LeapFrog Pollux Platform: Networking

Summary
This tutorial shows the basics steps to configure a network connection between a host PC and your LeapFrog Pollux Platform device. The LeapPad_Explorer and Leapster_Explorer both come with everything you need for networking, minus a few host PC configuration steps, while the Didj requires a more involved process Enable Didj Networking.

Prerequisites
For the Didj you'll need to Enable Networking

Hardware Needed
Console Access

Temporary Device Setup
This is the easiest way to get networking up and working quickly. But all configuration will be lost once the device is rebooted or turned off.

Set the devices IP address.  On Device  ifconfig usb0 10.0.0.2 netmask 255.255.255.0

Once the host is also configured you can test connectivity by running.. ping 10.0.0.1 You should see ping return the packet times.

Static IP on Avahi Systems
For the Leapster Explorer and LeapPad Explorer you may want to disable the random IP. They use a DHCP type system called Avahi. This will force it to a static IP address, which will make it much easier if you use networking on your device a lot.

You can start the explorer and have it default to a static IP address by simply holding down the brightness button at boot time. Simply edit /etc/init.d/networking, look for any place there is an IP address and replace it with yours, you should also change the bit after the slash to set your netmask), edit lines 32 and 41:

ifconfig usb0 192.168.0.111/24

and make them look like this:

ifconfig usb0 10.0.0.2 netmask 255.255.255.0

Now plug in a mini usb cable and Reboot and as soon as you see: Emerald Base: Starting /etc/init.d/networking ... Emerald Base: /etc/init.d/networking: Holding brightness: forcing static IP

on the console then it is safe to let go.

You can make this permanent so that you don't have to hold down brightness by removing the avahi flag:

rm /flags/avahi

now reboot and you will get your static IP address assigned

Configure Host
For the host PC you'll need to know which interface it is using, after connecting and turning on your device, you can run dmesg, it should be something like usb0, eth1, eth2, etc. This will depend on your particular host PC's netorking set up, in this example I use usb0.

Temporary Host Setup
Like the temporary device set up, once it is rebooted, turned off, or unplugged, you will lose your settings.

 Linux   On Host  ifconfig 10.0.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0

Once the device is also configured you can test connectivity by running. ping 10.0.0.2

You should see ping return the packet times.

Using Local-link
I'm using ubuntu 10.04, it has a automatic configuration, I've set mine so that auto usb0 has the ipv4, method setting of 'local-link only' and in auto eth2 I have hardcoded the ip address to 10.0.0.1, netmask 255.255.255.0, gateway of 0.0.0.0

Route or Bridging Configuration
The Internet Access tutorial also provides some methods of permanent host configuration. If you don't need access to the internet, you can leave out configuring the nameservers.

On Windows
For the Leapster Exporer and LeapPad Explorer on Windows, it is a bit different. Unfortunately at this time, The networking in Didj does not work with Windows. This requires LFConnect to be installed, as it uses its USB Ether Gadget driver. But it does not need to be running.

'' If you let LFConnect start up, it will handle assigning the IP addresses, and you will only need to know the IP of the device itself. ''

First we need to find the device's IP, which can change change from time to time. Plug in the USB and turn on your device. You'll need to wait for it to time out trying to connect, it should pop up a warning about bad connectivity:

 On Device  ... ... usb0:avah Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 80:38:FD:03:16:0C inet addr:169.254.3.208 Bcast:169.254.255.255  Mask:255.255.0.0 UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500  Metric:1
 * 1) ifconfig

You're looking for the bottom row of information, the inet addr:169.254.3.208 part.

We also need to know the IP of the host PC's interface:

 On Host  C:\>ipconfig /all ... ... Description    Leapfrog USB LAN Adapter ... ... IP Address    169.254.216.66 ... ...

That is the IP address you need to know, there will be a lot more info, but just look for the Leapfrog entry, and the Autoconfiguration IP.

Now to create the route.

 On Host  C:\>route.exe ADD 169.254.3.208 169.254.216.66

You can then ping your device to check the connection.