XS Installing Software 0.6

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This page describes how to obtain a copy of the XS school server software, load it onto media, and install it onto a system. A more complete description of the software repositories, and testing instructions are available.

Downloading the System Image

You can obtain the latest image from http://xs-dev.laptop.org/xs/:

wget http://xs-dev.laptop.org/xs/OLPC_XS_LATEST.iso

This can be copied onto a CD or DVD using your favorite software.

It may also be copied onto a USB key, using the livecd-tools provided by Fedora 7:

livecd-iso-to-disk OLPC_XS_LATEST.iso /dev/sdb1

where /dev/sdb1 represents the USB key being copied onto.

Using an XO to create an installer USB key

You can use an XO laptop to create an installer key. First, you will need to install some necessary tools on the XO, then download the image, then transfer it to a USB key inserted in the laptop:

sudo yum install livecd-tools
wget http://xs-dev.laptop.org/xs/OLPC_XS_LATEST.iso
sudo livecd-iso-to-disk OLPC_XS_LATEST.iso /dev/sda1

Installing the Software

The install from a CD or USB key will eventually be automatic upon booting. While the install is currently mostly automated (not interactive), it is not performed automatically upon boot.

1. Boot from the USB Key or CD-ROM -- Getting an older system to boot from a USB key can be difficult, but most will do it.
2. Select "Run from Image" at the initial boot screen.
3. When it has finished booting, login as root (no password is required) and type:

./olpc-install

1. You will be prompted for the keyboard type, the time zone, and a root password
2. If the disk in the system is new, you may be prompted to OK its formatting.
3. When it has finished installing, you will need to reboot. The installer will erroneously tell you it is rebooting, but you will have to manually type reboot. Remove the CD-ROM or USB key after power-down, but before the boot process begins.

You should now have a machine which somewhat resembles a school server.

Booting from a USB key

In our experience, most generic x86 computers equipped with USB ports support booting from a USB storage device (a USB key). Almost none are configured to do so automatically. This can easily be forced from the BIOS.

Phoenix BIOS

1. Insert the USB key into the machine before booting
2. Enter the BIOS by pressing DEL on a keyboard during the initial boot process.
3. Select "Advanced BIOS Features"
4. Select "Hard Disk Boot Priority"
5. You should see your USB key listed as a boot device. Move it to the top by selecting it and pressing PgUp.
6. If you don't see your USB key listed, move "Bootable Add-in Cards" to the top of the list. But remember to move it back down after installation, or your system may not boot!
7. Save the BIOS parameters to CMOS and reboot by pressing F10, then Enter

Dell

If the system has a blank disk drive, it will automatically boot from a USB key.

If the disk drive has a bootable OS, you will need to:

1. Insert the USB key into the machine before booting
2. Enter the Boot menu by pressing F11 on boot
3. Select USB Device

Configuration

The default server setup is to connect to the Internet on the first wired ethernet network interface, using IPv4 DHCP. Laptops connect to the server over the wireless mesh using one or more Active Antenna, connected through USB interfaces. Optional second (and additional) ethernet interfaces are configured by default to provide an internal LAN within the school. Traditional WiFi access points, if used, should be located on this internal LAN. See XS Configuration Management for details.

To enable external IPv6 you will have to configure the global address of the machine and setup an IPv6 tunnel.

Installing additional software

If you wish to install packages that aren't part of the default school server distribution, you should first try using yum. The stable and testing school server repositories include all packages included in Fedora, even if they aren't installed by default. For third party software, such as Moodle, you should follow their installation procedure for Fedora 7

Upgrading

Upgrading a server is done using the yum package interface provided by Fedora.

Over the Internet

If you have an Internet connection, you can upgrade from the default servers at OLPC, or your own mirrors of them. This is done using yum:

sudo yum -y upgrade

From a CD or USB key

If you do not have an Internet connection (or wish to minimize its use), you can obtain a CD or USB key for upgrading an existing system.

More instructions coming soon. Feel free to contribute

Release Notes

Please read these notes to understand the capabilities and known problems with a particular release of the XS school server software. The latest release of software is described first, with a selection of earlier releases also described for completeness.

