LCDProc 0.5.4-dev

mdima

That's great! So the next version of LCDproc will have the SDEC driver… fmerz, consider that the compiling option in pfSense is "WITH_USB=true" only, I don't know if with this option the SDEC driver will be compiled...

BTW, how's going with the new package version? I found out it's more stable, but anyway still give some problems... what do you think?

Thanks,
Michele

stephenw10

Excellent work! ;D

Steve

fmertz

@stephenw10:

X-Peak:


[2.0.1-RELEASE][root@pfsense.fire.box]/root(7): pciconf -r pci0:31:0 0:256
25a18086

Device ID 25a1 is a 6300ESB, data sheet: http://ark.intel.com/products/27663/Intel-6300ESB-IO-Controller

For the X-Peak, the LEDs are on GPIO pins 40 and 41. This is part of the second set of pins, so there no blink support in hardware. We already knew this…

Anyone with an X-Core?

tix

@fmertz:

I would like the output of the command, for the X-Core and X-Peak models. The key is the first 8 digits, the last 4 being 8086, Intel's vendor ID. Thanks.

X-Core (x700)


/root(1): pciconf -r pci0:31:0 0:256
24408086 0280000f 06010005 00800000
00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
00004001 00000010 00000000 00000000
00000000 00000000 00004081 00000010
09060b0c 000000d0 0a058003 00000000
00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
00005475 00000000 00000000 00000000
00000200 00000000 00000000 00000000
00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
00000000 00004004 00000000 00000000
00002002 00001f02 00000004 00000000
c0000010 14050000 00112233 45670291
017c000f 00000000 00000f47 00000200
ffffffff

I'm using the WGXepc script and it works flawlessly!

fmertz

@tix:

X-Core (x700)


/root(1): pciconf -r pci0:31:0 0:256
24408086

2440 is an 82801BA, Intel ICH2, datasheet here: http://www.intel.com/content/dam/doc/datasheet/82801ba-i-o-controller-hub-2-82801bam-i-o-controller-hub-2-mobile-datasheet.pdf

Somehow the existing WGXepc code does not seem to line up with the spec…

mdima

Hi,
how's going with the latest (0.9.2) package?

Right now I am working on this:

I divided / 2 the number of commands sent to LCDproc every cycle. So if before were sent 10 commands, now only 5
I wrote a little better code for error handling
I slowed down a bit the scrolling (just a little bit)
Simplified the script to launch. There's no more lcdproc_client.sh.

Then I will:
4) add and test the "nice" command to the programs running
5) I will add a "top value" for waiting to the next cycle of 10 seconds. So it will be sure that the communication won't timeout

What else?

Ciao,
Michele

stephenw10

@fmertz:

Somehow the existing WGXepc code does not seem to line up with the spec…

Hmm, in what way?
There was a problem because the GPIO base is set to a non-standard value on the X-core.
On the other boxes it is at 0x480, which I believe is the standard value where as the X-Core is at 0x4080.

Steve

fmertz

@stephenw10:

@fmertz:

Somehow the existing WGXepc code does not seem to line up with the spec…

Hmm, in what way?
There was a problem because the GPIO base is set to a non-standard value on the X-core.
On the other boxes it is at 0x480, which I believe is the standard value where as the X-Core is at 0x4080.

Steve

The way I read it, this particular device ID is an ICH2, and has the GPIO base port stored at offset 0x58 (page 9-1). Fine. The value at that offset happens to be 4081, which, masked off is 4080 (this was listed in the pciconf command, and is already in your code). Fine. In your code, you use port 4080 + 0x0f. Offset 15 in the GPIO area is for GPIO level, and bits control pins. Fine. The blink register is at offset 0x18 (32 bit), so I am not sure how it can blink with just the level register, or how it is not possible to turn the LEDs off…

For the X-Core-e, the Level port controls on/off, the Blink port controls the, well, blinking, and it all can be turned off with putting the bit to zero.

stephenw10

I had to re-read the thread to remind myself what happened. I agree with you it doesn't make any sense! In fact you can see, here, where I was expecting the registers to work as you describe above but the experimental results show otherwise.

