KSFB has been Plugged!

[Island Pacific Flight Academy]

another suggestion.

Change the hostname to something relevant i had two plugs on the same network and i edited the wrong one... also they were interfering with each other have the same hostname on my network.

[Ueli]

Hello!

concerning your setup guide: did you really set up your plug like that, and it worked? Because the version of darkice that you get with apt-get doesn't support MP3 which is crucial for the feed to work.

Greetz

[Island Pacific Flight Academy]

ill look it over again today when i get in the office but yes i am pretty sure all three of my feeds were set up just like i wrote i have a new cron that i got setup yesterday from buff that fixed some other issues. but other than that i think that one is pretty accurate... are you setting up your own plug?

[Island Pacific Flight Academy]

checked it out no issue with the setup that was exactly what we did and i will be starting a new one today when fedex gets here... so if it doesnt work for you send me a msg and i will look into what might be the issue you are having.

[Ueli]

Hello! My setup does work and will go online in some days, but I wasn't able to get it to work with the darkice I got from apt-get. I had to compile my own version of darkice, which was a bit complicated because I don't have a lot of linux experience.

@Dave
Is it possible some feeds don't work with MP3 but some other codec? Or do you have an idea why it works for him?

Greetz Ueli

[dave]

They must have a version with MP3 support.  Feeds that are not MP3 will not work.  And I verified that all their feeds are MP3.

[Ueli]

I just saw that your setup is running on Ubuntu, which has a different apt-get distro. So probably the compiled binarys in the Ubuntu distro are with MP3 support, and the ones in Debian (which I am running) aren't. Thats proba^bly the difference, which makes the installation with Ubuntu a lot easier

Greetz Ueli

[tonyf]

I am currently setting up a SheevaPlug for a feed. One update to the setup instructions if you have recently purchased a new plug.

You need to edit /etc/apt/sources.list

Change the one line to:

"deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jaunty main restricted universe multiverse"

The version of debian that is shipped with the new plugs needs jaunty for apt-get, but jaunty has been retired and no longer available in the normal update directory. Therefore the above line points to the old jaunty files. Also note that it appears any  newer debian release (which is not using jaunty) does not support the plug, so don't try to update the os.

Obviously any corrections to this or updates is appreciated.

Tony

[Biff]

My plug died again last week.  It had been running non-stop without even a reboot for almost 150 days.  Something got corrupted and I had no choice but to re-flash and re-build it from scratch.  Luckily, that wasn't too difficult.  It had a similar issue 10 months ago when I had to rebuild it at that time, too.  I have the first model of Sheevaplug.  I hope the newer ones are more stable than mine.

For future reference (mainly my own) here's the procedure.  I should have taken notes, instead I'm recalling this from memory.  This is not a how-to for setting up a new plug.  It will work for that, but it's more than you need.  Don't just follow these steps blindly.  Understand what each is doing and consider if it's correct for your version of plug and situation.  I'm assuming you have some linux knowledge since I'm not detailing every keystroke you need to make.

Use the SheevaPlug Installer to un-brick the thing.  I could not get the windows version (I'm on Win7 64bit) to work at all.  The linux version worked fine from my ubuntu box.  Follow the instructions, it's pretty straightforward.  You'll need a USB thumb drive and a USB cable to connect the plug to your computer.

Use a terminal program to connect to the plug via the USB cable.  Reboot the plug by punching the reset button or pulling the power on it.  You should get a login prompt after it boots.  The root password is "nosoup4u".

Edit /etc/apt/sources.list   Change it to 1 line only:

Code:

deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jaunty main restricted universe multiverse

Update apt-get and install wget so you can download stuff.  Then download the kernel updater script.

Code:

apt-get update
apt-get install wget

cd /tmp
wget http://sheeva.with-linux.com/sheeva/README-PLUG-UPDATE.sh
bash ./README-PLUG-UPDATE.sh 2.6.35.7 --nandkernel

I use kernel 2.6.35.7 because I know it works.  You might try others.

