LCDProc 0.5.4-dev

[mdima]

@stephenw10:

The interesting thing is that the first instance of LCDd is still running as root because it fails to start correctly. Probably because it is trying to start on port 13666 but there is already an instance of LCDd running on 13666 at that point.
The odd thing is that it is not killed by the startup script hence the kill-loop gets stuck and lcdproc.sh is still running.

This looks strange… were you able to save the service options from the interface in order to make the script to recreate the start/stop script? I say this because lcdproc.sh should not be visible anymore...

Also, if you run manually the script "lcdproc.sh stop" does it work?

Which options of killing do work for you? (for example, kill -9)

Thanks,
Michele

[stephenw10]

Once I have logged via ssh I can kill the extra LCDd process with any method. But is that because I am logged in as root?

I believe it is only still running because it is stuck in the kill loop. As soon as I have killed the process manually the rc script continues and creates another php client.

I've spent so much time thinking about this I ended up dreaming about it!  ::)

Steve

[m4f1050]

Have you tried to sudo su the kill command?  Is there such thing in FreeBSD 8.1?

[mdima]

Hi Steve,
  I removed the "while cycle" in lcdproc.sh. Now the script should not loop at the startup. I checked both some rapid "service restarts" then a "reboot", at the end I only had one server and client running.

Btw, I think this it just a workaround, what is not clear is why in your case more instances of the client and the server are run at the startup.

I didn't update the version of the package, in order to get the change you should remove then install the lcdproc-dev package.

Please let me know if this solve your problem!!

Thanks,
Michele

[stephenw10]

I'll update and try that.
I tried removing the loop before and while it solved the stuck rc script I still ended up with two instances of LCDd, one running as root.  :-\

Steve

[mdima]

Hi Steve,
mmhhh… can you send me your config.xml file? (of course, hide the password, public ips, and so on)

Ciao,
Michele

[stephenw10]

Here's my config file, password redacted, it's test box so it doesn't have a public IP.
I don't see it in my logs any more, possibly because the logging level is now back at 3 or I was using the 'debug' version of LCDd, but previously there was a line at boot something like:

LCDd: Could not open 13666, aborting

There is still a log line:

LCDd: Connect from host 127.0.0.1:58234 on socket 12

This implies that at some point there are two clients running.

Steve

config-x-core.localdomain-20120223131917.xml.txt

[stephenw10]

I have replicated some of my previous testing for reference.
Editing lcdproc.inc so that the resulting lcdproc.sh is:

#!/bin/sh
# This file was automatically generated
# by the pfSense service handler.

rc_start() {

	ps auxw |awk '/lcdproc_client.ph[p]/ {print $2}'|xargs kill
	ps auxw |awk '/LCD[d]/ {print $2}'|xargs kill
	/usr/bin/nice -20 /usr/local/sbin/LCDd -u nobody -c /usr/local/etc/LCDd.conf
	/usr/bin/nice -20 /usr/local/bin/php -f /usr/local/pkg/lcdproc_client.php &

}

rc_stop() {

	ps auxw |awk '/lcdproc_client.ph[p]/ {print $2}'|xargs kill
	ps auxw |awk '/LCD[d]/ {print $2}'|xargs kill
}

case $1 in
	start)
		rc_start
		;;
	stop)
		rc_stop
		;;
	restart)
		rc_stop
		rc_start
		;;
esac

Results in after boot:

[2.0.1-RELEASE][root@x-core.localdomain]/root(1): ps aux|grep lcd
root   16096  3.0  6.9 36188 16980  ??  SN    1:41PM   0:00.27 /usr/local/bin/php -f /usr/local/pkg/lcdproc_client.php
root   16748  3.0  6.9 36188 16980  ??  SN    1:41PM   0:00.27 /usr/local/bin/php -f /usr/local/pkg/lcdproc_client.php
[2.0.1-RELEASE][root@x-core.localdomain]/root(2): ps aux | grep LCD

And in the system log:

Feb 23 13:41:31 	LCDd: Critical error while initializing, abort.
Feb 23 13:41:31 	LCDd: sock_init: error creating socket - Address already in use
Feb 23 13:41:31 	LCDd: sock_create_inet_socket: cannot bind to port 13666 at address 127.0.0.1 - Address already in use

Which implies this wasn't happening before.

Steve

[mdima]

mmhhh… Steve, stupid question.