One thing that is different about the X-core is that you can set the LED state in the BIOS (though I've never tried it myself). And you have a choice of red or green and fast or slow flash. There is no fast/slow blink described in the documentation yet it is clearly available. :-\

Steve

tix

Hello

I've tried the latest .92 package and my x-core will still become unresponsive at the 10 hour mark.

I'm out of ideas on what the issue could be… :(

mdima

@tix:

Hello

I've tried the latest .92 package and my x-core will still become unresponsive at the 10 hour mark.

I'm out of ideas on what the issue could be… :(

Hi Tix,
Thank you for the feedback. I am trying a new version with a lot of changes, if it passes my tests I will publish it… Cross your fingers...

Ciao,
Michele

fmertz

@mdima:

@tix:

Hello

I've tried the latest .92 package and my x-core will still become unresponsive at the 10 hour mark.

I'm out of ideas on what the issue could be… :(

Hi Tix,
Thank you for the feedback. I am trying a new version with a lot of changes, if it passes my tests I will publish it… Cross your fingers...

Ciao,
Michele

Shot in the dark: is the client reading the responses back from LCDd? The release notes mentioned something about ignoring them causing unpleasant behavior …

Cino

I'm noticing a bug that I haven't seen since before the re-write of the package. If my second WAN does down (3G wireless), and comes back up; lcdclient seems to lose the connection to LCDd. In the past I would have pages of errors in the system log. but i dont have any this time. I do want to say this started with the last changes.

Still want to see if I can reproduce this on the fly (maybe tin cup around the 3G Wireless USB stick) but wanted to report it

Edit: I think this may have been a fluke… my 3g went down a couple of times last night and no issues with lcdproc

mdima

@fmertz:

@mdima:

@tix:

Hello
I've tried the latest .92 package and my x-core will still become unresponsive at the 10 hour mark.
I'm out of ideas on what the issue could be… :(

Hi Tix,
Thank you for the feedback. I am trying a new version with a lot of changes, if it passes my tests I will publish it… Cross your fingers...

Ciao,
Michele

Shot in the dark: is the client reading the responses back from LCDd? The release notes mentioned something about ignoring them causing unpleasant behavior …

Fmertz,
what do you mean? I just read the entire changelog and the release notes but I didn't find anything about that. Can you give me some references?

EDIT: Btw, yes, the client is reading the responses and log on pfSense if there is some error reported (messages with huh?)

Now I am running the binary 0.5.3 and the package 0.9.2 to see what changes. With 0.5.5 it looks like there are some problems having more than one screen, like there are problems for LCDd to "switch" during the screen rotation.

If you all set only one screen with 0.5.3 and pkg 0.9.2 do you have this problem?

Thanks,
Michele

mdima

@Cino:

I'm noticing a bug that I haven't seen since before the re-write of the package. If my second WAN does down (3G wireless), and comes back up; lcdclient seems to lose the connection to LCDd. In the past I would have pages of errors in the system log. but i dont have any this time. I do want to say this started with the last changes.

Still want to see if I can reproduce this on the fly (maybe tin cup around the 3G Wireless USB stick) but wanted to report it

Edit: I think this may have been a fluke… my 3g went down a couple of times last night and no issues with lcdproc

Hi Cino,
well, this should have start with the last version of the package.

Before the LCDclient was trying to connect to LCDd forever (which caused endless lists of log entries and high CPU usage), now if it fails for 3 times straight it will end. In the while if LCDd restart to respond, it connects and resets the error counter.

I can understand that a gateway failture may cause a reset of the routes and the states, but if the client gets disconnected it starts other 2 times to reconnect (about 10 seconds between each attempt). Maybe we should increase it to 4… what do you think about it?

Thanks,
Michele

fmertz

@mdima:

@fmertz:

Shot in the dark: is the client reading the responses back from LCDd? The release notes mentioned something about ignoring them causing unpleasant behavior …

Fmertz,
what do you mean? I just read the entire changelog and the release notes but I didn't find anything about that. Can you give me some references?

