ssh shell/ftp access for PocketBook Pro readers

[avg_user]

I'm not sure if I understand everything correctly but when I'll have some free time I'll definitely try this solution and will report back. It sounds cool, that's all I can say.

[rkomar]

I thought I'd screw around with this today, and found out that running netagent to connect to the network always pops up a dialog. So, it's not a good way to do the connection for something that runs in the background and connects multiple times. Maybe some program written against the SDK might work better (unless the functions there that connect to the net also pop up a dialog each time).

[rkomar]

So, I finally decided to upgrade to the latest firmware (which was hard, since it means giving up root access). I now see that you can't even scp/sftp to the device. It seems that the account it tries to log in as has changed from reader to sreader. So, to get it working, you have to edit the file /mnt/ext1/applications/pb_sshd/etc/ssh/sshd_config and change the following line:

AllowUsers reader

to:

AllowUsers reader sreader

You also need to use sreader as the login name:

ssh -p 1124 sreader@<IP-address>

or

scp -P 1124 mypdf.txt sreader@<IP-address>:/mnt/ext2/

I'll update the README and config file in the uploaded package in a while. If you edit the file by hand, make sure your editor doesn't add any extra characters to the end (specifically, any carriage returns).

Edit: updated package available in the first message in this thread.

[apos]

Hi again,

I can confirm that this works on PB623 (Lux Touch) - which is a really exciting device.

I used the newly created pb_sshd.zip of rkomar from the first thread!

I could then

• create a ssh connection in nautilus with port 1124 and user "sreader" which gives me a secure and easy way to mount the device
• in the shell I have to use the "-T" parameter to be able to "ssh" to the device thereby using user "sreader"

From commandline:

ssh -p 1124 -T sreader@ip_of_pocketbook "echo $(pwd);uname -r"

... if you don't add the "echo $(pwd);uname -r" you'll see "nothing" at the prompt ;-)

I am very happy, that everything is working.

Greets and many thanks
Axel

[rkomar]

It's nice to hear that others are still finding the sshd stuff useful. I still use it for copying files to and from the device. I may use the ssh shell if the daemon is already running and I just need to do something quickly. Otherwise, I've been using the utelnetd daemon for login sessions because it has a much better behaved terminal. You get a prompt, command completion, history and editing, and even vi works nicely. It's much better if you need to do complicated things in the shell. At least that's true on my 902; I don't know if they've fixed the permissions on /dev/ptmx and added /dev/pts to /etc/fstab on the newest devices or not.

[KaiT]

Hi

it works great on my Pocketbook Touck Lux too, thank you very much!!!

I didn't know anything about SSH and SFTP, but it works fine with the README. I use it under Windows with "Swish": therefore i had to convert the keys which i made with the device (create-keys) with puttygen and there was an warning, but it works anyway.

Edit: It would be really cool if the Application had a gui to switch the daemon on, viewing the daemons status and probably the ip address and the Port, but i think that's too much work

Greets and thanks
KaiT

PS: Sri vor mi bet english, i'm german

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by KaiT

Edit: It would be really cool if the Application had a gui to switch the daemon on, viewing the daemons status and probably the ip address and the Port, but i think that's too much work

...

PS: Sri vor mi bet english, i'm german

I'm not very keen on having something take over the display while the daemon is running, since I often use it to upload and test other programs while it's running. On my 902, the green LED always stays on when the daemon is running, so I use that as my indicator. I don't know if the new devices have a similar LED. It probably wouldn't be hard to provide such a script, though, using the sh_ivtool program. I'll look into it sometime this week.

And, I think your English is quite good. If you hadn't mentioned that you were German, I would never have guessed that you weren't a native English speaker.

[rkomar]

For those who want to see what IP address and port that sshd is listening to on the device, I modified the startup script to pop up a dialog showing that information. For this to work, you have to download and install the tool used for generating the pop up from here: http://www3.telus.net/rkomar/sh_ivtool/. It should be copied to the system/bin/ folder, so that it matches the location given in the script. Get the attached zip file as well, and unzip it in the applications/ folder to overwrite the current version of the sshd startup script.

I didn't do anything about displaying the status of the program. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I don't want to see something constantly being displayed while the program is running. It's also not something that I think I can easily do.

If this looks to be popular, I'll update the package in the first post with this new script.

