Beginner's FAQ

Welcome to the Beginner's FAQ, I have created this page as while going along through the process of getting stuff set up on my DNS-323. Hopefully this page will answer for you some of the questions I had and save time. My goal is to provide a concise set of instructions for all users, be it young, old, with the times or not anyone can set up the DNS-323 for these things.

This page outlines my progress so far if you would like to please add more to it, ultimately I would like to get PHP, Ruby on Rails and imagemagick or similar running on the DNS-323. So I will have to look further into setting up a crosscompile toolchain and other things.

Q: What is the filename meant to be?
A: fun_plug (with no extension)

Q: Where does it go?
A: The fun_plug file needs to be in your root directory where you can see it when you access the network drive. When using 1.03 or 1.04 firmware for example that location would be inside the directory called “Volume_1”, it can be uploaded there most easily via FTP.

Q: I'm nervous am I doing this right?
A: Do not use notepad to create this file it needs to be formatted with Unix style line breaks and Windows will make a file by default in the wrong format, it needs to be in “Unix format (LF)”. Be sure you chmod the file to 777, the DNS-323 will execute this file when it is booted.

Q: How do I chmod the file to 777?
A: quote site chmod 777 FILE_NAME

Q: My virus scanner said there is a virus when I downloaded the compressed folder I was told to in the Wiki.
A: The file in question is a remote administration utility that is often regarded as a virus by most virus scanners, if you are worried about it skip this file. You will only need these files from this compressed folder: ./starttelnet.sh, ./lnx_bin/utelnetd and ./lnx_bin/busybox3.

Q: I have uploaded the files to the main directory as asked and rebooted my DNS-323 but still do not have telnet access.
A: Make certain all of the files including your fun_plug file, the ./lnx_bin directory and all files in the ./lnx_bin directory are chmodded to 777, also ensure you are connecting to port 23.

Q: I am using Putty and the connection is established but there is no prompt on the screen, it's just a blank window with a cursor.
A: Make certain that before connecting you are selecting to connect with telnet in the putty client. If you connect with the default SSH protocol instead of telnet you will not be able to do anything in the command window.

Q: Crosscompile toolchain?
A: If all you want right now is lighttpd running, then you can avoid this, download the pre-compiled version from the bottom of that page and upload it to your server following the same directions at the top.

Q: Do I need to restart the DNS-323?
A: No, just run the server using telnet and the appropriate services will be started.

Q: How do I access the .html files I uploaded from the web?
A: Find out your IP address, this can be accomplished a number of ways either from your router which should give you this information or from a website like http://www.whatismyip.com or similar. To access your files from the web you would use your IP address, then a colon three thousand ”:3000” which is the default port that lighttpd will be running on.

Q: I still cannot access my files.
A: You will need to access them by the full filename using the default settings. For instance if your file is index.html you would enter the url: <IPaddress:Port>/index.html to access it.

Q: How do I make my IP address and port number combo go straight to a specific file like index.html without having to actually type it?
A: You can add this line to the end of your lighttpd.conf file: index-file.names = ( “index.html”, “index.htm”, “default.htm” ) and restart. This will cause your browser to return index.html, index.htm or default.htm when the directory is requested, like a directory default page.

Q: I want to access this stuff without the port number just my IP address.
A: You will have to set up a port redirection on your router. It is a good idea to set a static IP for your DNS-323, after you have done this redirect port number 80 which is the default port accessed by http requests, to port 3000 at the local IP address of the DNS-323. Now when you visit your IP address the request will go straight to the files you want.

Q: I am linking to a CSS file but the page is not rendering it.
A: You need to add CSS to your lighttpd.conf file in between the other ones there: ”.css” = “text/css” make certain you are using your commas correctly, all but the last file type in the list should have a comma after it.

Q: How do I make lighttpd start up automatically with the DNS-323, not through telnet?
A: Create a new script file with unix (LF) line breaks called startlighttpd.sh and put it in the same place as your starttelnet.sh file, remember these all have to start with: #!/bin/sh. Then add to your funplug the line: /mnt/HD_a2/startlighttpd.sh, or instead just add to your starttelnet.sh file, the line you will need is: /mnt/HD_a2/lnx_bin/lighttpd -D -f /mnt/HD_a2/lnx_bin/lighttpd.conf