EDIT: Btw, yes, the client is reading the responses and log on pfSense if there is some error reported (messages with huh?)

https://github.com/fmertz/sdeclcd/blob/master/BUGS

The documentation for responses is here: http://lcdproc.sourceforge.net/docs/lcdproc-0-5-5-dev.html#language-messages

It says: LCDd can send messages back to the client. These messages can be directly related to the last command, or generated for some other reason. Because messages can be generated at any moment, the client should read from the connection at regular intervals. A very simple client could simply ignore all received messages. Not reading the messages will cause trouble !

I read this to mean that LCDd could generate more than one response to a command, or even send text outside of typical responses to commands. Does the PHP code accommodate for this? Reading the code, there seems to be the assumption that only 1 response comes back, maybe leaving responses hanging, and slowly filling the buffer. Just a thought.

mdima

@fmertz:

It says: LCDd can send messages back to the client. These messages can be directly related to the last command, or generated for some other reason. Because messages can be generated at any moment, the client should read from the connection at regular intervals. A very simple client could simply ignore all received messages. Not reading the messages will cause trouble !

I read this to mean that LCDd could generate more than one response to a command, or even send text outside of typical responses to commands. Does the PHP code accommodate for this? Reading the code, there seems to be the assumption that only 1 response comes back, maybe leaving responses hanging, and slowly filling the buffer. Just a thought.

well… the client polls the data from LCDd, but maybe it's not enough... I am trying to see if I can do that better... in the while THANKS for the suggestions, this looks to me as the right direction! ;)

mdima

If could be REALLY that… I am deeply debugging, and I found out that for each command I send to LCDd, this answer with some answer MORE... so in the end I send:

widget_set scr_time text_wdgt 1 2 20 2 h 4 "2/7/2012 23:19"
widget_set scr_time text_summary 1 4 "01% 56% 4529 37%"
widget_set scr_uptime text_wdgt 1 2 20 2 h 4 "17 days 9:18"
widget_set scr_uptime text_summary 1 4 "01% 56% 4529 37%"
widget_set scr_system text_wdgt 1 2 20 2 h 4 "CPU 11%, Mem 56%"
widget_set scr_system text_summary 1 4 "01% 56% 4529 37%"
widget_set scr_load text_wdgt 1 2 20 2 h 4 "0.06, 0.04, 0.01"
widget_set scr_load text_summary 1 4 "01% 56% 4529 37%"
widget_set scr_states text_wdgt 1 2 20 2 h 4 "Cur/Max 4578/500000"
widget_set scr_states text_summary 1 4 "01% 56% 4529 37%"
widget_set scr_ipsec text_wdgt 1 2 20 2 h 4 "IPSEC Disabled"
widget_set scr_ipsec text_summary 1 4 "01% 56% 4529 37%"
widget_set scr_traffic title_wdgt 1 1 "IN: 45.1 Kbps"
widget_set scr_traffic text_wdgt 1 2 "OUT: 2.1 Kbps"
widget_set scr_traffic text_summary 1 4 "01% 56% 4529 37%"

and it answers:

success
success
success
success
success
success
success
success
success
success
success
success
success
success
success
ignore scr_system
listen scr_load
ignore scr_load
listen scr_states
ignore scr_states
listen scr_ipsec
ignore scr_ipsec
listen scr_traffic
ignore scr_traffic
listen scr_time
ignore scr_time
listen scr_uptime
ignore scr_uptime
listen scr_system
ignore scr_system
listen scr_load

so if the ratio between write and get is 1:1, sooner or later the LCDd buffer will get full and LCDd will hang. Sorry but I found that code there and I really gave for granted that the ratio was 1:1, but the client gets too many answers from LCDd. The client must to "suck" all that answers in order to keep LCDd stable.

I will test this and publish a new release ASAP!

Ciao,
Michele

stephenw10

Looks promising. :)
More excellent work.

