Friday, July 31, 2009

XP migration from intel to AMD platfrom results in BSOD error 7E

I recently upgraded my old PC dell PE400SC which had an Intel Pentium 4 2.4C. The new platform is NForce 720a + AMD 5050e. After I migrated the SATA hard drive from the 400SC to the new system, it boots into safe mode successfully without seeing the infamous BSOD error 7B. It seems to me the SATA controllers on both motherboards use the same driver in XP.

However, when I tried to boot the XP into normal mode, it always died with a BSOD error 7E. After I did a search on the internet, I found this article that suggests the error is caused by XP trying to load a driver intelppm.sys. Therefore I deleted the file intelppm.sys from %systemroot%\system32\drivers in safe mode and reboot the system. Guess what? It boots successfully and I only needed to install the drivers for the new hardware.

My PAP2T can't log into Voipbuster any more

I found the last registration date shown on my PAP2T was on 7/28/2009 and that's three days ago. I was using sip.voipbuster.com as the proxy and I can still ping it. But with Wireshark, I found it's not responding any packets back to the SIP Register requests from my PAP2T.

However, the voipbuster software can still log into my account and it's trying to register on another proxy: connectionserver2.voipbuster.com. Although I can't ping it, my PAP2T can now successfully register on it after I change the proxy. The server connectionserver.voipbuster.com also works.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Enable UPnP support in Mandriva with Shorewall

I found that in order to enable UPnP support in Shorewall, I need to have linux-igd installed. However, I couldn't find a ready-to-install linux-igd RPM for Mandriva. Therefore, I had to perform the following
  • Downloaded the linux-igd-1.0-7 RPM for Fedora 10 from here
  • Install libupnp3-1.6.6-1mdv2009.0 by running urpmi libupnp3
  • Install the linux-igd in Mandriva by running rpm -Uvh --nodeps linux-igd-1.0-7.fc10.i386.rpm.rpm
  • Update the file  /etc/sysconfig/upnpd  with the right interfaces
  • Make the following changes in /etc/init.d/upnpd to make it compatible with MSN/Windows live messenger. (I used the tag <pre name="code" class="cpp"></pre> to embed code here)
9a10,16
> #
> ### BEGIN INIT INFO
> # Provides: upnpd
> # Default-Start: 3 4 5
> # Short-Description: Internet Gateway Device
> # Description: Emulates Microsoft's Internet Connection Service (ICS)
> ### END INIT INFO
15c22
< allow_multicast="no"> ALLOW_MULTICAST=yes
36c43
<           [ "$ALLOW_MULTICAST" != "no" ] && route add -net 239.0.0.0 netmask 255.0.0.0 $INTIFACE --- >           [ "$ALLOW_MULTICAST" != "no" ] && route add -net 224.0.0.0 netmask 240.0.0.0 $INTIFACE
50c57
<       [ "$ALLOW_MULTICAST" != "no" ] && route del -net 239.0.0.0 netmask 255.0.0.0 $INTIFACE --- >       [ "$ALLOW_MULTICAST" != "no" ] && route del -net 224.0.0.0 netmask 240.0.0.0 $INTIFACE
63c70,71
<>       stop
>       start

and the following changes to /etc/upnpd.conf as described in ShoreWall and UPnP.
51c51
< forward_chain_name =" FORWARD"> forward_chain_name = forwardUPnP
57c57
< prerouting_chain_name =" PREROUTING"> prerouting_chain_name = UPnP
63c63
< upstream_bitrate =" 512000"> upstream_bitrate = 384000
69c69
< downstream_bitrate =" 512000"> downstream_bitrate = 1000000

I also made the following changes to the ShoreWall configuration files (my loc->fw policy is already ACCEPT)
grep -i pnp /etc/shorewall/*    
/etc/shorewall/interfaces:net     eth1            detect dhcp,tcpflags,nosmurfs,routefilter,upnp
/etc/shorewall/rules:forwardUPnP     net        loc

Finally I started the upnpd daemon by servcie upnpd start and chkconfig --add upnpd then service shorewall restart.

After a windows workstation initiated a video call in MSN messenger, the following ports were opened:
iptables -t nat -L UPnP
Chain UPnP (1 references)
target     prot opt source               destination         
DNAT       udp  --  anywhere             anywhere            udp dpt:36481 to:192.168.0.113:16727 
DNAT       tcp  --  anywhere             anywhere            tcp dpt:32995 to:192.168.0.113:9049

The version of relevant packages:
Kernel: 2.6.29.1-server-4mnb
Iptables: 1.4.3.1-3mnb2
Shorewall: 4.2.10-1mdv2010.0

Friday, July 3, 2009

Use Opti-UPS CS730B with Linux

It has a USB port, however it can not be autodetected by nut-2.4.1 of my Mandriva linux since the port /dev/ttyUSB0 was not created when it's plugged in. The kernel detected a powercom USB to serial converter but the usbhid driver is binding to it as shown in /proc/bus/usb/devices

T: Bus=02 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=03 Cnt=01 Dev#= 7 Spd=1.5 MxCh= 0
D: Ver= 1.00 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS= 8 #Cfgs= 1
P: Vendor=0d9f ProdID=0002 Rev= 0.00
S: Manufacturer=POWERCOM CO., LTD.
S: Product=USB to Serial
C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=80 MxPwr=100mA
I:* If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=03(HID ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=usbhid
E: Ad=81(I) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS= 8 Ivl=10ms
E: Ad=02(O) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS= 8 Ivl=10ms

Apparently it's not of the USB/HID UPS type since it can't be matched to any known device by usbhid-ups. I searched the internet and found a proposed fix: In order to recognize it correctly, I had to rmmod usbhid cypress_m8 and modprobe cypress_m8. Afterwards the following is shown in




T:  Bus=01 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=00 Cnt=01 Dev#=  4 Spd=1.5 MxCh= 0
D:  Ver= 1.00 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS= 8 #Cfgs=  1
P:  Vendor=0d9f ProdID=0002 Rev= 0.00
S:  Manufacturer=POWERCOM CO., LTD.
S:  Product=USB to Serial
C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=80 MxPwr=100mA
I:* If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=03(HID  ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=cypress
E:  Ad=81(I) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS=   8 Ivl=10ms
E:  Ad=02(O) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS=   8 Ivl=10ms



and the following from dmesg:

cypress 2-4:1.0: HID->COM RS232 Adapter converter detected
usb 2-4: HID->COM RS232 Adapter converter now attached to ttyUSB0


Subsequent modprobe usbhid doesn't remove the port ttyUSB0. Now I can download a copy of the managing software from the manufacture OPTI-UPS: OPTI SAFE Xtreme+ V1.0 for Linux (dated 2009-05-21), which appears to me a tar archive. Its License Key (85OPT4-584499) & User Manual can be downloaded from the same link (RAR archive). After I install it, I have the following lines in /usr/ups/ups.cfg
UpsModel=--CLEVER Series 110V/60Hz--
UpsDevice=/dev/ttyUSB0:1200,n,8,1
UpsCable=0
PortTCP=8081

Then I can start the upsman and

  • Connect to its web server through http://localhost:8081/ and monitor the status of the CS730B. After disconnect, I can also configure it through the web.
  • Configure the UPS by running the command service upsman conf