[LCDProc] - Could not read config file

stephenw10

It is puzzling that LCDd from pfsense can read a config file from /conf but not from /usr/local/etc. I wonder why it is doing it?

Indeed it is. I suspect it's something to do with the PBI system that I don't understand. The location /usr/local/etc seems to be significant in that it's written to by the pbi system. When you call LCDd at /usr/local/sbin it sees a symlink to /usr/pbi/lcdproc-i386/bin….. but the file there is just a place holder of some sort linked to the real file location in /usr/pbi/lcdproc-i386/local/sbin. I'm clearly guessing here but I suspect the various file linking may have the executable looking for the conf file in /usr/pbi/lcdproc-i386/local/etc. Or something like that. ;) It would be easy to do with a bad path. It doesn't seem to distinguish between a bad conf file and no conf file at all. Though I've not tried a deliberately bad file.

@jjstecchino:

How do I get my hands on the lcdproc-dev source? I would like to try to update lcdproc to 0.5.7 and go through the LCDd source to try to understand. Do I need any special tools to compile? Can I just setup a freebsd 10 on vmware and compile to recreate the package? I think I remember reading you need some tools from a restricted repository but I am not sure.

The pfSense packages repo is not restricted it's on the pfSense github:
https://github.com/pfsense/pfsense-packages

It's a long time since I tried to build a package (and failed!), before the pfsense-tools repo restriction came into being and before the switch to pbis. I'm not sure if you need the tools repo or not. Probably not to just generate a package but maybe to get it submitted upstream where all binaries are built by the pfSense build system. You could just message mdima and ask about updating it. Is there some specific reason to update to 0.5.7? 0.5.6 is most recent stable release.

Steve

stephenw10

Yep, that is the issue. If you put the conf file in:

/usr/pbi/lcdproc-amd64/local/etc

(or i386 deppending on your architechture) LCDd runs no problem.

Steve

jjstecchino

@stephenw10:

Yep, that is the issue. If you put the conf file in:
/usr/pbi/lcdproc-amd64/local/etc
(or i386 deppending on your architechture) LCDd runs no problem.

Steve

Interesting. so even if LCDd fails saying it cannot read config from /usr/local/etc/LCDd.conf it is actually looking for it in the pbi path. Also if you specify with -c /usr/local/etc/LCDd.conf, it clearly disregards that manual override. I tried that many times. In that case does it still looks into the pbi path? probably if you specify with -c anything but the default path (/usr/local…) it respects that overrides otherwise it substitutes the obi path.

Good info. How do we use it to our advantage for a seamless install of lcdproc persistent across snapshots upgrades? pfsense lcdproc package writes the config to /usr/local/etc/LCDd.conf, so the php code that does that, would need to be changed on the package in the repository with the path pointing to the pbi, or LCDd modified to respect the override with -c. Pending that your solution with shellcmd is probably the cleanest one but it requires an additional reboot. What is the exact function of LCDd.pbiopt? are there parameters that could be placed there to point to the correct path?
If we get lcdproc-dev to work as it did in 2.15, do you think it will still suffer from lcdproc crashes as before?
By the way with shellcmd as you suggested my lcd server hasn't crashed once yet.

As far as 0.5.6 vs 0.5.7, no specific reasons other than lcdproc (non dev) is on that version.

stephenw10

I would suggest it's a bug in the pbi, some path is incorrectly specified. So either we can go away learn about PBIs, find the bug and submit a patch or find someone who already knows and ask them nicely. ;)

Rebooting the box is the easiest way to get the lcd functioning after an update but you can also just run the commands manually. I found it easier to read having the client and server as two separate commands but they could be strung together. What would be nice would be a button on the Shellcmd screen to run the command now.

I think the lcdproc-dev package will still crash. It may start better, I've not tried it. It would be better to merge the dev back into the original at this point. No point maintaining two packages. Since the dev package was forked an update in php meant that php processes had a limited run time. There is a workaround for that but I don't think it went into the package. In 2.2 php has changed quite a bit so I don't know if that still holds.

Steve

jjstecchino

Hello Steve a quick question for you as I guess you may have encountered this before.
I setup lcdproc-dev as we previously discussed with the config file in /conf and LCDd+lcdproc stared in shellcmd. The lcdproc service is disabled in the gui and the com port is set to none as you described in your post.
At startup pfsense still try to load LCDd so it get loaded twice, messing up the start up process. It hangs as lcdproc gets run.
when I pgrep for LCDd and lcdproc I see 2 instances of LCDd (2 pids)and none for lcdproc (I do this while the startup proces is hung but fortunatelly sshd has started already) When I kill the first instance of LCDd the second instance get killed as well. if I pgrep for lcdproc now I see one pid for it which was not present while the 2 LCDd were running. As I kill the lcdproc pid the startup scripts continues until it displays the menu and the beeps on the serial console.
Now if I restart LCDd and lcdproc from the command line using the /conf path the lcd works ok with all the screens I setup previously.

It looks like pfsense despite having the lcdproc service disabled still runs LCDd and then I end up with 2 instances of it.
I found a lcdproc.sh in /usr/local/etc/rc.d but removing that still does not prevent the double LCDd. Is there another place where LCDd could be started? I looked in the obvious places like /etc/rc but unless I missed I did not see anything useful there. Any suggestions?

