Stupid Questions

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/vie...ingSerialCable

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

http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/vie...iveSerialCable

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

http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/vie...ertermWithTiVo

Cheers, Dave.

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

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 :)

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

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

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?

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:

Code:

---

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:29

---

The 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

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

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/vie...etworkingHowto

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.

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

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.