped with Perl 5.8.8 seems to be quite,
hm...feature aware. There are methods to get the version for a module
which is at CPAN, however it's mixing all the different version
arguments for Perl modules.
For example a module in version 0.000009 is the same as 0.0.9. By a
simple pattern match for comparison this method is likely to fail. There
a few more issues with that. A module can be updated on CPAN but it's
not noted inside the CPAN modlist files. Therefor querying the CPAN.pm
module gives you just a wrong answer. That's just annoying and I need to
find a workaround for this.
So far I am using my script for a quick overview and it's far better to
have such an option than to have nothing to look at. Maybe someone is so
thankful and write a new CPAN-ask-my-version module.
written by: Ulrich Habel (rhaen)
07/28/2008It's alive...
And it's booting. NetBSD 4.0 of course - more to come
written by: Ulrich Habel (rhaen)
