sgcop - the ipcop porting for Toshiba SGxx Magnia series

SGCop is the IPCop porting for the Toshiba SGxx Magnia computers. When I planned my LAN at home i was looking for an embedded SOHO firewall/router for Internet ADSL sharing. Buying a Toshiba SG30 Magna on ebay was the best choice for me but the Magnia's operative system is far to have the "security" i have in mind so i've decided to install IPCop instead. Installing IPCop on SG30 is hard due to lack of a graphic interface and CD-ROM and besides it's desined for old-computers deployment. This porting is 100% IPCop compatible. On this table you will find the main differences:

Diff.	IPCop	SGCop
CFLAGS	-O2 -mcpu=i386 -march=i386 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer	-O2 -mcpu=i686 -march=pentium3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer
Serial Console	No	Yes
LCD support	No	Yes
Install from Pendrive	No	Yes

Installation:
You can install SGCop in several ways.

1. You can put the SGxx HD on another pc and make an install like IPCop does.
2. You can temporary add a CD-ROM and/or a graphic card on the SGxx and make an install like IPCop does.
3. You can use 'syslinux' to make a pendrive bootable from the sgcop ISO and use the serial console from the SGxx.

Install from usb:
First of all you need a serial connection to the SGxx (ex: Windows Hyper Terminal) and a Pendrive with 64MB free.

During SGxx boot enter the BIOS and change the "boot sequence" then select usb device instead of IDE hard disk.

To make the pendrive bootable you need to run some commands in your linux box.

Use cfdisk to make a new partition on the pendrive:

cfdisk /dev/sda

Select only "ext3" or "vfat" file system type only.

mkfs.msdos /dev/sda1

Now mount the pendrive and the iso image:

mkdir /mnt/usb mkdir /mnt/iso
mount -o loop sgcop-1.4.10.i686.iso /mnt/iso
mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/usb

Copy the content of the iso image to the pendrive:

cp -ra /mnt/iso/* /mnt/usb

The -r argument specifies a recursive copy including every directory, and the -a preserves as much as possible the structure of the data in the USB. Now you need to copy some files in the folder /boot/isolinux of the mounted pendrive to the root of the pendrive so you can boot from it:

cd /mnt/usb/boot/isolinux
cp vmlinuz /mnt/usb/
cp isntroot.gz /mnt/usb/
cp isolinux.cfg /mnt/usb/syslinux.cfg

finally make the pendrive bootable with the following command:

syslinux -s /dev/usb

If everything was right you can now plug the pendrive in the SGxx and boot.

Installation notes:
If you're running the installation from a serial console beware because you can't redirect on /dev/ttyX (you can't manage virtual consoles)
If you don't need a detailed output during installation use the command "install /dev/null"

If you are running the install from floppy and you want to use a SCSI device remember this: you "must" use a 2.88 MB compatible floppy.

IPCop compatibility:
You can use any add-in/modification made for IPCop but remember that IPCop is compiled to run on a generic "i386".

SGCop theme:
SGCop replaces the original IPCop's theme.
Thanks to Mariane for his "elegant 2005 IPCop theme."
If you want to contact the author email to: schneider.mariane@gmx.de

Downloads:

sgcop-install-1.4.10.i686.iso
sgcop-sources.1.4.10.tar.bz2
md5sum.txt