Thanks

stephenw10

Hmm. I found that in 2.2 the start up file in usr/local/etc/rc.d was not removed even when the webgui was configured to remove it. I had to remove it manually. That worked for me.
Another option that works is to uninstall lcdproc-dev, reinstall it and then don't ever enable it or set the driver. The Shellcmd lines will still run and start it using the lcdd.conf in /conf.

Steve

Topper727

I helped improve this package with my limited skills and time back in 2.1 but now in 2.2 it will only work somewhat if I do those commands you did to get it working. Specify a config in the /conf folder that I moved not in the normal location. Glad to see it doing something but not 100% normal looking.

I run a crystal fonts 735 display

jjstecchino

@Steve and Topper, maybe we can put our heads together and fix this package

Topper727

I am not that good at fixing it.. I need to relearn since I forgot a few things over the years
I don't know the new php stuff they just changed to in new version .. never used before..

stephenw10

What did you update from/to? What method were you using to start lcdd?

Steve

Borage

The lcdproc_client.php does not even start after the last three updates. It looks like the client is unable to connect, but this is bullshit because the other client /usr/pbi/lcdproc-i386/bin/lcdproc works like a treat.

Hm, it looks like i also found a bug in the php file. :)

[2.2-RC][admin@pfsense.localdomain]/root: /usr/bin/nice -20 /usr/local/bin/php -f /usr/local/pkg/lcdproc_client.php

Warning: fsockopen(): unable to connect to localhost:13666 (Operation timed out) in /usr/local/pkg/lcdproc_client.php on line 915

Warning: stream_set_timeout() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given in /usr/local/pkg/lcdproc_client.php on line 916

stephenw10

Using the lcdproc or lcdproc-dev package? What hardware?

Steve

Borage

I use lcdproc-dev and my hardware is a Watchguard X1000. I found something strange in the file LCDd.conf, the path to the drivers seem to be wrong.

LCDd.conf

[server]
DriverPath=/usr/local/lib/lcdproc/
Driver=sdeclcd
Bind=127.0.0.1
Port=13666
ReportLevel=3
ReportToSyslog=yes
User=nobody
Foreground=no
ServerScreen=no
GoodBye="Thanks for using"
GoodBye="    pfSense     "
WaitTime=5
PrevScreenKey=Down
NextScreenKey=Up
[menu]
MenuKey=Left
EnterKey=Right
UpKey=Up
DownKey=Down
[sdeclcd]

It seems to work after I changed the path to the following. I rebooted my firewall several times and no problem whatsoever with the lcdproc_client.php.

DriverPath=/usr/pbi/lcdproc-i386/local/lib/lcdproc/

stephenw10

I'm using /usr/local/lib/lcdproc/ and it's working fine. I'm not using the php client though.
The path to the driver cannot affect the client directly but it could stop the daemon running. Did you see the lcdproc server start?

Steve

Borage

I have no drivers in this path, only in /usr/pbi/lcdproc-i386/local/lib/lcdproc/. The lcdproc started, I can see that in the LCD display and with the ps command.

stephenw10

I have no drivers there either. It shouldn't matter because the PBI system is supposed to take care of that. When you call the LCDd executable it is actually a link to file within the PBI subdirectories. From there the relative path results in the location you are entering.

Was LCDd starting before you changed the driver path?

Steve

Borage

My LCD started every time before i changed the path, except that the display showed zero screens (the LCD screen showed only LCDproc Server Cli: 0 Scr: 0).

The only problem for now, if the service dies I cannot simply restart it to get the displays back. In the previous pfSense version, I just ran the following script to solve the problem. Now I only get the message unable to connect to localhost:13666.

/usr/local/etc/rc.d/lcdproc.sh restart

stephenw10

Have you read the rest of this thread where I talked about having to use a different startup procedure? I suspect that if you're still using the package method you probably have two copies of LCDd running on different ports one of which isn't responding.

Steve

Borage

Only one process when i ran this command.

[2.2-RC][admin@pfsense.localdomain]/root: pgrep -anx LCDd
70130

Something changed in one of the latest updates, now I cannot restart the service like before. The only way to get the screens back is to reboot pfsense.

[2.2-RC][admin@pfsense.localdomain]/root: /usr/local/etc/rc.d/lcdproc.sh restart
[2.2-RC][admin@pfsense.localdomain]/root: 
Warning: fsockopen(): unable to connect to localhost:13666 (Operation timed out) in /usr/local/pkg/lcdproc_client.php on line 915

Warning: stream_set_timeout() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given in /usr/local/pkg/lcdproc_client.php on line 916

Borage

I disabled the firewall with the following command, but it is not possible to connect to localhost.

'pfctl -d

Everything works as expected after that I changed the LCDd daemon to listen on the LAN IP address and the client to connect to the same address.

Edit:

I permanently fixed the problem by editing the following file.

/usr/local/pkg/lcdproc.inc

	define('LCDPROC_HOST','localhost');
	define('LCDPROC_PORT','13666');

My changes: See line 36

	define('LCDPROC_HOST','127.0.0.1');
	define('LCDPROC_PORT','13666');