We have AmiVNC. It makes it possible for others to connect to, and use your AmigaOne/AOS4.

There's a couple of developers out there (and this might bring more!?), that need access to an AmigaOne to port their stuff over.

The idea of lending it out my AmigaOne to a developer via the net sounds cool to me.
Would it even be possible to use an AmigaOne via AmiVNC for development?

It would be very cool if we had a page here on AW, with a list of available AmigaOnes, that developers could login to via a click on a button. A red/green light could show if a particular AmigaOne was available or in use at that particular moment.

I don't use my AmigaOne 24/7, and I am sure there's lots of idling AmigaOnes out there, waiting to get used.

Obiously the VNC enabled AmigaOne would have to be set up, to boot into a clean partition with just AOS4 and the SDK, i wouldn't have any trouble having to boot partitions though, if it was for a good cause.

I dunno much about security and stuff, but the developers would have to register themselves, and receive a password and such before loging in.


This is just a rough scetch in my head ATM, could this work?

Thoughts? Ideas? Volunteers?

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@spotUP

I have used VNC to develop on my A1 from my laptop in another room of the house (ugh -dreadful sentence).
Only problem was having to go back into the office if I caused a severe crash with my dodgy programming and couldn't reset the A1 over VNC.

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@yoodoo2

You got a point there. If it crashes it would have to be rebooted. And when that person is not there you cannot continue your work. But the idea sounds good. You just wish the PowerVixxen would be here. It would be the perfect hardware for coding.

Coder

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@Coder

Yes... that one thing struck me too...
Dunno how to solve that... hmm.. but I _WANT_ to solve it.
It would be so sweet to have some machines available via the net.

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@spotUP

there's no way of implementing a 'send reset signal' into amivnc? that would work in those cases when the crash wasn't hard enough to really nuke the system or the network? but maybe the a1 usually hangs to hard when it hangs during development?

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@Coder

Quote:

Coder wrote: @yoodoo2 You got a point there. If it crashes it would have to be rebooted. And when that person is not there you cannot continue your work. But the idea sounds good. You just wish the PowerVixxen would be here. It would be the perfect hardware for coding. Coder

What about reboot command? I think it can at least soft reboot the host (hard reboot doesn't work on my A1 anyways). The host should have a script to activate VNC automatically.

Firbodi

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@Coder

It's better to have access to a machine and crash it while developing and having to wait for it to be rebooted for you then not having access to a machine at all..

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How about having some program that constantly sends some bits to a parallel port all the time, then make a bit of hardware that looks for it and hard resets the machine if it stops for say, thirty seconds or more.

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- insert profound text here -

@Seer

it would be interesting to be able to chroot users in a dev env only.
so noone can access you datas, just the dev env..

i think it's a good idea, worth try this out.

maybe devs should directly post a request on a dedicated forum, then someone choose to help him by letting him access an A1.

1 dev --> 1 Aone,
so if problems occurs, there could be only 1 responsible ;)

@spotUP

Quote:

spotUP wrote: @Coder Yes... that one thing struck me too... Dunno how to solve that... hmm.. but I _WANT_ to solve it. It would be so sweet to have some machines available via the net.

I like your "can do" attitude. I also like your idea. I hope you can solve it.

_________________
Moxee
AmigaOne X1000
AmigaOne XE G4
I'd agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong.

@spotUP

Quote:

ere's no way of implementing a 'send reset signal' into amivnc? that would work in those cases when the crash wasn't hard enough to really nuke the system or the network?

You could have a second computer to serve as a hard reset method. If the migaOne is totally unresponsive then send a hard reset command to this second machine, which might have a parallel-port controlled relay on the AmigaOne's reset header. You'd have to have a router set up to pass VNC to the AmigaOne and whatever reset command to the second machine. The resent command could be a seperate entity from VNC.

Somethng like this could be useful to apps people in case something crashes hard enough to bork the network connection. It could be useful for some driver developers but less useful to other driver developers. (ie. is the VNC display what the graphics driver under development displays, or is the monitor not reponding, how do you tell if sound is working, and what do you do if you break the boot partition's IDE driver? How do you work on a flaky network driver?)

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@spotUP

There should be something done about the AmiVNC speed too.

Firbodi

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@spotUP

Interesting idea, I think Denil is the one to ask about a setup, since he has been connecting to his A1 via Internet occationally, so it's doable.
About the reboot, that should be doable with VNC setup to start automatically too.

Last edited by tomazkid on 10-Mar-2006 at 03:39 AM.

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@Frags

Quote:

How about having some program that constantly sends some bits to a parallel port all the time, then make a bit of hardware that looks for it and hard resets the machine if it stops for say, thirty seconds or more.

