EZIO Driver for LCDproc

fmertz

Ok, so now you can start a client. Something like:

/usr/local/sbin/lcdproc -p 13667 -h 127.0.0.1 G K

uknownme123

[2.3.4-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.localdomain]/usr/local/sbin: /usr/bin/nice -20 /usr/local/bin/lcdproc -p 13667 -s 127.0.0.1 C T U I D M L P &
[1] 71213
[2.3.4-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.localdomain]/usr/local/sbin: /usr/local/bin/lcdproc -p 13667 -s 127.0.0.1 C T U I D M L P &
[2] 81824
[1]    Done                          /usr/bin/nice -20 /usr/local/bin/lcdproc -p 13667 -s 127.0.0.1 C T U I D M L P
[2.3.4-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.localdomain]/usr/local/sbin: /usr/local/bin/lcdproc -p 13666 -s 127.0.0.1 C T U I D M L P &
[3] 82399
[2]    Done                          /usr/local/bin/lcdproc -p 13667 -s 127.0.0.1 C T U I D M L P
[2.3.4-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.localdomain]/usr/local/sbin: /usr/local/bin/lcdproc -s 127.0.0.1 -p 13666 C T U I D M L P &
[1] 37831

Tried different variation nothing shows on the screen. Its taking the command for sure, but I don't know where.

Confirmed the lb216 driver does work somewhat for this screen, buttons are not functional. So at least I know the screen works.

fmertz

Can you post LCDd.conf?

uknownme123


[server]
DriverPath=/usr/local/lib/lcdproc/
Driver=hd44780

[hd44780]
ConnectionType=ezio
Device=/dev/cuau1
Keypad=yes
Size=16x2
KeyMatrix_4_1=Enter
KeyMatrix_4_2=Up
KeyMatrix_4_3=Down
KeyMatrix_4_4=Escape

uknownme123

[server]
DriverPath=/usr/local/lib/lcdproc/
Driver=hd44780

[hd44780]
ConnectionType=ezio
Device=/dev/cuau1
Keypad=yes
Size=16x2
KeyMatrix_4_1=Enter
KeyMatrix_4_2=Up
KeyMatrix_4_3=Down
KeyMatrix_4_4=Escape

Woops, this was actually LCD.conf. LCDd.conf still contained information regarding lb216 driver.

Issue was, I initially created LCD.conf, instead I should had wipe out LCDd.conf and replaced with above code. commands mv LCD.conf LCDd.conf.

Now its working. Now I'll try out the buttons and let you know.

fmertz

@uknownme123:

Now I'll try out the buttons and let you know.

You might have to enable the internal menu for this:


[server]
DriverPath=/usr/local/lib/lcdproc/
Driver=hd44780

ToggleRotateKey=Enter
PrevScreenKey=Left
NextScreenKey=Right

[menu]
MenuKey=Escape
EnterKey=Enter
UpKey=Up
DownKey=Down

uknownme123

Awesome, the buttons work. I did notice that after a while it gets very laggy in response, this is probably because of the 2400 baud rate.

Hope to see this driver it in the WebGUI. I know a lot of folks out there have this LCD screen. I saw a lot of Checkpoints. I saw one on an Xceedium GateKeeper. The one I have was Smoothwall. I though I saw then on Mikrotek's x86 devices, I could be wrong on this tho. Thanks.

fmertz

Thanks, good to hear confirmation that it works on the real hardware. I was developing this on an ARM NAS (running Debian Linux) with a USB/Serial adapter.

At this point, the code change has been merged upstream with the lcdproc project: https://github.com/lcdproc/lcdproc/pull/82

I assume the pfSense maintainers will pull the lcdproc package after the next release, so everyone can use these EZIO devices right out of the box.

The only "open item" is a (minor?) change to the pfSense lcproc PHP package to include this connection type in the pre-defined list…

grahama

Thanks for your efforts here. This thread has made me join this forum.

You've helped me to make use of the LCD panel on a "Smoothwall S4" that I bought 2nd hand. Smoothwall didn't work for me, so I've been using pfSense for a few days. So far, it's meeting my needs.

I do have LCDproc enabled, but it doesn't run for some reason. I haven't been able to work that out yet nor make use of the menu buttons.

But what I have done is used the stty command and hex file Steve provided to initialise my LCD successfully.
I then have a cron job which keeps the screen updated with CPU temp and time every few minutes.

So thanks for that.

If needed, I can expand my simple shell scripts to show any statistic I can get to fit on the ?32? characters :)

Does anyone have tips for writing on the second line neatly? Right now I just pad in 20+ characters to cause word wrap to happen.