Steve

tix

@mdima:

If you all set only one screen with 0.5.3 and pkg 0.9.2 do you have this problem?

Thanks,
Michele

I'm testing now, using only the "Interface Traffic" screen set to WAN. It doesn't scroll left/right but obviously updates so the updating activity should tell us something I hope.

Will post an update in about 12 hours.

fmertz

@mdima:

I will test this and publish a new release ASAP!

Which also can be read the other way (negative test): if you remove the code to read the responses, does LCDd die quickly, with 100% CPU?

mdima

@fmertz:

@mdima:

I will test this and publish a new release ASAP!

Which also can be read the other way (negative test): if you remove the code to read the responses, does LCDd die quickly, with 100% CPU?

Hey,
yes… before was like this:
8 Screen enabled
1 second as interval refresh

LCDd was dieing after about 2h.

With the full read of all the responses, same number of screens and refresh, it is working since 20h and it's still up and running.

This evening I try to close a version and publish it...

Ciao,
Michele

mdima

Hi,
I just released a new version of the package. I feel that we are at a good point.

Here is the changelist:

Improved the reception of data from LCDd. Now there's a cycle that run until there's no more data do receive. Before that there was the possibility of a buffer overflow in LCDd. The timeout of the receiving socket is 25ms.
Optimized the number of commands sent to LCDd every cycle. Now it is sent only the half;
Rewritten with better code the error handling;
Increased to 3 the number of attempts the client performs to reconnect to LCDd in case of disconnection;
Simplified the startup scripts. Now lcdproc_client.sh is not generated/run anymore, since the error handling is managed by the client;
Changed the startup scripts to run both LCDd then the client as "nice" process;
Capped the wait time between each client cycle to 5 seconds. It still is calculated as the refresh frequency * the number of screen activated, but now it's capped;
Increased to 8000 chars the trunk of data received from LCDd;
Improved the "service stop" script. Now it cycle until LCDd is definitely killed and works even if LCDd is hung;
Added a "welcome" string on the panel at the LCDd startup;

The new package is versioned 0.9.3, I just made a pull request in order to distribute it…

Please give some feedback (including driver, refresh rate, enabled screens and so on)!

Thanks,
Michele

Cino

can't wait to give it test drive :-)

stephenw10

Woot! ;D

mdima

Ops… I found out a little mistake, I cancelled the pull request, will do it tomorrow morning, I swear!

Sorry buddies...

tix

@tix:

@mdima:

If you all set only one screen with 0.5.3 and pkg 0.9.2 do you have this problem?

Thanks,
Michele

I'm testing now, using only the "Interface Traffic" screen set to WAN. It doesn't scroll left/right but obviously updates so the updating activity should tell us something I hope.

Will post an update in about 12 hours.

Well in 24 hours of running, I've had no issues running with only this screen enabled with the "standard" .92 package.

mdima

@tix:

Well in 24 hours of running, I've had no issues running with only this screen enabled with the "standard" .92 package.

Hi Tix,
yes, everything worked with 1 screen only, because in that case there were no "extra messages" (activate/ignore/etc.) from LCDd that caused a buffer overflow after some hour.

With the new version of the package we should not have this problem anymore…

Can you confirm it?

Thanks,
Michele

tix

I have downloaded the new package and enabled the following screens:
-Uptime
-Load
-States
-Mbuf
-Interface Traffic(WAN)
None of these scroll left/right.

I installed the package and rebooted to have a clean start. I noticed that load seemed a little higher than usual on startup and took a little bit longer to "calm down" but I'm not entirely sure it's related to LCDproc.

I will post later today or tomorrow if there is anything to report as I'm hoping we have this corrected. :)

Thanks so much for the effort Michele!!!

