LeapFrog Pollux Platform: Networking

Summary
This tutorial shows the basics steps to configur a network connection between a host PC and your LeapFrog Pollux Platform device. The LeapPad_Explorer and Leapster_Explorer both come with everything you need for networking, minus a few configuration steps, while the Didj requires a more involved process [| Enable Didj Networking].

Prerequisites
For the Didj you'll need to Enable Didj Networking

Hardware Needed
Cartridge

Console Access

Basic Setup
Using the console access, configure your devices IP  On Device  ifconfig usb0 10.0.0.2 netmask 255.255.255.0

For the host PC you'll need to know which interface it is using, after connecting and turning on your device, you can run dmesg, it should be something like usb0, eth1, eth2, etc. This will depend on your particular host PC's netorking set up, in this example I use usb0.

 On Host  ifconfig 10.0.0.2 netmask 255.255.255.0

To check you're work.  On Device  ping 10.0.0.2

 On Host  ping 10.0.0.1

From both of these commands, you should see ping return the packet times.

Static IP on Avahi Systems
1. setup a network between the explorer and your host system

You can start the explorer and have it default to a static IP address by simply holding down the brightness button at boot time. Simply edit /etc/init.d/networking, look for any place there is an IP address and replace it with yours, you should also change the bit after the slash to set your netmask), edit lines 32 and 41:

ifconfig usb0 192.168.0.111/24

and make them look like this:

ifconfig usb0 10.0.1.2 netmask 255.255.255.0

Now plug in a mini usb cable and Reboot and as soon as you see: Emerald Base: Starting /etc/init.d/networking ... Emerald Base: /etc/init.d/networking: Holding brightness: forcing static IP

on the console then it is safe to let go.

You can make this permanent so that you don't have to hold down brightness by removing the avahi flag:

rm /flags/avahi

now reboot and you will get your static IP address assigned

2. Configure the host

Once this is done you need to configure the host:

I'm using ubuntu 10.04, it has a automatic configuration, I've set mine so that auto usb0 has the ipv4, method setting of 'local-link only' and in auto eth2 I have hardcoded the ip address to 10.0.1.1, netmask 255.255.255.0, gateway of 0.0.0.0

you should now be able to connect to your machine using ftp, sftp and if you do the NFS tutorial via NFS as well.