Spikefish Solutions Blog

I know I said the next post was going to be on backups but I found out that one of my tools was broken (strace on the 600/1100) so I decided to write up a blog on tools. This is kind of rehash but I wanted to put this in a final resting place. I'll be updating this as other tools are compiled as well.

No 700 packages yet. - April/06/2016

Gaia Embedded I think is missing a few tools. I know, you're thinking just these 4? Well these were just kind of my starting point. I have others that I haven't posted but if someone wants something compiled I'll be more then happy to do so. I'll be releasing the compilers once i get everything packaged up nicely. I lost my source code for the 1200R compiler so i'll need to restart that mess again. (ugh).

All files in the tars are prefixed with cnf/ so no need to worry about trashing a local binary. They also don't require any libraries not already installed which is a big plus (so far!).

I would expand them under /logs/ or /mnt/sd if you have a external SD card formatted with EXT4 (stick to /logs if your using dos/vfat).

so for example. Upload the files to /logs/
then run

tar -zxvf FILENAME_HERE

Note: These packages are not supported by checkpoint (or anyone really). Also note using 3rd party apps are not supported on checkpoint firewalls.

dosfstools - this is for people running a 600/1100/1200R that have an external SD card installed. If you reboot (reboot command) these devices there is a good chance the dos/vfat file system on the SD will become corrupted at some point because checkpoint shutdown process is not so great. I would reformat with EXT4 if possible. If you need access to the data of a hosed dos file system and you're remote this gives you a way. Its a bit of a gamble. I mean there is no guarantee that repairing the file system will give you access to your data. 2nd option would be to dd off the unmounted SD card, upload to a remote server, mount via a loop and use a native dos file system checker.

strace - strace is a magical tool. You can watch what happens real time and catch error when debugs aren't useful. If you know what procmon on windows is, its basically the same thing. Basically you get to log almost everything a process does. Like, files it opens (or tries), libraries, external processes it might spawn. All that jazz. How many times have you thought, "how should xyz work normally" when something is broken in production but works in a lab? This will shed light. Next blog will be on how to use this so stay tuned!

gdb - if you find you have a core file (/logs/core) run file against it to find out what process crashed then use gdb to create a backtrace. This in addition with the core file and a cpinfo will help speed along any support ticket.

lsof - LiSt Open Files. this is another great tool for seeing all files/network connections/devices a giving process has open. Want to see all process that have a network connection open and not resolve ips? lsof -in

tail - I know, I know.. John.. everything has tail. Oh.. but does your tail include -F support? well.. this one does. If you know a -F is more then a grade a passive aggressive teacher gives you then this is for you!

600 / 1100 downloads

600 / 1100 dosfstools

600 / 1100 gdb

600 / 1100 lsof

600 / 1100 strace

600 / 1100 tail

1200R downloads

1200R dosfstools

1200R gdb

1200R lsof

1200R strace

1200R tail