Cino

So far so good.. i'm using the picolcd.so driver, 20x2 display

The following is enabled:
Time
Uptime
System
Disk
Load
States (Not sure if other notice, it doesn't show the correct max, always 10000)
Interfaces (scrolls thru them)
Mbuf
Interface Traffic (WAN)

one day I'll swap to a different case so I can have a 20/4

stephenw10

Testing now.
One thing I have noticed that I didn't expect is:


[2.0.1-RELEASE][root@pfsense.fire.box]/root(2): ps aux|grep lcd
root    4965  0.0  0.3  3656  1520  ??  I     8:27PM   0:00.01 /bin/sh /usr/local/etc/rc.d/lcdproc.sh start
root    6483  0.0  3.4 46428 17476  ??  SN    8:27PM   0:01.11 /usr/local/bin/php -f /usr/local/pkg/lcdproc_client.php

I didn't expect to see lcdproc.sh running, not that it's a problem.

Steve

Edit: I also so that the version of the sdeclcd driver is that with real time process priority set. Is that deliberate? That too should be no problem.

mdima

Hehe!

You're welcome Tix, let's see how much this version resists… I didn't have any problems since two days with 2 servers since almost 48h, but we need to share the data to consider it stable.

on both machines I use as driver sureelect, 1 second refresh, 8 screens on one and just 1 screen on the other one. The other options are left as default...

Ciao,
Michele

mdima

@stephenw10:

Testing now.
One thing I have noticed that I didn't expect is:
[2.0.1-RELEASE][root@pfsense.fire.box]/root(2): ps aux|grep lcd
root    4965  0.0  0.3  3656  1520  ??  I     8:27PM   0:00.01 /bin/sh /usr/local/etc/rc.d/lcdproc.sh start
root    6483  0.0  3.4 46428 17476  ??  SN    8:27PM   0:01.11 /usr/local/bin/php -f /usr/local/pkg/lcdproc_client.php
I didn't expect to see lcdproc.sh running, not that it's a problem.

Steve

Edit: I also so that the version of the sdeclcd driver is that with real time process priority set. Is that deliberate? That too should be no problem.

Hi Steve,
well, I removed the "lcdproc_client.sh" script, the one that managed the error counter for the client. lcdproc.sh is the one run to start/stop/restart the package. I honestly don't know why it is still running after it's launched to start the client, but it should not do anything.

For the sdeclcd driver, we need to ask to fmertz if he asked to update the binary driver under files.pfsense.org, I guess not if it's not the last version. Anyway, probably after this message he will ask to update it.

Ciao,
Michele

mdima

Hi Cino,

@Cino:

States (Not sure if other notice, it doesn't show the correct max, always 10000)
one day I'll swap to a different case so I can have a 20/4

on my x86 pfSense 2.0.1 shows correctly 500000. I am afraid some char is hidden, but with a 20x2 display it should not… :S

Looking at the code, it looks it's able to read $config['system']['maximumstates']. How much did you set?
If you run on the the command prompt, php console, the following commands (copy/paste both), what result do you get?

global $config;
echo($config['system']['maximumstates']);

Thanks,
Michele

tix

Not sure what went wrong but I went to add some additional screens and upon clicking save, the log shows the stopping and restarting but then stops again 1 sec later. This happens each time I enable/disable any screen.

Log capture:


Feb 10 18:23:42 pfsense LCDd: Client on socket 11 disconnected
Feb 10 18:23:42 pfsense LCDd: sock_send: socket write error
Feb 10 18:23:44 pfsense LCDd: Server shutting down on SIGTERM
Feb 10 18:23:46 pfsense LCDd: LCDd version 0.5.3 starting
Feb 10 18:23:46 pfsense LCDd: Using Configuration File: /usr/local/etc/LCDd.conf
Feb 10 18:23:46 pfsense LCDd: Listening for queries on 127.0.0.1:13666
Feb 10 18:23:47 pfsense LCDd: Server shutting down on SIGTERM
Feb 10 18:23:58 pfsense php: lcdproc: Failed to connect to LCDd process Operation timed out (60)
Feb 10 18:24:09 pfsense php: lcdproc: Failed to connect to LCDd process Operation timed out (60)
Feb 10 18:24:20 pfsense php: lcdproc: Failed to connect to LCDd process Operation timed out (60)
Feb 10 18:24:31 pfsense php: lcdproc: Failed to connect to LCDd process Operation timed out (60)

Trying to restart via the GUI does nothing (which I think is correct functionality) but running the start script from the shell seems to start the process again.