OLPC_XS_141

This release provides the latest firmware and drivers for the Active Antennas, fixing a problem with large file transfers over the mesh. All users of earlier XS software builds are strongly encouraged to upgrade!

WLAN Firmware: 20.p47 Kernel: 2.6.23.1-23.fc7 xs-config: 0.2.2-4

Download Here

Known Problems

• Plenty of functionality still missing, such as ejabberd and web caching
• The idmgr is not installed. To install and start it, type:

yum install idmgr

• Netplugd is disabled at this time. It interacts badly with the the current libertas driver, and causes crashes, lack of network, etc. This doesn't seem to affect anything right now, but is an unplanned change.
• The installer stops when to be installed disk has a FreeBSD slice/partition. Removing the slice with fdisk and rebooting works around the problem.

Upgrading from earlier releases

This should work, with a few caveats:

Disable Netplugd service

You will need to manually turn off netplugd until we figure out why it is unhappy with the latest libertas driver:

chkconfig netplugd off
service netplugd stop

Reconfiguration of Network

To avoid disturbing any manual configuration of the server network interfaces, hot-plug of the Active Antennas will not be supported on an upgraded machine until the network configuration script is run manually (which will require reconfiguring the WAN interface):

/etc/sysconfig/olpc-scripts/network-config.py

After running this script, any manually configured network scripts (in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/) such as the WAN configuration will be saved with a .bak suffix. Reboot immediately after running the network-config.py script.

OLPC_XS_137

This release supports hot-plug of the Active Antennas (unplugging and plugging while the server is running.) It also provides the latest firmware and drivers for the Active Antennas, fixing a number of stability problems and avoiding a problem where the mesh interacted badly with conventional 802.11b/g access points running a Broadcom chipset (such as the Linksys WRT54G).

Known Problems

• Plenty of missing functionality.

Upgrading from earlier releases

This has been tested and should work fine, with one intentional exception:

To avoid disturbing any manual configuration of the server network interfaces, hot-plug of the Active Antennas will not be supported on an upgraded machine until /etc/sysconfig/olpc-scripts/network-config.py is run manually. After running this script, any manually configured network scripts (in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/) will be saved with a .bak suffix.

OLPC_XS_128

This release has the registration server required for Trial3, as well as a fix to the inittab script which caused problems in India.

OLPC_XS_127

A bug fix release, due to our lame QA department not testing build 126 on a server with a single wired interface before release. This fixes the network configuration problems in 125 and 126 on servers with a single wired interface.

OLPC_XS_126

A bug fix release. This fixes the mesh channel assignment and network configuration problems in 125

OLPC_XS_125

This release has basic network functionality. It supports laptops on the mesh.

It does NOT autoinstall automatically. You will need to login as root (no password), then run /root/olpc-install. You will be prompted for a root password, otherwise the installation is automatic.

Missing:

• Registration
• Web services
• Presence service
• A configuration interface
• Lots more...

Known Problems:

• /etc/named.conf isn't being installed correctly from the xs-config RPM. The fix is:

cp /etc/named.conf.olpcnew /etc/named.conf

• Hotplug of the mesh interfaces doesn't trigger a restart of the olpc-mesh-config, which is needed for the mesh to work.
• SELinux is left in permissive mode, instead of completely disabled. Edit /etc/selinux/config and set SELINUX=disabled
• The channel on the mesh interface isn't being set correctly. This causes problems with XO builds later than 542. Set the channel manually using iwconfig for now. Fixed in build 126.
• The network configuration script could fail and assign a mesh interface as the WAN. Fixed in build 127.
• On machines with no serial port, there might be a problem resulting in an error message on the console: INIT : Id "s0" respawning too fast : disabled for 5 minutes. This is fixed in xs-config v0.1.7-4, (not currently in any live CD build).

The most common problem with the mesh is due to a hardware problem with the Marvell wireless modules used in the Active Antennas. They frequently do not reset properly, and need to be power cycled. The symptom is that you will get a message: "libertas: Unable to init firmware" on the console, and ifconfig won't show a mesh interface. A reboot will not fix the situation, you need to actually power cycle the USB adapter by unplugging it and plugging it back in.