Still in your terminal session, reboot the plug.  Interrupt the boot process before that countdown stops.  Enter the commands from the top of the plug-update script above.  For my plug, I entered them verbatim.  For your plug, you may need to change the arcNumber and/or bootargs.

Code:

setenv arcNumber 2097
setenv bootargs rootfstype=jffs2 console=ttyS0,115200 mtdparts=orion_nand:0x400000@0x100000(uImage),0x1fb00000@0x500000(rootfs) rw root=/dev/mtdblock1 rw ip=192.168.1.9:192.168.1.4:192.168.1.4:255.255.255.0:DB88FXX81:eth0:none
saveenv
boot

The plug will reboot.  Log in as root again.  Now would be a good time to change the root password. If you want your plug to have a static ip, edit /etc/network/interfaces and restart networking.  Make sure your network cable and USB audio adapter are plugged in.  SSH to the plug via ip to make sure that's working.  You can disconnect the USB cable now.

Install darkice and usb audio utils.  Run alsamixer to set input levels (volume).  If alsamixer doesn't see your USB audio adapter, then you have a problem.

Code:

apt-get install darkice alsa
alsamixer

Create /etc/darkice.cfg   Make sure to set device = plughw:0,0
Create /etc/init.d/darkice  (or rc.darkice if you prefer, I'll attach or provide a link to mine later)

Set the init script to run at boot:

Code:

update-rc.d darkice defaults 99

You can test that darkice is working by running it from the command line.  You should be able to listen to your feed at LiveATC.net.

Create a cron job to restart darkice when it goes down (and it will)

Code:

*/5 * * * * /etc/init.d/darkice restartifdown 2>&1 > /dev/null

Now wait 5 minutes for darkice to start, or manually start it via the init script.

It should take less than an hour, probably less than 30 minutes, to un-brick your plug and have it streaming again.

[tonyf]

My SheevaPlug has been running great for the last 25+ days, however, I am now getting the following darkice error and I lose audio streaming,  close to the same time every day now:

01-Feb-2012 18:47:17 MultiThreadedConnector :: sinkThread reconnecting  0

Once I restart darkice it comes right back up. Has anyone run into this?

Tony

[dave]

My SheevaPlug has been running great for the last 25+ days, however, I am now getting the following darkice error and I lose audio streaming,  close to the same time every day now:

01-Feb-2012 18:47:17 MultiThreadedConnector :: sinkThread reconnecting  0

Once I restart darkice it comes right back up. Has anyone run into this?

Tony

Make sure you have a script that checks whether darkice is running.  Run that script from cron once a minute.

Then...kill darkice once a day at some odd hour.

[tonyf]

My SheevaPlug has been running great for the last 25+ days, however, I am now getting the following darkice error and I lose audio streaming,  close to the same time every day now:

01-Feb-2012 18:47:17 MultiThreadedConnector :: sinkThread reconnecting  0

Once I restart darkice it comes right back up. Has anyone run into this?

Tony

Make sure you have a script that checks whether darkice is running.  Run that script from cron once a minute.

Then...kill darkice once a day at some odd hour.

Cron is now running correctly However, the problem is that darkice doesn't actually stop when there is an issue, (with the above error) therefore the restartifdown isn't doing anything as it doesn't think it needs to restart. Trying to research what that error is and a fix...

[Biff]

Tony,

I modified that restartifdown script to look at CPU usage to determine if darkice is actually running or not.  On my plug, CPU usage will drop from its normal 18-19% down to 10 or less when it loses connection like that.

[Biff]

Attached is my /etc/init.d/darkice script (remove the .txt if you download it).  Notice the restartifdown section checks CPU usage as well as the usual things.

Be sure to set the min_cpu variable near the top of the script to whatever is appropriate for your plug.

[tonyf]

Tony,

I modified that restartifdown script to look at CPU usage to determine if darkice is actually running or not.  On my plug, CPU usage will drop from its normal 18-19% down to 10 or less when it loses connection like that.

Yes, my darkice process will drop from 10-11% to 1% when it is having its little issue, but the process is still running and 'darkice status' still shows as up which is why it won't restart. I will take a look at your script - thanks.