Are you sure that somewhere there is a script that runs the package at the startup, as a surplus of the times where you had to run LCDproc manually because it was not compatible with the sdelcd driver?

Did you start from scratch with this test box?

Thanks,
Michele

[mdima]

Hello everybody,
    any update on this package? None is using it or it's considered running and stable?

Thanks for any feedback,
Michele

[stephenw10]

Sorry, not much spare time for testing.
As it stands, although it doesn't start cleanly, it is fully functional on the X-Core. The additional LCDd hardly uses much by way of resources and it sorts itself out the first time one of the interfaces changes. So if you are using a ppp WAN then when the address changes all packages are restarted and it come up clean.

My test box is a new install of 2.0.1 with no changes other than adding lcdproc-dev and some firewall rules so I can access it via the WAN interface for convenience.

Steve

[Brak]

I can only get lcdproc-dev to not crash-loop on my Firebox X Core when I spam the left arrow button and hope I can get the lcdproc menu to open up. I do this right after I restart/start the service. If I get the menu open, everything then works fine when I exit the menu.

I also have the issue of if an interface goes down, lcdproc crashes and attempts to restart.

[mdima]

mmhhh… what about all the people with non watchguard products?

eventually, do anybody has a firebox to lend me? I promise I send back after I check/fix/give it up...

[stephenw10]

Hmm, expensive shipping to Milan. Might be cheaper to just buy you one from Ebay!  ::)

Steve

[mdima]

Well, yes, but the shipping would be expensive anyway, plus I get a firebox I don't need… :D

really, this for me is a kind of hobby, and spending (the cheapest I found from Australia) 250 Euro to fix this is really a challenge... :D

Do you think we could involve watchguard for this? Or someone to share the send/return shipping costs...

[stephenw10]

We can definitely get one cheaper than that. The X-Core box I have here has become a bit temperamental. I'll keep a look out for another one.

Steve

[stephenw10]

Here's a suggestion, while reading through some other bootup scripts I found this:

// Do not process while booting
if($g['booting']) 
	exit;

Perhaps we could use this somehow to limit the number of reloads? Of course it could easily stop it loading at all.  ::)

Steve

[mdima]

Good hint, thanks!! I will make some experiments with it and let you know…

Ciao,
Michele

[marcelloc]

@stephenw10:

Here's a suggestion, while reading through some other bootup scripts I found this:

// Do not process while booting
if($g['booting']) 
	exit;

Perhaps we could use this somehow to limit the number of reloads? Of course it could easily stop it loading at all.  ::)

Steve

It's on dansguardian as well but I did not saw changes on bootup time or times it tries to restart daemon.

What I did was changing reload option to stop and start.

I'm not sure about That but it looks like pfsense bootup script calls sync_package function for every xml file on package. Dansguardian has about 20 XML files and It's boot takes more then a minute in start / stop calls.

Something I'll try is to do not stop/start daemon if uptime is less then 01 minute for example or check if last stop/start call has less then x seconds.

[fmertz]

I have a test driver with LED support. It's been tested some on X-Peak and X-Core-e models, but there is code for X-Core as well. The updated FreeBSD driver is here:

https://github.com/downloads/fmertz/sdeclcd/sdeclcd.so

Once up and running, telnet to lcdproc (pretend to be a client) and type

telnet localhost 13666
hello
connect LCDproc 0.5.5 protocol 0.3 lcd wid 20 hgt 2 cellwid 5 cellhgt 8
output 1 <—Short red blink about every 4 seconds
success
output 2 <—Short green blink about every 4 seconds
success

The output logic is this: we have 32 bit to work with, and we need 3 states (Red, Green and off). This is 2 bits. So, in 32 bits, I have 16 time slots to work with. So, basically, code in the LED sequence of colors you want to see (Red, Green or off) and keep filling in the groups of 2 bits by shifting. the sequence just repeats indefinitely.

Worksheet:
XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, X is 0,1, or 2, and represents 2 bits

0000 0000 0000 0001 is slow short blink red
0101 0101 0101 0101 is fast short blink red
0011 0011 0011 0011 is medium medium blink red
0000 1111 0000 1111 is slow long blink red
0000 2222 0000 1111 is slow blink alternating between red and green, and off in between

The representation above needs to be made decimal for the “output” command. Sequence is about 4 seconds.

Thanks for letting me know if this works out for everyone. Would be nice to work this out into the PHP client, too.