Stupid Questions

[Marv]

Ok Im going to ask some possibly dumb questions, I seem to be having more trouble with this than anyone else... Maybe its my limited intellect!I have searched the mailing list and still am confused about some stuff!

1) I have now successfully loaded the Oztivo iso image onto the HDD ( I think!) , installed the Turbo Card, plugged everything in - to sky digital, and connected the card to my network. When I turn on the Tivo I get the Oztivo Maintenace flash at the start up, followed by the guided setup (that looks like it is the original authentic Tivo setup). The instructions on the NZ tivo Emulator advise me to edit the tclient using the telnet. But im not sure how to use the Telnet...

2) What is a Telnet, I think there is one in Win XP, but Im advised against using it... Therefore what should I use?

3) If im using a Telnet I presume I need the IP for the Tivo to connect, how can I find out the IP for my Tivo?

4) Because I get the Oztivo splash is it reasonable to assume that I have loaded it properly?

5) Most of the how-to's that I have downloaded brush over the telnet thing and just describe it as - at the prompt type such & such but nothing seems to explain how to get to the prompt! - for a dumby at least!!!

6) Do I need to do anything special to load drivers etc for the card?

7) Someone advised that if the card was installed correctly it would appear on my network - Where would I look for that???

Im reasonably confident - 90% that physically I have installed the card properly, and 100% confident that I have physically installed the HDD properly...

Sorry for all the stupid questions, I thought it would be better to get them all out of the way in one post...

All help is greatly appreciated, still dying to get the thing going!!

Marv

[elarbee]

1) I have now successfully loaded the Oztivo iso image onto the HDD ( I think!) , installed the Turbo Card, plugged everything in - to sky digital, and connected the card to my network. When I turn on the Tivo I get the Oztivo Maintenace flash at the start up, followed by the guided setup (that looks like it is the original authentic Tivo setup). The instructions on the NZ tivo Emulator advise me to edit the tclient using the telnet. But im not sure how to use the Telnet...

It's pretty easy once you learn the commands. Did you ever work with DOS? Here's a hint, there aint no start button ;)

2) What is a Telnet, I think there is one in Win XP, but Im advised against using it... Therefore what should I use?

Telnet is simply a way to communicate with a machine. It uses a Command Line Interface so all communication is via text. ie you must enter text to get your machine to do something, it communicates back via text. I use PuTTy but there are a few clients you can choose from. I've posted a link in your other thread so you can download it.

3) If im using a Telnet I presume I need the IP for the Tivo to connect, how can I find out the IP for my Tivo?

There a few ways, but it depends on how your network is setup. Read this http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/view/Howtonetwork/FindingTiVosIPAddress or take a punt with this > in windows xp > start button > all programs > accessories > command prompt. Once you have your command prompt screen up type in ping 192.168.0.255 or ping 192.168.10.255 and if you're lucky you'll get back one or more similar numbers ie 192.168.0.2 or .3 or .4 etc. One of those is your TiVo's IP address ( I've made *a lot* of assumptions here )

4) Because I get the Oztivo splash is it reasonable to assume that I have loaded it properly?

I'd say so but I've never seen a TiVo boot up without an imaged drive.

5) Most of the how-to's that I have downloaded brush over the telnet thing and just describe it as - at the prompt type such & such but nothing seems to explain how to get to the prompt! - for a dumby at least!!!

Run PuTTy as an application in windows. Change the radio button to Telnet and type in the IP address. A black screen will pop up some text like this [TiVo [p0] ~]# then a cursor which is your prompt

6) Do I need to do anything special to load drivers etc for the card?

Sorry I dont know this one

7) Someone advised that if the card was installed correctly it would appear on my network - Where would I look for that???

I think this comes back to finding your TiVo's IP address.

HTH

elarbee

[DavidSymons]

Hi Marv,

6) Do I need to do anything special to load drivers etc for the card?

No. The OzTiVo image loads the drivers for the Turbonet card by default.

Sorry to introduce yet another term into the equation but it uses DHCP by default. What happens is when the TiVo starts up it looks on the network for a DHCP server to give it an IP address. To set your XP box up as a DHCP server see this page:

http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/view/Howtonetwork/NetworkingWithXP

Once that's working then use the information at part 3 of elarbee's fantastic post to determine the TiVo's IP address. Then you can use PuTTy to connect to the TiVo.

