usbnetworking and terminal questions

[AllUnknown]

Hi -

Does anybody offer support on ancient technology any more?

I am now the proud owner of three formerly owned Kindle 2nd gen Internationals (serial codes B003xxxxxxxxxxxx). I’m interested in running them as little Linux boxes, so I’ve been reading as much as I can about it. I was able to jailbreak (update_jailbreak_0.4_k2i_uninstall.bin), install the screen saver hack (Update_ss_0.47.N_k2i_uninstall.bin), and get usbnetwork (Update_usbnetwork_0.57.N_k2i_uninstall.bin) working (using ;debugon `usbnetwork I could telnet or ssh in) with my macbook running Yosemite. I apologize if I’m giving too much detail here, but I figured better too much than too little. I wasn’t able to get a terminal of any kind running on it, because I wasn’t sure which way to go with that. I tried MyTS, but I couldn’t get it to launch. So that’s question 1 - how do I do that?

Question 2 is weirder, at least to me. I decided to configure the second Kindle like the first one, and no matter what I did, I could not get it to mount in network mode. I did the installs, no luck. I uninstalled the usbnetwork patch and reinstalled it, no luck (it didn’t even delete the subnetwork directory on the kindle). I did a factory reset and started over again, and no change. I copied over the usbnetwork directory from the Kindle where it worked, and still nothing (I didn’t really expect much from that, because I still can’t look at anything above the mount point).

What am I missing, and any ideas of how to proceed?

[knc1]

What are the first four characters of the serial number on **each** of the K2 devices?

What did you try and what where the results on the third device?

[NiLuJe]

What do you mean by 'could not get it to mount in network mode'?

Because that sounds perfectly normal. If it's USBNet mode, it's not in USBMS, so it won't export any drive to mount.

I do occasionally test stuff on a k2i, and I did so for the latest releases recently, so everything should be behaving properly .

[thatworkshop]

For Q1: MyTS works fine on DXG so I believe it should be Ok with your K2 too. Explain exactly what's your issue?

[AllUnknown]

Thanks for getting back to me. I didn’t expect such a quick turnaround.

The 3rd one is also B003. I want to figure out the second one before I play with the third.

It’s been a couple of days, so I will go back and try to document my MyTS issue. I think that I installed it and didn’t know how to run it. More details later.

In the meantime, here’s the step by step of what I did to try to activate usbnet :
Factory reset
Turn off wifi
Connect with micro usb and copy update_jailbreak_0.4_k2i_install.bin to Kindle
Eject, disconnect usb
Update
Connect with micro usb and copy Update_ss_0.47.N_k2i_install.bin to Kindle
Eject, disconnect usb
Update
Connect with micro usb and copy Update_usbnetwork_0.57.N_k2i_install.bin to Kindle
Eject, disconnect usb
Update
Connect with micro usb and check to make sure stuff is there. These directories are present:
audible, documents, extensions, linkss, music, usbnet.
Eject, disconnect usb

on Kindle:
;debugon
`usbnetwork

Connect with micro usb, expecting the Network RNDIS/Gadget connection to be activated. It isn’t, and the Kindle mounts as previously.

This isn’t what happened with the first one. I could switch back and forth between usbms and usbnet easily. Did I somehow leave out a step on this one? Is there any log information that would provide a clue?

Thanks for any help.

[knc1]

Are you running the same firmware version on all devices?
(It should be part of the "Device Info" or "Device Settings" - I don't recall off-hand where on the K2.)

[NiLuJe]

@AllUnknown: Install KUAL, enable verbose mode in USBNet, and check the status/toggle through KUAL, see what happens then.

[AllUnknown]

@knc1:Yup, all 2.5.6 (501108064).

@idoit: I select MyTS from KUAL, select Start Term 1 (or 2 or 3 - it doesn’t seem to matter), and get dumped out of KUAL. I have myts-8.zip, update_launchpad_0.0.1d_k2i_install, Update_mkk-20141129-k2i-B003_install.bin

@NiLuJe:
Using verbose mode in KUAL was a good lead.

When I turn on verbose in KUAL, I get this:

missing custom mac config
broken custom mac nic

and the status says USBNetwork: enabled (usbnet, sshd down?)

which is interesting, because in usbnet/etc on the kindle that works, there are two files that don’t seem to be on the one that doesn’t: custom_mac and TURN_ON_NETWORKING_COMMAND. They both have what looks like MAC addresses based on the serial number. Anyway, I copied those files to the broken Kindle, fixed up the numbers to look like the serial number on it, and tried again.

Partial success! It connects in usbnetwork mode, I can ping it, I can telnet in, but ssh still doesn’t seem to be running. ps aux | grep ssh yielding no results confirms it.

So the next questions are: when are those files supposed to be created, and why didn’t they get created? Is there anything else that’s missing? Should I really care about ssh when I can get in with telnet anyway, and the Kindle is only accessible from my mac? I’m just trying to make sure that things are working the way they’re supposed to.

[knc1]

Update to 2.5.8

It **should** at least fix the troubles with KUAL.
(There where problems with 'active documents' on older than the most recent firmware.)

It **might** fix the other missing files problem also.

[NiLuJe]

@AllUnknown: Manipulating the MAC address is *definitely* not enabled by default, so something must have happened to enable this. That's a pretty obscure feature that I'm not even sure is supposed to work on FW 2.x, and if I remember correctly, and that's actually the case, will be guarded in KUAL to avoid broken configs.

You could try to start from scratch by wiping the usbnet folder and reinstalling the latest version of the hack.

[knc1]

All three of his devices are USED with unknown history.

I suggested above to update to 2.5.8 - but having thought about it over-night, I don't know if that is such a good idea on this second of the three that does not act 'normal'.

[NiLuJe]

Worst case scenario, the update will fail (something which is -- in theory -- handled safely), so that's not necessarily a bad idea .

[AllUnknown]

I did a factory reset, updated to 2.5.8, reinstalled everything as before, and no change. I can still get in via telnet, so in the end, it probably doesn’t matter.

I seem to be confused about how to run MyTS, though. I have installed it and have installed launchpad. I put the myts.l.ini file into the launchpad directory. Now what? How do I run it? Somehow, I had had a version of KUAL that had MyTS as a tab (it didn’t work, but it was there), but no longer.

[knc1]

Check what is shown as the firmware version that is installed in the "Device Info" panel -
It should be somewhere among the 'Settings' menu - I don't recall exactly.

It might matter to the entire problem set that only TelNet is working.

KUAL and its menu entries are stored **only** on the USB storage partition -
nothing should have touched the USB storage partition.

Did you have more than one update_*.bin file on USB storage when you tried to do the update?

How did you trigger the update?

- - - -

This is beginning to sound like a bad eMMC flash chip.