1.1. Installing from a USB Stick (didn't get this to work)
1) Download the image you wish to use, from the No Limits Board Forum, e.g. nlb11834_9000.zip.
2) Unpack the image, and find the p, li { white-space: pre-wrap; }image file, which will have a name similar to: 9000_usb_kernel_root_db.img
3) Rename the image file to usb_update.img, and copy it to a FAT32 formatted memory stick.
4) Make sure everything you need is backed up!!
5) Turn off (standby/ok) the receiver, and insert the memory stick.
Press and hold standby until the front panel shows 'booting', then press the up key on the front panel, and the display should show "usb upgrade".
5) CubeRevo/IPBox9000: Turn off the STB with the switch on the back, insert the USB stick, and hold the front panel power button in whilst switching back on. Within 10 seconds, the front panel will show "usb upgrade".
6) When 'Done' is displayed, reboot the receiver.
1.2. Installing with FlashTool
1) Download the image you wish to use, from the No Limits Board Forum, e.g. nlb11834_9000.zip.
2) Unpack the image, and find the p, li { white-space: pre-wrap; }image file, which will have a name similar to: 9000_usb_kernel_root_db.img
3) Make sure everything you need is backed up!!
4) CubeRevo/IPBox9000: Turn off the STB with the switch on the back, and hold the front panel power button in whilst switching back on. Within 10 seconds, the front panel will show "usb upgrade".
5) Lanuch FlashTool, and select the image, and press 'Down' to download it.
6) When 'Done' is displayed, reboot the receiver.
2. Configuring NLB
2.1. NLB Image and Freesat Card:
With NLB, In order to get a valid Sky/Freesat Card to work, the CAMs are automatically started, all you need to do is press the green button and make sure that mgcamd or mbox is selected. - this means that you just have to plug the card in - there is, however, a glitch that happens every 20 or seconds or so. To fix this, you need to select the mbox cam in the NLBPanel plugin. It may also be necessary to add your boxkey into the /var/keys/newcs.xml file.
To find your boxkey, you need to check the system status screen in your sky decoder - you will see a system id number, which is 10 digits long, e.g. 0007559782. This number is in decimal, and the newcs.xml file needs the same number, but in hexidecimal. Convert the number to hex, and pad it out with leading zeroes to make it 8 characters long, e.g. 00735a66. This is the boxid that needs putting into the newcs.xml file.
3. NLB Image and EPG:
Sky uses the closed OpenTV standard, which has been reverse engineered by a number of people, most notable ambrosa in the creation of e2_loadepg. This background work has resulted in the creation of crossepg. Unlike other systems and providers, Sky only transmit now and next information with each channel, and if you want to get full browsable EPG information, you need to go to a specific channel - this is great for receivers with very low memory, like the original sky boxes, as they can extract the data live from the stream. It does lead to very slow navigation though. Crossepg can extract and store this information from the EPG stream, which is broadcast on a radio channel called "Sky EPG Background Audio".
Crossepg is installed by default on the later NLB images, but can be downloaded from http://www.crossepg.com/ for all DGS based images.
In order to get the download working, you need to select the crossepg.plugin, and hit the menu button. Under system, you can select which channels you want epg information downloaded for. Then 'Start Downloader' to download for the first time.
It is likely that this will lock up. This is because the epg downloader uses quite a lot of RAM, and there is little left. You can overcome this by adding and enabling a swapfile, either on the memory stick (see disk and swap section below), or on the hard drive (through the web interface).
When the box starts, it takes a short time for the disk to come online (see disk format ext2 ext3 below), so I'd recommend setting the crossepg download (under the 'Automatic actions' menu option) to happen in the middle of the night, not after boot.
5. Configuring the Operating System
5.1. Swapfles
5.2. Disk Format ext2 or ext3
By default, the hard disk is formatted as ext2 - this format means that disk checks happen on boot-up, but the hard disk access is fast. Alternatively, ext3 can be used. ext3 stores extra information (a journal) when writing to the disk, eliminating the need to do checks on each reboot, at the expense of slower disk access.
To convert from ext2 to ext3, you can use the NLB web frontpage - note that this will format the hard drive!!
If you want to do this manually (and not re-format), you can log in via telnet, and type 'ext2fs -i 0 -c 0 -j /dev/sda2' to add the journal, and then reboot.
Interesting Files
The following files on the distribution may be of interest:
/var/S59_userboot.sh - This is a script which is run during every boot, and may be modified by the user to launch his own programs.
/var/db.dat - This is xxx
/var/keys/newcs.xml - This is the file in which you may place your boxkey for your valid Sky Card.
/media/images - This file is created during an upgrade. I had a directory called /media/images, and I think that this caused my upgrade to fail, and the box to crash.
Formatting a memory Stick
Running fdisk, create a small FAT16 partition on the memory stick - the satellite box will mount this as /dev/usb/usb0. Create a large linux partition (which will be mounted as /dev/usb/usb1). You can also create a swap partition.
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id SystemFormat these disks.
/dev/sdf1 1 35 68324 6 FAT16
/dev/sdf2 36 900 1689345 83 Linux
/dev/sdf3 901 1009 212877 82 Linux swap / Solaris
For the FAT16 partition, use: mkfs -t msdos -F 16 /dev/sdf1
For the Linux partition, use mkfs -t ext3 /dev/sdf2 ; tunefs -c 0 -i 0 -j /dev/sdf2
For the Swap partition, use mkswap /dev/sdf3
UBoot Front Panel Control Options
To shut the box down / put it into standby, press the power button and OK together - the clock will show on the display.
Press the power button, and before the words 'booting' appear, press one of the following buttons, and release when the word 'booting' actually appears:
Left - enter debug mode
Down - Select STB channel 1-8
Up - Load usb_update.img image file
Upgrading Software
Format usb stick to fat16, name file usb_update.img and reboot, holding down the up key on the front panel.
Or - load via nlb web interface.
Or - copy to /media (the hard disk), and update via web interface. This runs these processes:
root 908 314 0 16:56 pts/0 00:00:00 -shUseful Links
root 921 552 1 16:57 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -p 80 -h /var/www -c /etc/httpd.conf -r IP9000HD Web Access
root 922 921 1 16:57 ? 00:00:00 /bin/sh /var/www_nlb/cgi-bin/ffwrapper
root 932 922 1 16:57 ? 00:00:00 sed s/^/
/g
root 947 1 1 16:57 ? 00:00:00 /bin/sh /usr/bin/update.sh /media /media/images
root 968 947 17 16:57 ? 00:00:01 /bin/burn /dev/mtd7 /media /usb/usb_update.img
Basics of uboot: http://www.denktenk.com/modules/dokuwiki/basics_of_the_uboot_bootloader
Recovery: http://www.sat-universe.com/showthread.php?p=241209