Editing files, updating busybox, adding opkg

[Ehryk]

I'd like to reorder my static leases, which isn't possible in the UI.

This is fine, I'd like to do it over SSH by editing /etc/config/dhcp, but the 'vi' provided by the onboard busybox is terrible, doesn't implement cut and paste, and only provides 'ash' as the shell which prevents me from using WinSCP to edit the file from my computer.

As such, I'm planning on updating busybox with the latest arm7l binary so I can have nano and bash, and thus edit over SSH using nano and remotely using WinSCP.

https://www.busybox.net/downloads/binaries/latest/

If this works out, this seems like an ideal use case for an optional opkg that others could install, too.

Any helpful tips, cautions, or others that would like this as well?

[d.kiran]

With the caveat that I might not know what I am talking about. The releases show last modified date of 2013. Aren't these included in Securifi already?

Also, do you know if it is possible to get wget with https support added in?

[Ehryk]

The busybox that is included is very minimal (even if it is newer), and doesn't have nano or bash included.

Thanks for the heads up though; I may need to cross compile busybox myself.

[matt]

The busybox vi does support copy pasting, just not visual mode (you can do 5dd, then p for instance). But I understand the frustration. I have vim-tiny (just called vim) and vim-full in my repo, if you want to use it (information available at https://wiki.securifi.com/index.php/X10_Integration#Installation). As usual, I can't make guarantees about it working or not breaking things, but I do use it (vim-full is ~1.2MB though), nor guarantees about it working with future versions of their OS. You can build it yourself with the buildroot/toolchain (I removed the dep on ncurses, since A+ has ncurses already and it was failing to build).

[Ehryk]

Awesome, thanks Matt!

I installed vim-full and that helps immensely. Do you have any interest in compiling nano for the almond+ and adding it to your opkg source? Could I help in some way?

[matt]

Nano should be there too already. In general, I'm happy to try compiling things, but many don't work without tweaks. You can try to make your own build environment too though, although it's unfortunately not a trivial procedure (not terribly hard, just non-trivial).

[Ehryk]

Indeed it was! Now I feel right at home editing files!!!

Are there docs out there for setting up an Almond+ build environment?

[matt]

Indeed it was! Now I feel right at home editing files!!!

Are there docs out there for setting up an Almond+ build environment?

There are sticky topics (and other threads) of some help in the software developers section (you may have to request access if you don't have it? I can't remember anymore). I dumped some of that information into the wiki a while back:

https://wiki.securifi.com/index.php/Using_GPL_Code

I have updated it with some of the recent thread information, but not sure if I got it all. I was recently running into errors that made me think compilation would work better on 32bit OS, so I would probably recommend that (my guess is Ubuntu 12.04LTS 32bit would be your best bet, I currently use 14.04LTS 64bit), or at least a 32bit chroot (e.g. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebootstrapChroot).

[d.kiran]

@matt - Is there an utility in your repository that would allow me to download files from https sites? The wget included in almond does not work and I am not able to get busybox 1.17 to install.

[matt]

@matt - Is there an utility in your repository that would allow me to download files from https sites? The wget included in almond does not work and I am not able to get busybox 1.17 to install.

I got wget-ssl (just called wget in the repo) to compile after a bit of work. Feel free to try it, although I can't guarantee it will keep compiling/working if/when they update the OS.

[d.kiran]

Awesome.. Just got it working. Thanks.