ConvolutedTheory

Note: I am in no way affiliated with Wyse.

Disclaimer: I’ve had very good luck using this method to flash my winterm machines without a Windows computer here. Just because it works for me, doesn’t mean it will work for you. I take no responsibility for anything that may come from using these instructions.

Alright, now that the manditory stuff is out of the way. I suppose you’re here because you want to be able to flash your Wyse Winterms without having to sacrifice one of your precious machines to the god of all that is unholy. cough. I mean windows. You dont want to be required to have a windows box around.

Anyway I use a Debian machine for this because APT is my friend, and your friend, and his friend.

First, we need to install dhcpd and tftpd (and inetd if you’ve uninstalled it)

apt-get install dhcp tftpd netkit-inetd

If you’re not using Debian, download your particular flavors’ version of those packages, and install them.

Next, we need to make some configuration files for these services. I usually don’t put these in /etc, you can just make a directory off of your homedir and stick them there. For now, ours will live at ~/linxfer .

mkdir ~/linxfer

edit ~/linxfer/dhcpd.conf and put the following there:

default-lease-time 600;
max-lease-time 7200;
option domain-name "hax0red.winterm.net";
option domain-name-servers 10.10.0.10;

subnet 10.10.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
    range dynamic-bootp 10.10.0.100 10.10.0.200;
    filename "linux-firmware.img";
}

Basically, for the IP ranges above, you’ll want to use an address that isnt already used on your network. Also, you’ll want to change 10.10.0.10 in the domain-name-servers to some sane dns cache. It doesn’t necessarily matter if you do or not, but I’ve found that my winterms are particularly picky about having a valid dns cache. Oh, If you’re flashing with an image from Wyse, make sure its listen as a netxfer image, and also change “linux-firmware.img” above to the filename you downloaded (the .bin please, you’ll have to extract the .exe with wine or the like if you downloaded one).

Okay, now on to our tftp server. For this, you’ll have to know what directory you’re in, so use pwd, or what have you.

edit inetd.conf in ~/linxfer and put this

10069           dgram   udp     wait    root    /usr/sbin/in.tftpd in.tftpd /home/derek/linxfer

That is all one line, in case my blog software mangles it. Replace “/home/derek/linxfer” with the path to your firmware file.

Ok, that should almost do it. I use a modified version of Wilmer Van Der Gaast’s start up script to start everything up.

edit ~/linxfer/start.sh and put this in there

#!/bin/sh

killall inetd
sudo chmod 666 /tmp/dhcpd.pid
sudo kill `cat /tmp/dhcpd.pid`
touch /tmp/dhcpd.leases
cd `dirname $0`
/usr/sbin/inetd -d inetd.conf &
sudo /usr/sbin/dhcpd -p 10067 -d -f -cf dhcpd.conf -lf /tmp/dhcpd.leases -pf /tmp/dhcpd.pid    $1 &

run as “./start.sh <interface>”

Where <interface> is the interface that is set to an IP in the network we set up in our dhcpd.conf above. What? dont have one you say? well okay

ifconfig eth0:167 10.10.0.10

In this case, I’d run “./start.sh eth0″ .

After you’ve done this step and the firmware file actually resides in ~/linxfer/, then you should be able to get your winterms to pull the image and flash with it. Remember, just tap the “P” key repeatedly on the keyboard as you plug the winterms power cord in. You should see Netxfer go to work.

Note, I’ve only tried this on Winterm 3325SE’s. If you have Winterms you’d like to donate to the winterm hacking cause, please donate them to Wilmer as he has a leg up on the hardware side of things on these boxes than I do. Wilmer can be found [url=http://winterm.gaast.net]here[/url].

If you’d like to donate a buck or two to me, to support my “I need a new laptop fund”, then please click the Paypal donate button to the left.

Thanks. Oh, if you need a hand with these instructions, just use the contact me form on here and I’ll try to help you out.