Cheers,
Graham.

fmertz

@grahama:

Does anyone have tips for writing on the second line neatly?

It's in the spec. You can put the cursor at the beginning of the second line with something like this:

printf "\376\300" > /dev/cuau1

From the larger perspective, though, you might want to download and replace the hd44780.so driver file so you have the new code for this EZIO device (make sure you pick the right version for your OS, these files are attached to the first post in this thread). Then make sure LCDd.conf is updated, in particular the device and connection type. As noted above, this code is not available in pfSense, yet, and the glue pfSense package has not been updated either so this new "ezio" connection type is not showing as an option in the GUI. You seem familiar with the command line, though, so this should not be too much of a problem to get up to speed.

grahama

Yep, RTFM :-[

New line works a treat, thanks!

Actually, I tried to read the specification, but the link "http://drivers.portwell.com/CA_Manual/EZIO/EZIO-FINAL.PDF" no longer works.
Couldn't find any other links to EZIO-Final.PDF online either which is unusual.

I have now installed the driver (and maybe fixed something with cron) and now LCDd / lcdproc / lcdexec are all working - buttons worked to navigate the menu and change settings.

It didn't work after a reboot, so I have to work that out, but I'm happy that I've been able to re-utilise all of the hardware :)

update: /usr/local/etc/LCDd.conf was overwritten on reboot, losing my changes.
I'm finding this aspect of pfSense to be frustrating as well as it's use of tcsh. I'm yet to customise these things to suit my preference.

fabricioguzzy

Hello Everyone,
I am facing problems to make lcdproc work.

I got a LCD Display "HD44780 Compatible" connected via FTDI USB (Chipset is FTDI 245) - It works fine on Windows so I know the display is fine.
Now trying to make lcdproc work is being really difficult. The Service does't stand up in anyway and I can´t find any LOG for troubleshooting.
Could anyone help me with that?

Reading other posts I could find the hd44780 driver that comes with pfsense 2.3.4 is wrong. is it true? I tried to replace it with no sucess.

Any help will be really appreciated.

Thanks
FAbricio.

stephenw10

This thread is for the EZIO display only. I have replied to your post in the main LCDproc thread.

Steve

regexaurus

Working here on a SmoothWall UTM-300 (Caswell CAR-3030)

At first it seemed not all the display buttons were working, but after hitting ESC (maybe a few times?) a menu appeared that I could navigate through to change settings (e.g. disable heartbeat, etc.). Relevant sections of my LCDd.conf:


[server]
DriverPath=/usr/local/lib/lcdproc/
Driver=hd44780
Bind=127.0.0.1
Port=13666
User=nobody
WaitTime=5
ToggleRotateKey=Enter
PrevScreenKey=Left
NextScreenKey=Right

[hd44780]
ConnectionType=ezio
Device=/dev/cuau1
Keypad=yes
Size=16x2
KeyMatrix_4_1=Enter
KeyMatrix_4_2=Up
KeyMatrix_4_3=Down
KeyMatrix_4_4=Escape

Is this pretty much a manual thing for now, or can we use it with LCDproc in WebGUI?

Thank you!

stephenw10

Nice GIF. ;D

Boyer1701

OMG THANK YOU - this thread is what caused me to register for this forum - the driver works like a charm, amazing!
(Caswell CAR-3000 board)

ColdStoner

Love to see this!! I was previously getting by w/ the lb216 and the hex dump method.

Anywho, I've downloaded HD44780_EZIO_Driver_pfSense2_3_32bit.zip and have extracted the .so to the specified location…

however I am getting an error when starting lcdproc:

Could not open driver module /usr/local/lib/lcdproc/hd44780.so: Shared object "libftdi1.so.2" not found, required by "hd44780.so"

I'm not sure how to get that library installed on pfSense... Ideas?

stephenw10

Are you running 32bit 2.3.X?

Though that file doesn't seem to be present anyway. Are you sure you selected the correct driver and connection type? Can we see you lcdproc.conf file?

Steve

fmertz

@ColdStoner:

Could not open driver module /usr/local/lib/lcdproc/hd44780.so: Shared object "libftdi1.so.2" not found, required by "hd44780.so"

I'm not sure how to get that library installed on pfSense… Ideas?

This is more of a freeBSD thing. You need to add the libftdi1 library. You need to look into the package manager, but it is probably going to look like this, as root: "pkg add libftdi1" (lib FTD (eye) (one). Confusingly, there is also the older version, libftdi, which is not needed here.

Best of luck, keep us posted.

stephenw10

Not sure why you'd need that unless you are using a USB/serial adapter though. And in that case it would still have needed it using the previous manual method. :-\

Steve