System

Who reaches this QUniLator, what it runs, and updating it. Each of those is a page of its own, listed under System in the sidebar: Access, Network and shell, Serial ports, Recordings, Updates.

Access

There is one account. Its name and password open the web interface, the SMB, FTP and SFTP shares of the image library, and an ssh login — change them here and they change everywhere. The next request asks for the new ones, so the browser will prompt again.

Changing the user name renames that account rather than adding a second one: the file shares and the ssh login follow it. A name is 1 to 32 characters: a lower-case letter or underscore, then lower-case letters, digits, underscores and hyphens.

Current password is the one you are logged in with, and any change here takes it — a change of name as much as of password.

A name that is already an account

A name belonging to a Linux account this service did not create is refused, because taking one over is not a decision to make in a browser. Adopt it at the machine instead, with the service stopped:

sudo systemctl stop qbone.service
sudo qbone --setup-operator <name> --adopt-account
sudo systemctl start qbone.service

The account keeps its home, its files and its shell.

Network and shell

Host name is the name this QUniLator has on the network. Renaming it moves qbone.local, the DNS-SD advertisement, the DHCP lease and the login banner together. Letters, digits and inner hyphens, up to 63 characters.

SSH key installs a public key for the account, which is how you reach a shell and sudo there. Installing one replaces the key already present.

Serial ports

Which of the BeagleBone’s three UARTs carry a Linux login.

ttyS0	the debug header, J1 pins 4/5 — needs a 3.3 V TTL adapter. Also the kernel console.
ttyS1	the cape connector.
ttyS2	the cape connector — and normally held by the external console bridge.

One port always keeps its login: it is the way back onto a card whose network has gone, so switching the last one off is refused. The USB port carries a login of its own as well. A port the emulator is holding cannot take one either — free it by turning the device or the console bridge off first.

The kernel console moves with the login

Turning a login off moves where the kernel prints, and that takes a reboot to settle. Until then the old port keeps printing; the page says so when a reboot is owed.

Console recordings

Sessions captured with Record on the dashboard — both what the machine printed and what was typed at it, whoever typed it. Download gives the recording itself, an asciicast file that keeps the timing and both directions for replaying or analysis. Text gives the session as it read on the screen: plain text, with what was typed showing where the machine echoed it. Each can be deleted.

Updates

What the installed package is, and what the repository offers.

Check now asks; Show what changed fetches the changelog before you commit. Installing replaces the emulator and restarts the service, so the running machine stops — the page says so before it starts.

An update returns QUniLator to its DIP-selected configuration, so a configuration applied by hand needs re-applying afterwards.

Dismiss stops a version being announced in the sidebar badge; Announce it again undoes that.

Updating without the internet

A QUniLator that cannot reach the repository is updated from an update file. On another computer, download qbone_<version>_armhf.update.tar (or the unibone_ one, for a UniBone) from the release page, get it to a computer that reaches the board’s web interface, and choose Upload… beside Update file.

The file carries the repository’s signed index next to the package, and QUniLator checks both against the repository key it already holds before it offers anything: a file that has been altered, that was not signed for this repository, or that is for the other board is refused with the reason. Once it checks out, the page shows the version it carries and what changed since the installed one, and installing it works like an update from the repository — the machine stops, the new version has to come up, and the old one goes back if it does not. A file carrying the version already installed installs it again. Discard the file drops it without installing.

The signed index carries the date it was signed, and a board whose clock is behind that date refuses the file. A BeagleBone has no clock that runs while it is off, and one that never reaches a time server keeps whatever time it last had, so when you sign in and the board’s clock is more than a minute off, the web interface sets it from your browser’s, and a note at the bottom of the page says so. A board that a time server keeps is left alone.

An update file installs the emulator package only. A new version that needs a Debian package the board does not have yet cannot be installed this way; the install fails and the running version stays.

The Updates page carries two sections: the emulator package this QUniLator is — qbone or unibone — and the Debian underneath it.

Operating system is everything else on the BeagleBone, the emulator excluded. Packages held back are listed rather than forced — the kernel and the cape support are pinned deliberately. Some upgrades want a reboot, and the page says which.