Another interesting possibility. But what if you are working on somethng that uses parallel port? Of course there's related questions liek how do you tell if your printer driver test worked or not and such things. Could work for apps developers though, so long as the machine doesn't partially crash and the heartbeat indicator to the hardware widget keeps working when network of VNC might be toast..

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Would it be possible to have something where the user held all data on their own machine. Then when they wanted to run a program it would send that program to a run pool where any number of available and idle Amiga Ones would run the program and send the result back to the user. Same thing with compile. So you wouldnt really have total access to the machine. However, you would be able to run a program to test your code or do compiles. Only you couldn´t go on someones computer and change preferences for instance.

That would make it secure enough where someone couldnt just play with your settings and such. Leaving your A1 just the way you left it. All data would be stored on the users computer.

I too do not use my A1 all day and since I am in the US, Euoropean users could use it while I was at work.

I would have to use a seperate hard drive or memory stick to boot from though. Just to keep my own stuff from getting messed with.

@spotUP

While the idea in general is a good one, there were some valid points raised which also
made me thinking...

1) Secure my own data & system
As long as AmigaOS doesn't have any reliable multiuser support, it's next to impossible
to prevent anyone to access any data he likes on the A1 (besides unplugging the HD
completely).
Of course one may write something to do something like a chroot for the logged in user,
so that he can't access anything other than he's allowed to. But thats also pointless as
this would be a developer, he could just write a tool which has complete access to
the system just by using some standard C functions (not even to speak about the AOS API).
You can't lock out a coder from your system as long as AOS doesn't has 100% multiuser
support which also implements access rights (API wise) based on the execution rights of
a program..
Of course you could encrypt all of your data and hope that the other one isn't a bored
3l1t3 h4xx0r, who brakes the encryption within seconds, but also that possibility isn't
given at the moment as no good and reliable - if any - encrypting filesystem exists for
OS4 (at least, i don't know any).

2) The reset issue
I'm running a telnet server on my A1 to login from work, if i have some minutes to spend
on coding.. i can write the stuff on my local machine, transfer it to the A1, compile and
execute it there... but if it totally freezes the system for some reason, i can't use the
reboot command anymore because of the not responding telnet server.
That's why some months ago i already had the very same idea already mentioned here
of a little watchdog box connected to the A1 (through parallel, serial, USB, whatever)
which is triggered with a periodical signal from within a commodity. If the machines
really freezes completely, the signal isn't send anymore and after time X the watchdog
box will trigger a hardreset through the mobo reset header. Unfortunately i'm only a
coder and no hardware wiz (not even a n00b), so i couldn't realise it..


There are of course still other points to consider, but those two are IMHO the most
important ones... I won't let any other guy on my A1 as long as these two aren't solved.
And no, i won't disconnect my own hds completely every time i leave my A1 alone
because also if i would spend the idle time of my A1 for other devs I also want to be
able to access my A1 and my data anytime i need.


What's the bottom line?
As nice your idea is, but as AmigaOS will definitely not get the required multiuser
support any time soon (if ever), it stays just that... a nice idea.

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AmigaOS4 development team member

"In the beginning was CAOS.."
-- Andy Finkel, 1988 (ViewPort article, Oct. 1993)

@yoodoo2

Quote:

Only problem was having to go back into the office if I caused a severe crash with my dodgy programming and couldn't reset the A1 over VNC.

With the following programm you can reboot the A1 via an Workbench requester:
http://www.os4depot.net/index.php?function=showfile&file=utility/workbench/os4reboot.lha

So the only thing to do is to start AmiVNC via User-Startup or an script in WBStartup

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@firbodi/spotUP

When my A1 crashes while running my program it can only be restarted by the on/off switch. But I think there are times when a keyboard signal works to reset it. But when the system does not accept any signals it will be stuck. Hmmm.

Coder

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@Coder

Did you know the PalmOS Handhelds? When PalmOS freezes it is doing a reset automatically after 10 secs... that would be an cool feature for OS4 ;)

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Ei gude wie!
I love my AMIGA Collection...
2x A500 (1x 1MB) OS1.3
1x A600 (40MB HDD) OS2.05 (broken joyport)
1x A1200 (68030/50, 32 MB Fast RAM) OS3.1
1x A4000D 040/40 (48 MB Fast), OS3.9, Fastlane Z3, CV64, Deneb, Indi AGA
1x CD³²
1x µAOn

@cHaOs667

I do have the XEIII (I think) but I did not know about that. That is indeed a cool thing. I have a iPAQ now.

Coder

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