nuxx.net
Making, baking, and (un-)breaking things in Southeast Michigan.

Category computers

TiVo Go Boom

February 4, 2008

When I went to use my TiVo for some audiovisual entertainment while eating dinner, I’d found that it was stuck at the starting up screen. It was stuck here for a while, so I pulled the power cord and put it back in. After not very long I received the error shown above.

I then proceeded to watch a bunch of broadcast TV (some thing about Viet Nam on THC, I think) while eating. After finishing eating, the TiVo seems to have fixed itself. This is probably good, because I was so unhappy with the advertising and such on TV that I was about to go sort out grabbing torrents via RSS feeds. (No, I don’t know how to do this.)

At least it’s working… for now…

computersmoved from livejournal

Apple AirPort

February 4, 2008

Do any of you happen to have an old Apple AirPort card you’d like to sell (or give) me? I’m looking for the old PCMCIA one with the white label which was used in older iBooks, Power Mac G3s and G4s, and other machines like that.

I want to use it in the Trashwall to provide an open, public access point.

Thanks!

(A similar Orinoco card will work too, provided it can fit inside the Power Mac G4 AGP and use the internal antennas.)

acquired thingscomputersmoved from livejournal

OpenBSD Serial Console

February 3, 2008

Serial consoles are cool, and OpenBSD on a machine with Open Firmware makes it easy.

First, I came across these directions for making Mac to PC (MiniDIN 8 to DB9) null modem cables and made one out of a spare connector from the Honda Music Link work, some CAT5, a new female DB9, and a old DB9 shell.

After hooking this up and starting PuTTY as VT220 on COM1 at 57600 I booted into OF and ran the following commands:

setenv input-device scca
setenv output-device scca
reset-all

After this the box rebooted, the monitor stayed blank, and the OpenBSD bootloader showed up on the serial terminal. One of the many nice things about OpenBSD macppc is that it’s bootloader and kernel boot messages automatically go to the output to the OF console. All I had to do was ensure that this line was in /etc/ttys and the first serial port becomes a real console:

console "/usr/libexec/getty std.57600" vt220 on secure # for serial

Oh, and in case you’re wondering how I got a serial port on the G4 AGP I’ve been fooling with: I picked up an old Griffin G4Port on eBay. This is a drop-in replacement for the modem which provides an old MiniDIN 8 Apple-type serial port on the back panel.

I’m going to write up a lot more about this box on my main site after it’s up and running.

computersmaking thingsmoved from livejournal

VMware and Promiscuity

February 1, 2008

VMware Fusion Prompting For Authentication
(Click for full resolution…)

This is nice to see. When an OS running under VMware Fusion tries to take a nic into promiscuous mode, this warning is presented. I like that.

computersmoved from livejournal

OpenBSD 4.2 (macppc) on Powermac G4 AGP

January 29, 2008

Shiny serif console font on OpenBSD 4.2 (macppc).
(Click for bigger…)

OpenBSD 4.2 (macppc) on the console (framebuffer) on a Powermac G4 AGP has a nice, shiny, traditional UNIX-y hardware (think Sun) serif font. Normally I don’t like serif fonts, but for some reason I really like this.

Of course, the Open Firmware stuff is still a nice, small monospaced font, and the bootloader is dark grey text on a light grey screen in the same font as OF.

Hopefully once I have this box installed I’ll have a serial port to be used as the console, and the video card will be removed, but I still have to wait for the G4Port to be delivered. It replaces the modem and provides a mini DIN 9 Apple-style serial port. I’ll be replacing the mini DIN 9 cable / connector with a DB9 which will be fitted in place of the modem port on the back of the chassis. This will be wired crossed over so that a straight-through cable will provide a console.

Oh, and tonight I was able to confirm that the bridge works as I want. So, in the end I’ll have:

gem0: public interface
fxp0–fxp7: bridge0, acting as a switch

fxp0 will also have an IP and be the gateway / DNS / whatever for the internal network.

fxp7 may be used as a span port for troubleshooting, but I’m not sure of this yet.

computersmoved from livejournal

Address Cache Timeout

January 28, 2008

Do any of you know what is a typical timeout for the address cache on a switch? After some initial problems with the default 240 second address timeout, I’ve found that dropping the timeout back to 5 seconds clears up the problems I was having with moving machines to other ports.

That said, 5 seconds seems a bit low to me, as every time a machine starts to talk after that there will be a brief broadcast to all interfaces. So, I’m thinking 30 seconds, but I’m not sure…

Any idea what the default is on commercial network gear? I’m thinking that Cisco stuff is five minutes, but that seems a little low to me…

computersmoved from livejournal

OpenBSD on PPC

January 26, 2008

OpenBSD 4.2 (macppc) on a Powermac G4 AGP

OpenBSD on PPC, specifically ‘s old Powermac G4 AGP, is weird. I axed the i partition thinking the MSDOS-ness of it was something left over from the disk’s old use, but it seems that it is actually needed for booting. OpenFirmware will look there, since it can understand FAT filesystems.

Well, at least it’s now booting…

It might be nice to shove a bunch of four-port NICs in here and use it as a firewall / hub / bridge / switch thing. Then I could do what is essentially per-port / per-device monitoring and firewalling. I think it would work well to have the Airport Extreme on one port, my Mac Pro on another, the workbench on one, the Xbox 360 on yet another.

I wonder if this thing can run without a video card…

This would be good for ACK prioritization which would really help me out when loads of photos are uploading. Hmm…

Oh, also, the nifty real framebuffer, high-res, serif font is kinda neat.

I think next I’ll try and clean it out (it’s full of cat dander), get it booting from flash, and get the noisy fans sorted out. Right now it’s only pulling 54 watts, but I’d love to get that even lower if it’s going to be a firewall.

Hmm, if I got an Airport card for it (anyone have one of these — the old, original one?) I could also have an open AP, with monitoring, which only has access to the public internet. That’d be handy.

computersmaking thingsmoved from livejournal