Monday, March 22, 2010

HP16500C Logic Analyzer X-client connection

Once I had ftp up and running I decided to move the display from the analyzer to my PC. So, I needed a suitable X-windows server to run on my PC. I tried many, with little success. I finally settled on Xming (free version for sourceforge)... The first problem was that I got "Xlib: connection to ..... refused by server" errors on the 16500C... I figured it had something to do with authentication - and found that using Xlaunch I could check the box that says "No Access Control"... Now it would connect but the 16500C would crash with:

"SOFTWARE ERROR - Please record these numbers 0008 00001D5E 000C"

Requiring me to turn off the 16500C to reboot.

I did get a display on the PC, but the text was in the wrong place and missing...

Google (and the HP manual) told me I needed to install the special fonts provided on the 16500C (and ftp-able to my PC) to the X-server...

Of course the fonts provided have to be formatted properly for modern X-servers - something you can do on a Linux machine, or by installing Cygwin... (I went with Cygwin), once they are configured correctly (as lg165.pcf.gz and sm165.pcf.gz) you have to create a directory for them, and a fonts.dir file (something XmingNotes on fonts will tell you how to do...).

Save yourself this work and download the necessary files from:

http://cid-0038d26020c74e81.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/16500C?authkey=!UO0VD8g9Tw%24

Put them in a directory of your choice (I chose C:\fonts\16500C).

 
 You will also have to edit the file font-dirs in C:\Program Files\Xming to look something like:

# font-dirs

# comma-separated list of directories to add to the default font path

# defaults are built-ins, misc, TTF, Type1, 75dpi, 100dpi

# also allows entries on individual lines
C:\fonts\HP16500C

C:\Program Files\Xming\fonts\dejavu,C:\Program Files\Xming\fonts\cyrillic

C:\WINDOWS\Fonts


 Note that you have to run Notepad.exe (or your other favorite text editor) as Administrator to do this in Windows 7 (or Vista).

Now re-start Xming (remember to disable authentication), and see you 16500C screen on your PC!

HP16500C Logic Analyzer ftp connections

So these days you can get a logic analyzer pretty cheap (on eBay) - especially if you keep looking and wait for something listed at auction - I paid $232 (incl. tax and shipping) for mine with 3x16555D LA modules and one 16522A vector generator, but no pods.

There are various versions on the HP16500 series (A/B/C) but no reason to not go for the top of the line - 16500C - it has an HDD, PS2 ports for keyboard and mouse, and Twisted Pair (CAT5) ethernet interface.

The network interface allows connection to the analyzer using ftp or NFS, and a connection to your PC X-server to use as a display.  Of course setting any of these up is non-trivial, so here is how I Fixed It...

First - ftp - there are many ftp clients that will connect - but some are more difficult to get to work than others. I wanted to back up the HDD and replace it with a more reliable CompactFlash card, so I needed to transfer the entire file structure. The FileZilla client was my choice, and connecting to control@192.168.0.165 (the IP address I had assigned to the analyzer) gave me a directory listing of the HDD. I set up a folder on the PC called 16500C and dragged the four folders (slot_c, slot_e, status and system) to the 16500C folder on the PC.

Didn't work very well - timeouts and aborted transfer in the queue galore. Google hinted that the 16500C only supports one connection at a time - and with the directory listing open there were no more connections available to do the transfer, hence the timeouts...

Simple fix - disconnect (using the red X in the button bar) from the currently visible server, the queued transfers will complete nicely (except for the one user config file that had a bad block on the HDD).

Once you find a CompactFlash that works restoring the files you want is just as easy - drag, drop and disconnect!

Finding a suitable CompactFlash may not be easy so far I know that 1GB SanDisk Ultra fails, and so do 1GB, 4GB and 8GB Lexar cards and 4GB Kingston. I have a 32MB Smart Modular card working, and looking at some 256MB cards from STEC. Please comment on what you get to work if you do this!

Windows 7 and network shares on W2K (Windows 2000)

So, I have an old Windows 2000 machine, it works, and I don't want to replace it.
The data it manages I share on the network through a normal shared folder.

No problems until Windows 7... Suddenly I can't access the share - invalid username/password is the error. It worked this morning but now it doesn't and nothing has changed...

Google informs me that the authentication used by Windows 7 now requires NTLMV2 and proceeds to tell me how to configure W7 to accept NTLM - except I have "Home Premium" on this machine and can't edit security policies (I thought I just couldn't use remote desktop connection to the machine, but we learn something new every day)...

There is, however, a registry key that can be changed or created:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CURRENTCONTROLSET\CONTROL\LSA]
"LMCOMPATIBILITYLEVEL"=DWORD:00000001

Create (as I did) this key and give it a value of 1

Or, if it is already there, change the value to 1

The values defined for this key are:

Level 0 - Send LM response and NTLM response; never use NTLMv2
Level 1 - Use NTLMv2 session security if negotiated
Level 2 - Send NTLM response only
Level 3 - Send NTLMv2 response only
Level 4 - DC refuses LM responses
Level 5 - DC refuses LM and NTLM responses (accepts only NTLMv2)

Thanks to http://www.governmentsecurity.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=6526

for this info