Keep plugging away - as it says in the GuidedSetup30 page, getting networking is probably the hardest part of the getting the TiVo up and running.

Oh and I can't resist - Go Wallabies! :)

Cheers, Dave.

[Kinetic]

Hi Marv

Your tivo will (by default) try to get its own IP address from a DHCP server (if you have one). A DHCP "server" can be any device like an ADSL router, a PC, a Wireless Access Point or whatever...and that device 'gives out' the networking information including IP address etc to the device requesting an IP.

If you are unsure if you have a DHCP server the easiest way to check is to look at the network settings of your PC - have you manually put in an IP address for your PC or is it set to "obtain an ip address automatically"? I only say this in case someone else might have set a DHCP server up for you - I'm only guessing :/ (DHCP exists if "obtain an ip address automatically" is checked).

If you are not using DHCP then I agree with Dave - follow the instructions for the networkingwithXP page.

[elarbee]

Ooh I've noticed a typo - he would have meant to type "ping 192.168.0.255 or ping 192.168.10.255" in part 3.


oops :o (mike muuss would be turning in his grave! )
post corrected
thanks dave

[Marv]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the help, after a depressing night last night - All Blacks losing and not seeming to get further I have had a little more success this morning.

I have dloaded Putty, and it seems to be working ( At least it starts ok but don't have the IP yet..., I have tried the ping with limited success however I had a grizzly 1 year old on my knee at the time... :D

I will be searching for more clues on the net about obtaining my IP address as this seems to be the problem for now...

I must also thank everyone for their patience... after last night :mad: it really hurts to have to ask a group of Aussies for help hyuk hyuk hyuk

Marv

[Marv]

Hi All,

Me again...

Ive been playing with this thing all afternoon, I have reset up the ICS, have tried turning on & off the automatic selection of IP addresses. I get the impression im hitting a brick wall here,

does anyone have any other ideas?

Marv

[Marv]

Just had another thought

The Ethernet Switch lights up when connected to the Tivo, does this indicate that the connection is good. Im wondering now if Ive stuffed up the install?

When I unplug the Tivo the lights on the Ethernet Switch go dead. When I unplug the cable they go dead too...

Am I right in the above assumption?

[elarbee]

the lights on your switch only indicate a live connection which is a good sign ;)

have you tried this link?

http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/view/Howtonetwork/NetworkingWithXP

or try this in windows

start button > all programs > accessories > command prompt

then in this new window type in ipconfig and press enter. it will come back your pc's ip address. it's important to make sure your tivo is in the same subnet ( the first three numbers of the ip address must be the same ) which it will be if you have ICS enabled in your pc or your using a DHCP device such as your pc or a router.

now that you have your own ip address. type in (as in my previous post)
ping *insert your own ip address and change the last number with 255*
ie > ping 192.168.0.255
this should give you a list of local ip addresses that are responding, one is your tivo

HTH
elarbee

[Marv]

Hi Guys,

Elarbee - Sorry I forgot to explain, I have opened the command prompt and tried the 'ping 192.168.0.255' - it gives me 4 request timed out signals. (I have worked out (with help!) that my PC's IP is 192.168.0.1. I have also tried as you suggested the 192.168.10.255 again 4 request timed out signals.


When I do an ipconfig I only get info about the PC's IP and if Im connected to the Internet info about the PPP. I get no info about the Tivo and also I get no info about the Xbox which is also connected (which is still working via Flashxp.)

When I do an ipconfig /displaydns I get a bit more info including what I presume is the IP's of any webpages that I am currently using, My PC, my PC's IP backwards with the words in-addr.arpa, and still nothing that is anything like my Tivo.

Ive gone through the Networking Howto, and the Networking with XP and incidentally all of the other links on he OZtivo site (and 3 other sites!) without much success... I have done all the things suggested in the Networking Howto but still drawn a blank.

I have on Daves suggestion tried randomly pinging 192.168.0.2 , .3 .4 etc all the way up to 50! and get only request timed outs.

Dave - I tried the 192.168.0.41 and unfortunately its a no go!

I presume I could keep going all the way to 255 but given that I can't see the Tivo's address when I do the ipconfig Im wondering if Ive stuffed up the installation. This is weird because I still get the green lights when the thing is powered up so that indicates (at least to clueless me!) that some signal is being sent...

