[Freedombox-discuss] Plinth v0.10.0 released

Sun Aug 28 18:51:43 UTC 2016

On Sat, Aug 27, 2016 at 09:05:58AM -0400, James Valleroy wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Plinth v0.10.0 has been released, and is now available in Debian testing.

Thank you!

> For those running v0.9, if "Automatic Upgrades" are enabled in Plinth,
> then it should be upgraded soon (or may have already).

I was probably running something even older (uptime said 72 days) since
I had turned off automatic upgrades due to the no ssh access bug
previously discussed.

In any case, the upgrade apparently happened but when I next tried to
use the freedombox nothing went through (traceroute from internal
machines stopped at the freedombox, other attempts at connection got
"no route to host").  Luckily after a reboot things went back to normal
but there was this in the unattended upgrades log:

2016-08-28 00:03:55,386 ERROR Installing the upgrades failed!
2016-08-28 00:03:55,387 ERROR error message: 'installArchives() failed'
2016-08-28 00:03:55,389 ERROR dpkg returned a error! See
'/var/log/unattended-upgrades/unattended-upgrades-dpkg.log' for details

Checking that, I see this:

how-can-i-help: Unable to resolve your $HOME directory - cannot
continue.
Log ended: 2016-08-28  00:06:08

These are the last lines.

In the unattended upgrades web page there is also this:

2016-08-28 00:04:05,586 INFO Packages that are auto removed: 'gdebi-core
gir1.2-packagekitglib-1.0 libglib2.0-bin libgstreamer1.0-0
libpackagekit-glib2-18 libprocps5 packagekit packagekit-tools
python3-debian'
2016-08-28 00:06:08,892 ERROR Auto-removing the packages failed!
2016-08-28 00:06:08,893 ERROR Error message: 'installArchives() failed'
2016-08-28 00:06:08,893 ERROR dpkg returned an error! See
'/var/log/unattended-upgrades/unattended-upgrades-dpkg.log' for details

But in the referenced file there is this:

Removing packagekit-tools (1.1.1-1) ...
Removing packagekit (1.1.1-1) ...
Removing gdebi-core (0.9.5.7) ...
Removing gir1.2-packagekitglib-1.0 (1.1.1-1) ...
Removing libglib2.0-bin (2.48.1-2) ...
Removing libgstreamer1.0-0:amd64 (1.8.3-1) ...
Removing libpackagekit-glib2-18:amd64 (1.1.1-1) ...
Removing libprocps5:amd64 (2:3.3.11-3) ...
Removing python3-debian (0.1.29) ...
Processing triggers for dbus (1.10.10-1) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.23-4) ...
[master 89bf647] committing changes in /etc after apt run
 2 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
 how-can-i-help: Unable to resolve your $HOME directory - cannot
 continue.
 Log ended: 2016-08-28  00:06:08

So it looks like removing the packages themselves is actually working,
but "resolve your $HOME directory" is what is returning the error code
that is causing the error messages in the web page log.

> ...
>   * Networks: Added basic support for configuring batman-adv mesh
>     networking.
>   * Networks: Fixed incorrect access for retrieving DNS entries.

Related to Networks...

I use ppp to connect to the internet via a usb interface.  Per previous
advice, I had to do this:

$ sudo nmcli con add con-name "ppp" ifname "ppp0" type cdma
$ sudo nmcli con modify "ppp" connection.zone external

to set up the connection via ssh, but the "Network Connections" tab
shows the ppp connection as permanently inactive.  Obviously the network
manager and/or plinth do now know about certain details of ppp.  I need
to run "sudo pon cell" from ssh in order to establish a connection.
This usually requires entering the password for sudo.

I've been looking into how to make the network manager aware of ppp
and/or what configuration files I need to alter to let it know that
"sudo pon cell" needs to be run when the phone is detected, which it is:

Aug 28 13:14:47 fbx NetworkManager[1317]: <info>  [1472404487.1431]
manager: (ttyACM0): new Broadband device
(/org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Devices/4)
Aug 28 13:14:47 fbx NetworkManager[1317]: <info>  [1472404487.1457]
device (ttyACM0): state change: unmanaged -> unavailable (reason
'managed') [10 20 2]
Aug 28 13:14:47 fbx NetworkManager[1317]: <info>  [1472404487.1479]
device (ttyACM0): modem state 'enabling'
Aug 28 13:14:47 fbx NetworkManager[1317]: <warn>  [1472404487.1487]
(ttyACM0): failed to retrieve SIM object: No SIM object available
Aug 28 13:14:47 fbx NetworkManager[1317]: <info>  [1472404487.1501]
device (ttyACM0): state change: unavailable -> disconnected (reason
'none') [20 30 0]

But I haven't found exactly what I need to do.  The "No SIM object
available" is no surprise since this is not a GSM phone.  What is
worrisome is the last line.  Does anyone know why network manager is
saying "unavailabe" and "disconnected"?

If I do "sudo pon cell" manually (from ssh) the connection gets
established, but the first time I do this after plugging in the phone
into the usb port it fails.  I have to do it a second time, only in this
case.  When the phone has been connected and a ppp connection
established previously, it works on the first try.  The bottom line is
that "sudo pon cell" can fail and connections can be interrupted by "LCP
terminated by peer", so the network manager should try "sudo pon cell"
again when this happens.  The network manager knows when the connection
is finally up:

Aug 28 13:19:16 fbx pppd[2083]: Serial connection established.
Aug 28 13:19:16 fbx pppd[2083]: Using interface ppp0
Aug 28 13:19:16 fbx pppd[2083]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/ttyACM0
Aug 28 13:19:16 fbx NetworkManager[1317]: <info>  [1472404756.8221]
manager: (ppp0): new Generic device
(/org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Devices/5)
Aug 28 13:19:16 fbx NetworkManager[1317]: <info>  [1472404756.8601]
devices added (path: /sys/devices/virtual/net/ppp0, iface: ppp0)
Aug 28 13:19:16 fbx NetworkManager[1317]: <info>  [1472404756.8601]
device added (path: /sys/devices/virtual/net/ppp0, iface: ppp0): no
ifupdown configuration found.
Aug 28 13:19:17 fbx kernel: [  298.917157] PPP BSD Compression module
registered
Aug 28 13:19:17 fbx kernel: [  298.927802] PPP Deflate Compression
module registered
Aug 28 13:19:17 fbx pppd[2083]: local  IP address 75.250.173.191
Aug 28 13:19:17 fbx pppd[2083]: remote IP address 66.174.121.64
Aug 28 13:19:17 fbx pppd[2083]: primary   DNS address 198.224.186.135
Aug 28 13:19:17 fbx pppd[2083]: secondary DNS address 198.224.187.135

And it is also notified when the connection is interrupted:
(from a previous log)

Jul 16 21:01:24 fbx NetworkManager[488]: <warn>  [1468717284.7880]
device (ppp0): failed to disable userspace IPv6LL address handling
Jul 16 21:01:24 fbx NetworkManager[488]: <info>  [1468717284.8046]
devices removed (path: /sys/devices/virtual/net/ppp0, iface: ppp0)

So, how can I make network manager handle ppp automatically?  And
what needs to be done so that plinth displays the status of the ppp
connection properly, and it can be activated/deactivated from the web
interface?

Thanks for any hints.  While "sudo pon cell" works from ssh, it would be
nice if netwrok manager could handle the starts and restarts
automatically.

Augustine

> ...