Baslinux mailing list

[Lee Forrest <lforrestster AT gmail.com>]

On Thu, Dec 21, 2006 at 03:35:18AM +0000, sindi keesan wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Dec 2006, Lee Forrest wrote:
> 
> >On Wed, Dec 20, 2006 at 06:06:49PM +0000, sindi keesan wrote:
> >>>>I would like help figuring out why the kernels I have compiled
> >>>>for 2.4.31 do not work with BL3.40 in loop form but Steven's
> >>>>2.2.26 and David's 2.4.31 kernels do. Mine also does not work
> >>>>with udhcpc, did not check David's. The config's for mine and
> >>>>his are posted at my site.
> >
> >Got it. Will do my best to figure out what's going on.
> 
> I am really confused now.  udhcpc is in busybox and it appears to have 
> made its own default.script in /usr/share/udhcpc.  It complained about not 
> having one when I ran the smaller kernel (and at least yesterday there 
> was no such file), then it did not complain when I used the bigger kernel 
> and the file was there, and when I used the smaller kernel again it did 
> not complain.  So the fix is to either boot with the full kernel and then 
> from then on use the smaller one, or copy over the default.script to 
> /usr/share/udhcpc (which the bigger kernel created).

That doesn't sound too onerous.

> 
> I got 'error, script /share/udhcpc/default.script failed; No such file or 
> directory' but the message went away after once using the larger kernel.

Weird.

> I don't understand but I have something that works now.  I also added 
> ipchains ability (modular or built-in) to my small laptop kernel and 
> removed ISA and Joliet and hotplug (needs kmod) and a few other things 
> that should not be there.  The modular kernel (modular ipchains and cdrom 
> support) is 600K, insmod ipchains.o to use a firewall.  650K if you have 
> enough RAM for built-in support.  I have 12MB in one computer.

A whole 12M of RAM? Such riches!

> http://keesan.freeshell.org/bl/2.4.31 (I hope it all landed there):
> bzimaglm.431 nad bzimagly.431 (M - modular) (Y - built into kernel).
> With configs.
> 
> I am stymied about why 2.4.31 kernels are not letting me write to the BL3 
> loop filesystem.  I can boot to ext2 linux with 2.4.31 kernel and mount 
> initfs -o loop and write to it.

Maybe you need to reset the kernel params to RW instead of RO? With
rdev or at boot.

> This morning, at the kitchen table rather than the front porch, when I 
> forgot to turn on the router, udhcpc (working with the larger kernel) 
> suddenly leased me 192.168.0.4 and two DNS numbers, and iwconfig gave me 
> a signal level for SSID 'Netgear' of something negative but less 
> negative than the noise level, and I could ping 192.168.0.1 and use lynx 
> briefly, long enough to determine I had a connection (download) speed of 
> between 10 and 13K/sec, which is a bit better than the free wireless 
> promised to us some time next year and seems really speedy compared to 
> dialup. 

Like twice as fast as I usually get.

> On the front porch I got three different signals but no connection.  The 
> early radio fanatics must have felt like this.  When the signal is too 
> weak, instead of signal level -155 dBm you get 1/48 or 17/48, and raising 
> the computer a few feet increased the number.  If I had a working battery 
> or a very long extension cord I could walk around figuring out where the 
> linksys and netgear and apple and 2wire signals come from.  There is also 
> some background noise with SSID "" and stronger signal levels than the 
> others but of course no connection.

I used to be a ham. You could make an antenna to help with
reception/transmission.. I'd guess the frequency range is very
high, so a small dish made from steel or copper mesh would work
great. Otherwise, a yagi would work.

Both are directional.

Get me the frequency range/center frequency and I'll do the math
and send you the plans.

> This is ridiculously easy once you know how.

Isn't everything?

> I could have used the large config that came with BL2
> pcmcia.tgz, rather than cardctl ident for manfid and setting
> up my own config, then just typed start and udhcpc and been
> online.
>
> The ipchains business is for the firewall. I will try at the
> library with two laptop computers and wired network cards in
> both, ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.1 and route add gw 192.168.1.2,
> and ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.2 and ipchains on the other, then a
> wireless card in the second computer and udhcpc should assign
> eth1 (second wireless card) an IP number and I can be online
> with two computers, if this works. One could even be a Windows
> computer using ipconfig instead of udhcpc.
>
> Do I need a firewall on my gateway if the library has its own
> firewall?

With Linux? Probably not. But a simple one with ipchains that
didn't allow any connections that you didn't initiate wouldn't
hurt.

> My smf and ly and lm (with ipchains.o inserted) kernels should
> all work as gateways with ipchains. I made scripts to run
> pcmcia start, then the correct line for ipchains or route add
> gw, and will then run udhcpc on the gateway. I don't want to
> bother with udhcpd on the gateway, ifconfig is simpler.

Be sure to get all the ipchains manpages. I'll send them to
you if you want.

ipchains (8)         - IP firewall administration
ipchains-restore (8) - restore IP firewall chains from stdin
ipchains-save (8)    - save IP firewall chains to stdout

Lee