Closed Bug 463657 Opened 18 years ago Closed 17 years ago

Figure out how to physically setup and connect n8x0 machines

Categories

(Release Engineering :: General, defect, P2)

Product:
Release Engineering
Component:
General
Platform:
All
Maemo
Type:
defect

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED FIXED

People

(Reporter: joduinn, Assigned: mozilla)

References

Details

(Keywords: mobile)

Before we can do unittest or talos on these machines we need to figure out some mechanical questions: - how do we rack these - in the colo or at someone's desk? - power, power management and remote reboot? Removing battery, and running on power, seems one approach. How do we disable power management to stop them going into sleep mode? - how to get data on/off the machines: wireless? ethernet-to-usb+driver? - how much memory can we get? ...is a good starting list. Any other items?
john- power management can be disabled via the control panel. If we need to remove batteries, then we have to have the devices on site. regarding wired connections, for the n800/n810, i bought some OTG connectors which allow you to plug a standard USB Ethernet adaptor into the side of the device. In order to set this up, you need to follow: http://www.internettablettalk.com/wiki/index.php?title=HOWTO:_USB_Host_mode_on_the_N800_using_OS_2008 Or you can just ask me to do it. Also, see some of the tips here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/Build/Maemo_Running_Talos
The device works via wireless, we can configure it via the GUI to have a static IP which improves our chance of connecting. The device will stay online all day if you have it plugged in. I have had mochitests running in a loop for 60+ hours with no problems on my Nokia 810. We need to increase the memory by adding a microSD card and creating swap space. This lives in /media/mmc1 when it is mounted, and we can store all our data there. My experience has been that we cannot execute anything out of this media card, only reference the data. There used to be a great article online outlining how to create swap, but maemo.org updated to a new website and the article is lost. Here is the old URL just in case it comes back to life: http://maemo.org/community/wiki/howto_createswap/) We need to install openSSH server: http://maemo.org/downloads/product/OS2007/openssh/ (this is done inside the GUI)
They updated their wiki tuesday. Last week they asked for a list of articles that people would like to preserve (http://maemo.org/community/council/view/1225280197/), but perhaps there's a back up. Joel, can you ask?
thanks Brad, I am waiting for my new account to get sync'd between garage and wiki..I will follow up.
Assignee: nobody → aki
Here is a link to the method I have used to create swap: http://74.125.45.104/search?q=cache:m21D3bfE2mQJ:maemo.org/community/wiki/howto_createswap/+create+swap+maemo+wiki&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us In addition in OS2008 I am told you can enable swap in the control panel. I don't have a device to verify this, but that would be a better way to approach this.
- Rack? Right now I'm thinking that putting a blob of silly putty on a shelf and sticking the N800 on top would work. I bet most normal people could think of a better solution. - Connectivity is good through both wifi and usb rj45... I can't get to the wifi ip via VPN but I think that's more to do with the vpn not being configured to access Mozilla-Guest than anything else... a dedicated wifi network could work. The main problem with the current wired connection is the cable will fall out of the jack if you look at it funny. There may be better adapters we can purchase. - rsync isn't on the n800 currently but sshd is, so scp works for getting data on/off. - You can ssh in and reboot, and it's usable after it comes up. If we need to be able to power cycle from the switch, we'll probably have to find a way around the fact that it won't boot without the battery.
rack: silly putty is a good idea:) Honestly if we are going to have a handful of these (I assume 4+) we might want to buy a 1U empty case and lay them in there. That might get difficult if we are using USB connectivity since we would need to plug the usb cables into a nearby computer. power: we could get a managed power strip to remotely cycle the power, but if it doesn't boot without the battery then that is not very useful. In using the device, it will automagically reboot (I assume with a watchdog). This only leaves a situation where we cannot ssh into it and it isn't in critical conditions. Since we can't cycle it remotely, maybe we have a ping that verifies the connection once an hour and reboots the device if there is no connection. Just some thoughts.
For ethernet these look a lot better than the current RJ-45 jack we're using: http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?edc=309592 http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?edc=1191236 (According to reviews many other people are experiencing the same frustration with the design of the current RJ-45 jack: http://www.amazon.com/review/product/B000085ZKV ) There are also car mounts that may help with racking. Or they may just take more space. http://tinyurl.com/6ctkqe I have run into an issue where I needed console access after a reboot, so right now we're leaning towards keeping the farm in-office rather than at colo.
Priority: -- → P2
can you explain the issue where you needed the console access after a reboot? I think for the short term we should keep the farm in house until it is a proven solution. In regards to the USB->RJ45, do we have the appropriate USB driver support in maemo?
I basically wasn't able to ssh in by default after a reboot. This is one time out of maybe five or six reboots; not the norm, but certainly not the frequency we'd like to have to deal with colo trips. This would probably be solved by static IPs. And yes, I'm running wired on one of the N800s right now. It's just that the cable will fall out with the least amount of movement, but that's a design issue with the current adapter we have.
if it is possible, I would use wireless until you get a stable rj45 adapter. I haven't seen any issues over dozens of reboots not being able to ssh in but I will keep my eye out for it.
aki - we have an account with cdw. let me know if you need anything purchased and we'll get it here asap.
Depends on: 465401
This may be off topic for this bug - but for talos on mobile we'll need to consider how to handle serving test pages. For the standard talos set up we have a local apache server per test box which handles this. I'm sort of assuming that that solution will not be reasonable for this case. We'll have to choose between: - using local file load I believe that this is the current method of running talos on mobile, but it comes with the downside of exercising different code paths then server loaded pages - some sort of central web page server Would require a connectivity solution for the mobile devices. Downsides here have to do with net lag and resulting variance in test results. It also creates an excellent central point of failure.
alice, i am using an http server on the device.
also, the mochitests use xpcshell and httpd.js as a local webserver.
doug - can you fit the whole page set on these devices?
I know on the Nokia devices, you can use a minisd card to add a few GB's of space.
You can install 2x 8gb SDHC cards, which appear to be cheap: http://tabletschool.blogspot.com/2007/10/nokia-n800-which-memory-cards-to-use.html This link shows you how to make files on the /media/mmc* mounts executable: http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20761 I basically edited /usr/sbin/mmc-mount, and removed the umask, dmask, and noexec portions of the command line arguments. Since it's formatted VFAT, after remounting the partitions, everything shows up as executable. I'm going to format one of these ext3 to test at some point; the link recommends it. This will most likely be when we get new n8x0s in. On reboot the /media/mmc* filesystems came up executable, but the n800 didn't auto-connect to wifi like it normally does.
1) make sure that the device can really handle a 8GB card. There might be issues with SDHC vs MiniSD. 2) keep space available for swap. I don't know if mounting as ext3 or mounting it as executable will support swap space.
1) that link is specifically for the n800, so i'd guess yes. i can doublecheck on nokia's site. 2) ext3 is a standard linux filesystem and vfat is not. i've got swap enabled on my executable filesystem.
Verification: Nokia lists an 8GB microSDHC card on their n810 accessories page: http://www.nokiausa.com/A4431196 ... backordered at $59.95 each. The "compatibility" link lists the n810 as a compatible device: http://www.nokiausa.com/A41080449
http://drkscrtlv.livejournal.com/301402.html https://wiki.mozilla.org/User:Asasaki:N800Setup , which I'll be porting to a https://wiki.mozilla.org/ReferencePlatforms page soon. I'm calling this one fixed.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 17 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
Product: mozilla.org → Release Engineering
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