restoring the firmware to a nslu2 from a linux PC

ok i bought a new nslu2 from ebay, and it had either a corrupt firmware, or i corrupted it trying to reset it to factory default (cause i could not figure out what ip adress it was set to, all i know is, it was not in the common ranges, and was not using dhcp)
sollution.... reflash the firmware
problem: all step by step in one document i could find online assume either windows OR Mac... i wanted to use my desktop (a debian machine) so i wrote it up.


preparation
1. get the original firmware from linksys, or an alternative firmware from where-ever. (with "might be broken" hardware i always prefer to first flash the original firmware, just to check)

2. install upslug2

apt-get install upslug2

3. set your fixed ip to something in the 192.168.0.0/24 range, but NOT 192.168.0.1 (make sure that that's free)


redboot the machine

when the nslu2 boots, for a few seconds you can telnet into it on port 9000
so boot the nslu2, and start executing the following command on your pc

telnet 192.168.0.1 9000

once you'r in you have maybe 2 seconds to press ctrl-c and interrupt the normal boot .. so be prepared

once in redboot, erase the existing bootloader ...

redboot> fis erase -f 0x50040000 -l 0x20000

and put the nslu2 in upgrade mode

redboot> upgrade

you'll see the satus led start flashing orange-green-orange-green



upslug2
run upslug2 without any switch to find your nslu2 you'll get back some info one of witch is the mac-adress (note: upslug has to be rone as root)

next use upslug2 to flash the firmware

upslug2 --target="00:00:00:00" --image="someimage.bin"

go have a coffee or thee or chocolate milk, or whatever .. it'll take 5-10 min

encoding video for ipad with ffmpeg

Hi


I have an ipad at work , but encoding video for it using gaphicla tools is a hassle, and often turns out bad. and itunes (on my mac mini) doesn't reencode the videos... so i made a script

now my debian box can do it
(you need to install libfaac .. on my debian box i folowed the instructions here
for ubuntu users .. i know option C from this post works)

the ffmpeg command i use is

ffmpeg -i input.avi -f mp4 -vcodec libxvid -maxrate 1000 -qmin 3 -qmax 5 -bufsize 4096 -g 300 -acodec libfaac -mbd 2 -s 640x480 -ab 128 -b 400 output.mp4

still meaning everthing has to be done one by one .. still cumbersome
so i made a quick and dirty looping script

so the script becomes

#!/bin/bash

#create a folder for the encodes
mkdir $1/encodedforipad/

#encode away
for i in $(ls $1);
do

ffmpeg -i $dir/$i -f mp4 -vcodec libxvid -maxrate 1000 -qmin 3 -qmax 5 -bufsize 4096 -g 300 -acodec libfaac -mbd 2 -s 640x480 -ab 128 -b 400 $1/encodedforipad/$i.mp4
done

make it executable and call it with the first argument being the folder where you host your video files. (attention: the script is not recursive and does not handle spaces in names well).

Forwarding mail in debian

if you have a server sitting somewhere it is very useful to have the systems mail forwarded to your normal e-mail address

For this you will of course need to install postfix (or sendmail, but i use postfix)

$ sudo apt-get install postfix

after install open /etc/postfix/main.cf

$nano /ect/postfix/main.cf

and find the line that says relayhost = and fill out a useable relay host
then restart postfix

/etc/init.d/postfix restart

First for your normal users account create a file called " .forward " containing your e-mail adress
Root mial cannot be forwarded to anny user outside the machine. so we have to forward it to your user . (who then forwards it to your external e-mail account)


in the /root folder create a file called .forward containing "your-user-account"@localhost

>so for me this would be "wouter@localhost" (because my username is wouter)

you system mail should now be forwarded to your external e-mail account

Getting the nslu2 (with debian) to talk

Hi

I own an nslu2 on wich i run debian, for use as a small home-server and place from where i can ssh to the rest of the network

for those of you that are looking how to do this, please see this page


annyway getting it to produce a sound, anny sound can be quite usefull when running scripts and cronjobs.

First install beep
$ apt-get install beep


on a normal Debian system you would just give it the beep command
$ Beep


but to get your nslu2 to sing you should go
$ beep -e /dev/input/by-path/platform-ixp4xx-beeper*