So it raises a couple more questions:

1) If i stuffed up the imaging the Harddrive part would this cause the problem?

2) If i stuffedup the imaging the Harddrive part would I still get the Oztivo Maintenance Splash when I boot up the Tivo?

3) Serial connection, I believe I can get a cord from "Kodak?" that will act as a serial connection - would that be a logical next step?, and does it talk directly to the Tivo without the Turbonet card? Also where the heck does it plug into????

Any further patience, medication or help would be appreciated...

Marv

[DavidSymons]

Hi Marv,

Shame about .41 - I had high hopes.

I reckon that obtaining a serial cable so that you can connect to the TiVo to see what's going on is the go. It's always handy to have one around anyway. If you can't buy one you can always solder one up:

http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/view/Howtohardware/MakingSerialCable

Also, Simon Quigley has offered to make them up for people:

http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/view/FAQ/AlternativeSerialCable

Once you've got one you'll probably be using Hyperterminal:

http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/view/Hintsortips/UsingHypertermWithTiVo

Cheers, Dave.

PS. Gotta change this thread title. Whenever I post to it the Forums front page has "Stupid Questions by DavidSymons" on it :) .

[elarbee]

i generally find peer to peer home networks using ICS cause no end of trouble. they can work, but they require a lot of patience and some understanding of tcp/ip.

i assume you're on broadband as you've got your xbox networked ( for xbox live i assume )

if you do have broadband, why not just buy a router? this can also act as a switch, a firewall, a DHCP server and most importantly it will give you a GUI to suss out your network ( much easier than command line interface )

with the router you can login anytime and see what devices are attached, what ip addresses they've been allocated and what MAC addresses they have.

plus with a router you don't have to rely on your pc to be powered up to enable the tivo to make calls ( or to play xbox live ) :cool:

just some thoughts :)

[Marv]

Hi Fella's,

Thanks for the patience yet again

Good news I have located a Serial cable, we have one at work attached to a very very very old Digital Cam, so when I get home tonight I will be trying to connect by Serial.(Stand by for questions on serial connections *cringe*...

Elarbee, Im tempted to run out and buy a ADSL Router, I don't have broadband, and the Phone company here that (monopoly) owns all the lines says I only have a 50/50 chance of my line being any good for it. But they won't charge me the installation if it doesn't work bless'em. :mad:

Dave the good news at the moment is that the thread currently reads Stupid Questions by Elarbee, but I suppose with this reply my name will reappear...

After getting some sleep (for the first time in a few nights) I feel a little more like I might actually get this thing going. Not in time to record the Test Match from last Satday, but Im not sure I want that in my memory anyway... What testmatch was that? :D

On the positive side I know hell of alot more about networking than I did 4 days ago...

Marv

[Marv]

OK finally finally finally Im in!!!

I have got the tivo prompt on the Hyperterminal. I have played around and got the thing going and have even got to the point where I was using Nano to edit the file.

Couple of issues 1 Minor - Whatever I type into the Hyperterminal double prints, ie I press g and it shows gg, then when I press enter it goes back to one g, weird but not too bad.

Next thing I did was edited the Tclient file, played around with Nano learnt how to use it and when I went to save it says can't save - read only file!!!

Is there anyway around this?

:confused:

Marv

[Marv]

Also another thought, I think someone told me at one stage that if I could get on with the Serial cable I could check the turbocard and also find the IP???

Is that easy to do?

[DavidSymons]

Hi Marv,

Great work!

OK try undoing the "Echo typed characters locally" setting and see if that stops the double keystroking.

You need to set the filesystem into readwrite mode in order to save changes to the tclient file. Use the "rw" command to do this, then edit the file, then use the "ro" command to set the filesystem back to readonly mode. The last bit is very important because of the risk of filesystem corruption if it is left in readwrite mode.

To check the IP of your Turbonet card use the command "ifconfig" (yes that's an "f").

On my TiVo the output looks like this:


lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Bcast:127.255.255.255 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP BROADCAST LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:3584 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 coll:0

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0B:AD:AD:BE:A9
inet addr:192.168.0.11 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:26258 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 coll:0
Interrupt:29The second interface is its ethernet interface with an address of 192.168.0.11.

If you can only see the "lo" interface then there may have been problem loading the drivers for your Turbonet card. You should check through the log files which are located in the /var/log directory - in particular the kernel log. Look for the word "turbonet" and any error messages. I don't know how much Unix you know but some handy commands here will be "ls", "cat", "grep" and "less".