[root@pfsense]/root(2): /bin/sh /usr/local/etc/rc.d/lcdproc.sh start
[root@pfsense]/root(6): ps aux | grep lcd
        <no results="">[root@pfsense]/root(7): ps aux | grep LCD
root   25426  0.0  0.5  3524  1280   1  S+    6:25PM   0:00.00 grep LCD
[root@pfsense]/root(8): clog /var/log/system.log  | grep LCD
 <snip>Feb 10 18:31:25 pfsense LCDd: LCDd version 0.5.3 starting
Feb 10 18:31:25 pfsense LCDd: Using Configuration File: /usr/local/etc/LCDd.conf
Feb 10 18:31:25 pfsense LCDd: Listening for queries on 127.0.0.1:13666
Feb 10 18:31:27 pfsense LCDd: Connect from host 127.0.0.1:49169 on socket 6</snip></no>

So I'm now running these screens:
-Time
-Uptime
-Disk
-Load
-States
-Mbuf
-Interface Traffic (WAN)

and these settings:
-ComPort=/dev/lpt0
-Display Size=2x20 display
-Driver=Firebox SDEC
-Refresh=5 sec
-All other settings are "default"

Also, the Load average is staying higher around between 0.60 and 1.4 where prior to this update it stayed less than 0.80 (even when updating RRD). Again not sure it's related but I don't think it's anything to worry about.

Will continue to monitor…

Cino

the results were blank. I dont have anything set, left it for the system to decide. The dashboard says 299000.. I'll set a value and see what happens. Its been awhile since I looked at the lcdproc code, but I'm thinking there was default 10000 if nothing is set via the gui now that i think about it a little more

stephenw10

@tix
I can see from your logs that you still have 0.53 version of LCDd. So who knows what version of other files you have.
From my experience the 'reinstall package' button in the GUI does not seem to re download everything.
I suggest un-installing the package completely, checking for any left over files and then re-installing it.

Steve

tix

@stephenw10:

@tix
I can see from your logs that you still have 0.53 version of LCDd. So who knows what version of other files you have.
From my experience the 'reinstall package' button in the GUI does not seem to re download everything.
I suggest un-installing the package completely, checking for any left over files and then re-installing it.

Steve

Well aren't I the idiot? :P Didn't even notice that….

Ok so I've now uninstalled the package, cleaned all the various references to LCDd, lcdproc, sdeclcd.so that the "find" command could locate. Then I reinstalled the package except LCDd is missing... Isn't this supplied by the lcdproc-dev package or am I being an idiot again?

mdima

@tix:

@stephenw10:

@tix
I can see from your logs that you still have 0.53 version of LCDd. So who knows what version of other files you have.
From my experience the 'reinstall package' button in the GUI does not seem to re download everything.
I suggest un-installing the package completely, checking for any left over files and then re-installing it.

Steve

Well aren't I the idiot? :P Didn't even notice that….

Ok so I've now uninstalled the package, cleaned all the various references to LCDd, lcdproc, sdeclcd.so that the "find" command could locate. Then I reinstalled the package except LCDd is missing... Isn't this supplied by the lcdproc-dev package or am I being an idiot again?

Tix, LCDd is inside the package, very strange you don't have it… maybe a reboot between the uninstall and the reinstall could help..

mdima

@Cino:

the results were blank. I dont have anything set, left it for the system to decide. The dashboard says 299000.. I'll set a value and see what happens. Its been awhile since I looked at the lcdproc code, but I'm thinking there was default 10000 if nothing is set via the gui now that i think about it a little more

Ok, I've understood what happens… if there is nothing set the function just return 10000 as a constant.
I will fix this on the new version.

Ciao,
Michele

LCDProc 0.5.4-dev

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