[KaiT]

Hi
thank you for your work rkomar.
I'm back from my holiday now and will test the new script in the next days.
Greets
KaiT

PS: thank you for the praise about my english

[rkomar]

I uploaded the version with the pop up dialog that displays the IP address and port number when sshd is started. It is disabled by default. To get it to work, install the sh_ivtool.app utility to /mnt/ext1/system/bin/, and then uncomment the line in /mnt/ext1/applications/sshd_start.app that starts with "#SH_IVTOOL=..." (uncomment it by deleting the "#" character). sh_ivtool.app can be found in the thread in the PocketBook Developers forum.

[rkomar]

The new firmware version 5 devices use updated openssl libraries, so I've built a version of sshd for them. The package is attached to the first post in this thread.

[cherocee]

@ rkomar
many thanks for developing this powerful application. I am looking for a tool to to transfer ebooks to my touch lux 2 (626) within my LAN.

Originally Posted by KaiT

Hi

it works great on my Pocketbook Touck Lux too, thank you very much!!!

@KaiT Could you please reveal some details on the settings for swish. What username and password did you use? Since I did not define any user or password I am not clear what to enter. Swish is asking for both set of data. Did you find any option where to define your private key? Revealing any details is highly appreciated.
I am using touch PB Touch Lux 2 (626) running Firmware 5.8.317 and a Win 7 professional (English) with German country settings
thx & cu
che

[cherocee]

Hello,

I tried to follow the Readme an unpacked the pbsshd_1.3_fwv5.zip archive in the applications" directory and found the "sshd_start.app"
and "sshd_stop.app" within the application screen of the pockebook 626. I did generate keys with the ebook reader using the third method in the manual.

However, pressing the sshd_start.app button does not start WiFi on my reader. the WiFi icon do not show up in the upper right corner in the same way it does when activating the WiFi with the Wifi botton.

In addition, I followed the WiFi activity of the reader with my routers control GUI (Webinterface). I did look for the connected computers. Using the WiFi button the pocketbook connects to the router and I can disconnect it pressing the WiFi button a second time. I do not see the pocketbook connecting o the router after pressing the sshd_start.app button.

Did anyone succeed to run the interesting sFTP server on Pocketbook Touch Lux 2? If yes, please provide here a brief explanation of your steps.

Many thanks
che

[rkomar]

There should be an error message in the applications/pb_sshd/sshd.log file. Post it here if you can't make sense of it.

[cherocee]

Many thanks for your rapid reply.
The sshd.log seem to be modified often. I did switch the reader on three time today and did find the logfile to be an empty document each time.

So I switched on the reader and started the "sshd_start.app". The reader returned immediately to the home screen. Then I connected the reader to t Win7 (64 Bit "professional")PC vis the USB port and opened the logfile with notepad++. I was empty again and had a size of 0 kB. I think the logfile was created the last time I did switch on the reader. I do not think it was created during my last attempt to test the "sshd_start.app".

I can not upload the file as an attachment - I assume this is due to the file size 0 kB.
I will try to read the logfile from a linux PC tonight in case the log file does contain characters Windows does not recognize.

Edit: After about two hours I did try to start the sshd_start.app. The reader returned immediately to the home screen. No Wifi Icon showed up on the screen of the reader. Then I did connect the pocketbook to the USB port of a Ubuntu machine and opened the sshd.log with the Ubuntu text editor. The file was empty again. Strangely enough the files was modified at a time I did not used the Pocketbook for sure. Maybe it was the time the reader shut down.

Edit 2: To rule out any problems of Winrar and Windows I used Ubuntu and deleted the Sshd_start.app, the Sshd_stop. app and the pb_sshd folder in /Pocket626/applications. Then I used the Archive Manager to extract the archive to the /applications folder again. In the /Pocket626/applications/pb_sshd folder there was no "sshd.log". After disconnecting the reader form the USB Port I started the Sshd_ start.app After a while (5 seconds ?) the reader returned to the home screen. After connecting the reader to the Ubuntu machine I did find a sshd.log. This file was empty. The WLAN of my router was constantly switched on.

I gave the Sshd_start app another trial about 10 minutes later, after disconnecting the pocketbook from the PC. The reader returned immediately to the home screen , no WiFi Icon was shown on the reader's screen. conneting the reader to the Ubuntu machine again showed that the sshd.log was modified after the Sshd_start icon was pushed. The file, however, was empty again.