Chumby tips/tricks/HOWTOs

HOWTO: Start ssh/login to your Chumby

i.e. how to get a "shell".

  1. Start the Control Panel by hitting the button on the top of your Chumby.
  2. Select "Settings".
  3. Select "Chumby Info".
  4. Select the hidden π (pi) symbol in the top right of the screen.
  5. Note the IP address of the Chumby.
  6. Select "SSHD".

  7. From another computer, ssh into your Chumby as root:

    $ ssh -l root 192.168.2.4

More info

To start ssh at boot, ssh in to your Chumby as above, then

$ touch /psp/start_sshd

(Remove this file to disable this behaviour.)

You can also initiate sshd by connecting a USB flash drive with an empty file called start_sshd in the root directory (more info).

(A USB drive will appear at /mnt/usb.)

FAQ: What's the "fbcgi" option in the "hidden" preferences?

This apparently enables access to the fram buffer (/dev/fb content) via CGI.

(See above for how to enable the hidden preferences.)

HOWTO: Run CGI scripts on the Chumby's webserver

The Chumby starts a small webserver at startup which can be accessed at its IP address. (See Control Panel | Settings | Chumby Info for the IP address.)

CGI scripts that have been placed in /psp/cgi-bin are accessible at http://a.b.c.d/cgi-bin/custom/foo.cgi. For example,

$ cat /psp/cgi-bin/hello.cgi
#!/bin/sh

echo "Content-Type: text/plain"
echo
echo "Hello, World!"

$ ifconfig rausb0 | fgrep inet
inet addr:192.168.2.4  Bcast:192.168.2.255  Mask:255.255.255.0

Then, from your computer, go to http://192.168.2.4/cgi-bin/custom/hello.cgi.

HOWTO: Run arbitrary Flash files on your Chumby

ssh in to your Chumby (for more information, see elsewhere in this document) and then either wget the SWF, scp it from another computer, or copy it onto a USB flash drive. Then, run it with:

$ chumbyflashplayer.x -z -i foo.swf

FAQ: How can I use my chumby as a BitTorrent client?

ssh in, as above, then:

$ trap '' 1
$ chumbytorrent mytorrent.torrent

(More info.)

HOWTO: Install Perl

  1. Download http://files.chumby.com/resources/usr_arm_ext3_basicperl.tgz.

  2. Extract it into the root of /mnt/usb. (So that /mnt/usb/usr gets created.)

  3. Symlink /psp/usr to /mnt/usb/usr.

  4. Copy /psp/usr/bin/perl5.10.0 to /psp/usr/bin/perl.

  5. Add /psp/usr/bin to the path:

    export PATH=/psp/usr/sbin:/psp/usr/bin:$PATH

HOWTO: Get CPAN working

  1. Create a home directory on the USB drive:

    mkdir /mnt/usb/home

  2. Set the HOME environment variable to it

    export HOME=/mnt/usb/home

  3. Create a directory to store your CPAN configuration:

    mkdir -p /mnt/usb/home/.cpan/CPAN

  4. Copy the default CPAN configuration file into your "home" directory:

    cp /mnt/usb/usr/lib/perl5.10.0/CPAN/Config.pm /mnt/usb/home/.cpan/CPAN/MyConfig.pm

  5. Fix the paths:

    cd /mnt/usb/home/.cpan/CPAN

  6. Strings replace /home/user to /mnt/usb/home