Good luck.

Cheers, Dave.

Ooo look - I'm stupid again :) la la la la

[Marv]

Hi Dave,

Thanks mate, I seem to be learning my way around. I have edited the etc/tclient.conf file using Nano and the Serial cable.

I have just performed a "ifconfig" and got this:

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Bcast:127.255.255.255 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP BROADCAST LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:3584 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 coll:0

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0B:AD:10:10:10
inet addr:0.0.0.0 Bcast:255.255.255.255 Mask:0.0.0.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:16 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 coll:0
Interrupt:29

Interestingly enough if I ping 0.0.0.0 I get no answer hyuk hyuk hyuk...

DO you know if there is a way I can edit that file or do I need to change something on my PC?

Marv :D

[DavidSymons]

Hi Marv,

Looks like the Turbonet drivers are being loaded OK which is good news. However 0.0.0.0 would indicate that the TiVo isn't finding a DHCP server to give it an address.

A problem with Internet Connection Sharing I guess. Perhaps check over its configuration.

You could avoid DHCP by manually setting an IP address by running "nic_config_tivo" on the TiVo. Some guidance regarding the address/netmask/gateway to use can be found here

http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/view/Howtonetwork/NetworkingHowto

Even if that works (ie. you can ping the TiVo from your XP box) I reckon you'll still have to get ICS going so that the TiVo can get to the Internet.

Cheers, Dave.

[Marv]

Hi Dave,

Okeyly Dokely,

Where would I find the nic_config_tivo on the Tivo. Do I have to find the file it is in to run it?

Could you let me know the format for running nic_config_tivo.

Once I get that sorted I will do some more playing with the stupid ICS!!!


Q2 - Is it possible to use an ADSL router for the short term with no ADSL???
Im thinking of going onto ADSL but I need to get it installed 1st, Im hoping I can go get the router and set it up to get this Tivo going before I get the ADSL going? :o


Marv

[DavidSymons]

Hi Marv,

Actually it's in two locations:


/sbin/nic_config_tivo
/hack/nic_install_tivo_20040208/nic_config_tivo

but you can run it from anywhere because /sbin is in the TiVo's path. You should be able to just run it from the bash prompt.

ADSL routers are outside my experience I'm afraid - anyone else?

Cheers, Dave.

[Marv]

Hi Dave,

I have successfully changed the ip using the Nic_config thingy and when I do and ifconfig I now get the new IP

Do I need to pu anything in the Gateway line?

Incidentally the f**ing thing still won't ping to there, and the ipconfig at the command prompt still draws a blank. I may need to go out and but the router TODAY! :eek:

Still the excitement is really building now hyuk hyuk hyuk :mad:

Marv :mad:

[DavidSymons]

Hi Marv,

The Gateway line should be the address of whatever box is providing internet access from your network. If you get ICS working then it will be the address of your XP box.

However the inability to ping from your XP box indicates a problem with its network setup. Check over the settings in Control Panel -> Network Connections -> Local Area Connection -> Properties -> Hilight "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)" -> Properties. I'd recommend the following settings:

Address: 192.168.0.1
Netmask: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 192.168.0.1

Cheers, Dave.

[elarbee]

or you could just get a router :D

/elarbee runs and hides..

*damn im the stupid one again :mad:

[Marv]

Because I am soo pisst off now about the stupid ICS thing Im going to go and buy a router! And organise ADSL. But I have a few questions hoping that someone knows the answers... :mad:


1) If I get a router can I use it to get the STUPID TIVO :mad: to talk to my PC and also use my Dialup connection (at least until I get the new connection sorted)????

2)Any reccommendations on a good router for a brainless twit with to much money to spend... Damn this STUPID TIVO :mad: better be good!

Marv :D

Now look the real stupid persons asking stupid questions about the STUPID TIVO

[curto]

Most of the ADSL routers out there do not provide a dial backup port.

This is really what you are looking for - a multi port router with a modem interface to dial your ISP

You would have to check the usual suspects to see if any of them provide an ADSL router with a Serial interface as backup - then you could get the router now, use it for dial up now and then change to ADSl once you get it installed.

The ones i would check (in order) YMMV

Linksys
Netgear
D-Link
draytek

etc etc

Craig