Firebox LCD Driver for LCDProc

hmeister

Been piddling with my x500, and the results are promising as far as the buttons, I've used lcdexec from the LCDproc package and gotten the menus working. I've only thus far created 2 functions, 1 is to Reboot, the other is to Reset the admin passwd….(would want to be careful with the 2nd one!) :) Will keep poking around with this and post back soon :)

-Andy

Andrew Miffleton
Telecommunications Technician
DFW Business Telephones, Inc.
1260 Shiloh Rd.
Plano, TX 75074
(972)424-4242 x455

dfwbt…
Steve's shell script works fine for what I need. Just having it run with the domain name, uptime and processor info is enough, plus the LCD script will run once the system has started correctly so for me this is enough... The backlight turning off at first was bugging me but thinking about it the backlight only needs to run when you push the right button just to check the uptime and make sure it appears to be running correctly. I can tell you if his script does not run then you know there is an issue with the box and the FreeBSD/pfSense boot process.

I am deploying my first x7000 build this Saturday and having the LCD run when running at a customers location is just one more valuable piece to modding the Watchguard boxes for small business use. Your customer can at least look at the green light (steve's script) and take a look at the uptime on the LCD while they are on the phone with you. I am not setting up remote management as I consider this a potential security issue and would like to keep everything locked down as much as possible. I have a backup drive I am leaving with the customer with the complete build in the event there is some issue which will allow a quick repair in the event something goes wrong... (FreeBSD go Wrong?? NOT ;) )

H.

fastcon68

Has anybody written a package yet that will run the LCD installation. I have done it by hand several times and it works about half the time.

I ready to see a package. I just gotten a x6000. It should be here next week.
RC

stephenw10

No proper package (yet) but this will work every time on 2.0.

Steve

fastcon68

stephenw10,
I just installed the lcdd4 on x500. The LCD is working great. I can't see it. The backlight does not appear to be on or is too dimm. I did fire the x500 up with the orginal operating system and the backlight does work.
RC

stephenw10

The backlight is supposed to go off after a set time to save the backlight, which has a limited life, and power.
If you press one of the buttons it should come back on.

Steve

fastcon68

It does not come on at all. Any thoughts, I look at the settings on the LCD and see if I can do anything with it.
RC

fastcon68

I don't remember how to change the write mode to the flash card. Can any one refresh my memory so I can install the LCD driver.
RC

stephenw10

Are you installing 1.2.3 or 2.0?
The install script should take care of it but lcdd4.tar only works for 2.0 without some editing.
Here's what your looking for:
http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Remount_embedded_filesystem_as_read-write

Steve

fastcon68

I have the LCD working no issues. The backlight is not working. I know that it works when I put the orginal boot flash card in. Any thoughts on why it is not working?
RC

stephenw10

No ideas at the moment. Is it a clean install?
The backlight is controlled directly by a single bit on one of the parallel port registers. Have you changed any of the bios settings? Perhaps the way FreeBSD accesses the hardware is slightly different to Linux (the Watchguard OS).
Some body else here who's backlight had broken suggested using a usb powered internal LED. It should work but will require some modification to the panel to allow the light in.

Steve

fastcon68

It is not a clean installation. It is the one I have been running. It was installed in 1.2.3 before I did the upgrade.
RC

fastcon68

dfwbt,
I would be very interested in you script for the functions of the buttons. That seems to put the finishing touches on what everyone has done here. I have been very busy testing with my x500 prior to my x6000 getting here. I am really looking forward to the upgrade. I just got a ide hard drive and I am going to order a adapter adapter so I can use the carrier in the x6000 to do a full install. I been making notes so I can replicate the lcd installation and the arm light change.

I love to add you reboot script to that list of things that I have got planned for the x6000. I did get my bridging working with all ports on the x500. I retired a switch I was using to eliminate the extra power used here at home. I added all the ports to the bridge and set the source to any under each port and everything just started working. I test and only see about a 5% increase in CPU utilization. My x500 runs at 2-5% utilization so 5-7% utilization is no big deal. I have a total of 12 devices on my home network right now, and that is the smallest it has been in 15 years.
RC

stephenw10

I just re-read my own write up on the led and found where I referenced the backlight.
It's controlled directly by the parallel I/O registers as I said: IO address 0x379 bit 1.
You can try turning it on and off manually using this program I wrote. This program has no error/sanity checking so use it carefully! ::)
Upload it to your box. chmod it to 0755. Kill lcdd so it's not trying to write to same address then:

./writeio 0x379 0x01

This should turn it on.

./writeio 0x379 0x00

Should turn it off again.

It's probably a problem with the upgrade though. You would be better to do a clean install.
Do the buttons work at all?

Steve

fastcon68

I can't get the writeio to execute. I guess I need to execute the sudo command, is that right?
RC

stephenw10

Did you chmod it?

chmod 0755 writeio

Are you logged in as root?

There is no sudo command.

Steve

fastcon68

Whch Driver do I need to use for the LCD on the x6000? LCDPROC or the one stephenw10 has written. I did a upgrade to the latest version last night and realized that the LCD stopped working after the upgrade was done.

I am having to use the 2GB nano version because the 4GB nano release will not fit on my flash drive.

RC

stephenw10

Use the firebox script, lcdd4. Unfortunately because it isn't a proper pfSense package, yet, it doesn't survive an update.

2GB image is fine, I'm using the 1GB image on a 4GB card.

Steve

FJSchrankJr

Hey Steve! It's been awhile hope your well.

Got a question for you, I made the mistake of finding the lcdd3.tar file before I noticed this post with lcdd4.tar, is the file system mounting restored on reboot or should I reinstall after using lcdd3? I noticed after reboot it's writable and not sure if it should be. lcdd3.tar is what I used and on a X700

Thanks a bunch!

stephenw10

Which version of pfSense are you running?

There is a bug in current 2.0 snapshots (unless it's been fixed while I wasn't looking!) that leaves the filesystem mounted read-write. It's not really a problem or anything to worry about.

The lcdd3 script used the mount command directly which is not the correct way to do it in recent versions. This combined with the bug can leave the filesystem mounted read-only with no way to remount it RW. This means that you can't save changes, add packages etc.

If you used lcdd3 and you're running 2.0Beta5 or newer you may have a problem.

Steve

FJSchrankJr

@stephenw10:

Which version of pfSense are you running?

There is a bug in current 2.0 snapshots (unless it's been fixed while I wasn't looking!) that leaves the filesystem mounted read-write. It's not really a problem or anything to worry about.

The lcdd3 script used the mount command directly which is not the correct way to do it in recent versions. This combined with the bug can leave the filesystem mounted read-only with no way to remount it RW. This means that you can't save changes, add packages etc.

If you used lcdd3 and you're running 2.0Beta5 or newer you may have a problem.

Steve

Thank you for the reply Steve! You're always a big help.

I installed lcdd3 on a 2.0-RC1 system and just updated yesterday with a current snapshot. It would not be a problem for this system to be reinstalled because it's not live yet and I have a backup config. I just need to make sure this system is stable so it would definetely be worth the extra work to re-do it and install the lcdd4 instead. What do you think?

This script is terrific, thank you for this and to everyone else who worked on it