Attached is a gzipped FUSE 2.5.3 module compiled against Schufti's 2.4.36 kernel. (The userland tools of later versions of FUSE do work with this.)

Hi Schufti, I see your concern for backwards compatibility, but I think the severity of this bug trumps that. Even without trying to install an OS on a disk, I'd be upset if a device silently wiped all the permissions on it. Also, any users who manage to install a customised firmware in the first place and who then connect an ext2 disk are almost certainly capable of dealing with Unix file permissions themselves.

Besides, doesn't everything run as root anyway, thereby ensuring access no matter the file permissions? Otherwise, is there a way to automount partitions in such a way that permissions are ignored without actually wiping them on disk?

After two unsuccessful attempts to install Debian on an internal disk on a Safecom SWSAPUR, I eventually found the reason for it: all file permissions on the disk had been changed to 777, i.e. full access for everyone, and sshd refused to work with a world-readable host key file.

I eventually tracked it down to the firmware: hotplug.sh executes a 'chmod -R 777' for any ext2/3 disk you attach to it! Short of wiping the disk (which the firmware occasionally did with ext3 partitions in previous versions) modifying it silently is about as bad a thing as an NAS device can do. What were Amit thinking there? Surely anyone who'd attach an ext2 disk would know to set the permissions as needed for sharing?!

Anyway, to fix that I downloaded Schufti's source for the 400s08 firmware version (MGB100schufti08.tar.bz2). Once I got it to build I removed those braindead chmod lines from hotplug.sh and rebuilt, which resulted in the attached firmware. (It's not really gzipped, but I renamed it to .gz because the forum software only allows certain file endings. Hence gunzipping it will fail. You might want to rename it to .img or .upg, although the firmware updater doesn't care anyway.)

Schufti, could you patch that bug/misfeature in future updates of your firmware?


ps: Anyone looking for a firmware build environment on Windows might want to take a look at andLinux, which is a Ubuntu based on a coLinux kernel that runs as a Windows app, which means that no VMWare or some such is needed. Additional packages can be installed as usual, through apt-get or synaptic from the standard Ubuntu repositories. Great stuff.

I've got Debian Etch running on my Safecom box and a while ago I installed KDE just for a laugh. It sort of worked (with the output on my PC), but as you can imagine it was just a little bit slow. 

Sorry for being so unspecific. I'm currently using your S06 image, but I'd previously tried it unsuccessfully with previous firmwares as well. (I'm trying to make the box more quiet by reducing disk activity.)

Do you know why tmpfs appears in /proc/filesystems even though it isn't compiled in?

It's not part of the modules package that pagano had previously posted either. I guess I need to install the toolchain and kernel sources to compile the module then. Unless you could find a spare moment ... . Actually, it would be great if could just compile anything that might possibly be of use on the box as modules and post an updated modules package that goes with kernel 2.4.36.

Has anyone had success using tmpfs on the box?

I always get:


dmesg|tail shows no related information. tmpfs appears in /proc/filesystems, so it appears to be compiled in. Do I need to do anything else before trying to mount it?

I've got this running on my box now, as I didn't fancy having to redo all the settings. Thanks!

Hi Schufti,

I'd seen those reports in c't, but the sticks were from Sandisk and LG, so they shouldn't be that dodgy one would hope. In any case, they worked fine on the PC, both under Windows and Linux, so perhaps it's some sort of incompatibility with the host controller on the box?

What make and model are you using?

Thanks from me as well, I'll have a go at installing one of these over the weekend.

Has anyone else had trouble with >=1GB USB2.0 flash sticks? I've tried three different ones (with the aim of a silent server), and all stopped working with I/O errors after a few hundred MBs were transferred. Strangely though, a 256MB stick worked fine, and I've never had trouble with my USB2.0 hard disk.

Hi Schufti, thank you very much for those new images, great to see work continuing on this. My Safecom box has been quietly and reliably doing its job running Debian on top of your October firmware. I haven't been following things though, so I'm a bit confused about the various firmware versions. What is the difference between S4c3.upg and 400S06.img, what's the download manager, and how do I know whether I have the old or the new GUI?

Sorry for the delay bytespider, hadn't seen this post.

You don't need to compile a new kernel for USB audio support. Just install Pagano's collection of kernel modules that you can find on the download page, and 'modprobe' or 'insmod' the ones you need.

You're welcome.

Btw, there's an even better upgrade.img V4 as well.

Use this unlocked version:

http://www.penn8688.freeserve.co.uk/temp/CHD2WLANU_R400b7unlock.BIN

Thanks!