[Xastir] Installing Xastir on Mint

[wa7skg]

Can't find anything out of place.

michael at Desk4:~$ ll /dev/ttyS0
crwxrwxrw- 1 root dialout 4, 64 Oct 24 12:42 /dev/ttyS0

michael at Desk4:~$ ll /usr/bin/minicom
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 200656 Aug 13  2017 /usr/bin/minicom*
michael at Desk4:~$

michael at Desk4:~$ ps -u
USER       PID %CPU %MEM    VSZ   RSS TTY      STAT START   TIME COMMAND
michael   3837 10.7  0.3 273252 24428 pts/1    Sl+  10:42  14:31 xastir

michael at Desk4:~$ id -a
uid=1001(michael) gid=1001(michael) 
groups=1001(michael),4(adm),20(dialout),24(cdrom),27(sudo),30(dip),46(plugdev),112(lpadmin),128(sambashare)
michael at Desk4:~$

I've tried various permissions with /dev/ttyS0 and only with world R/W 
will Xastir work.

Michael WA7SKG



Tom Russo wrote on 10/24/19 12:52 PM:
> On Thu, Oct 24, 2019 at 12:45:31PM -0700, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <wa7skg at wa7skg.com> flavor, containing:
>> I wondered about the chmod command. I have changed it back to its
>> previous setting. The user is me for both Xastir and minicom, and I
>> belong to the 'dialout' group. I would have thought that if minicom
>> could access the serial port, then Xastir should also.
>>
>> I agree that making it world readable/writeable is not a good plan,
>> however, that is what got it working. I would love to change that, I
>> just don't know what to change.
> 
> You being in the dialout group should have been all that was necessary.  That
> it wasn't enough is puzzling, especially since minicom works.  I, too, would
> have thought that if one worked the other should.
> 
> Figuring out why it is not working would require more in depth investigation
> with hands on the machine.
> 
> What are the permissions on /dev/ttyS0 normally?  Is it owned by user root
> and group dialout?  Was it previously read/write for both owner and group?
> 
> Does /usr/bin/minicom have any special permissions like
> "set gid" or something (an "s" where the "x" would normally be in ls -l)?
> 
>> Tom Russo wrote on 10/24/19 11:32 AM:
>>> On Thu, Oct 24, 2019 at 10:51:03AM -0700, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <wa7skg at wa7skg.com> flavor, containing:
>>>> Progress is definitely being made. Using the
>>>> https://xastir.org/index.php/HowTo:Debian_Stretch_or_Jessie went through
>>>> smoothly.
>>>>
>>>> My next problem was getting the interface to work. I could access my TNC
>>>> through minicom without difficulty, however Xastir could not access it.
>>>> I did the "chmod 4755 /usr/local/bin/xastir" I found recommended in
>>>> several places with no joy. Finally, in desperation, I did "chmod 777
>>>> /dev/ttyS0" and Xastir successfully connected to the TNC and I am
>>>> displaying data. That probably is not the best option, but it is all I
>>>> could get to work for now.
>>>
>>> The best bet is to add your user ID to whatever group owns the /dev/ttyS0
>>> device (probably "dialer" or something like that).
>>>
>>> Making the device world readable and writable is not the safest bet.
>>>
>>> Changing Xastir to 4755 only helps with accessing the AX.25 kernel networking
>>> stuff and wouldn't help with accessing regular serial ports.  If you're testing
>>> your tnc in minicom you're probably not using AX.25.
>>>
>>> In fact, making Xastir "suid root" is also not the safest approach,
>>> although Xastir is pretty careful do drop its permissions except when it needs
>>> them.  But that's another story (some distros actually handle this in their
>>> xastir and ax25 packages by having an ax25 group that has permission to access
>>> the ax25 interfaces, and making Xastir sgid to that group.  Again, that's
>>> another story).
>>>    
>>>> Tom Russo wrote on 10/24/19 8:15 AM:
>>>>> On Thu, Oct 24, 2019 at 08:59:41AM -0600, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <russo at bogodyn.org> flavor, containing:
>>>>>> On Thu, Oct 24, 2019 at 08:57:17AM -0600, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <russo at bogodyn.org> flavor, containing:
>>>>>>>> Can somebody please point me in the right direction for current
>>>>>>>> information on installing Xastir on a Mint system?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Generally speaking, if you look at something like the Ubuntu instructions
>>>>>>> and try to find packages with the same base name as the ones listed (modulo
>>>>>>> version numbers which are very likely outdated), you should be on the right
>>>>>>> path.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Jason's suggestion of looking at Debian's instructions is a good one, since
>>>>>> Mint is a Debian variant.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Ignore all reference to GDAL.  Xastir no longer uses it and that section of
>>>>>> that wiki guide didn't get updated.
>>>>>
>>>>> Well, it is now.  Just went through this one page and cleaned it up.  I also
>>>>> removed a bunch of links to OS versions that are ridiculously old (2009 and
>>>>> thereabouts) and even one that appears no longer to exist (mepis).
>>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Xastir mailing list
>>>> Xastir at lists.xastir.org
>>>> http://xastir.org/mailman/listinfo/xastir
>>>
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