The post is written for other Pogoplug users that want to set up rsync and get a general idea of how to add features to the Pogoplugs.

Some Assumptions and a Word of Warning

There is a LOT of assumed knowledge. For example, I am assuming your Pogoplug is activated and you can get to the web interface. A knowledge of editing text files in Linux will be required at some point. Sometimes I am going to explain far more than you (as the reader) may find necessary. Or maybe less than you’d like. Just skip any "well duh" sections you come across. On the other hand, I will not explain EVERY possible way to do something. To be blunt, if you are unable to follow these instructions with some help from Google you may want to think twice about doing this.

Login with SSH Access

 Enable SSH on your device and connect to it. For Windows users, try downloading PuTTY.

USB Device Names on the Pogoplug

For the purposes of this document, I'm going to suggest (and assume) that you'll ONLY plug in the USB flash drive for the install. Don't use other drives while you set this all up.

The USB drives on the Pogoplug are labeled sd?1 where ? is alphabetical (sda1, sdb1, sdc1…), depending on discovery order. For the purposes of this document, I'm going to suggest (and assume) that you'll ONLY plug in the USB flash drive for the install of Optware, rsync, whatever.

Don't use other drives while you set this all up. When we’re all done, I’ll help you locate and mount the dedicated to Optware.

For the sake of easy identification, we'll use the front port for our software installation (Optware).

Insert an empty USB drive into the front of the Pogoplug. It can be small, but I would recommend you use a USB 2.0 drive. Everything on this drive will be erased, and you'll be leaving it in the Pogoplug, so make sure it is a drive you can spare.

Dedicating a USB Stick for Optware

I am going to assume you want to run the Optware and other additions on a USB stick. I recommend this because, in theory, there will be less wear-and-tear on the Pogoplug's internal flash memory.

For reference, you can read this Pogoplug article about “How to Partition and Format a USB Drive” for help.

Mounting the USB Flash Drive As /opt

After your format the USB flash drive, it can be accessed at “/dev/sda1”. Because we’re installing Optware, we’ll attach it (that is, mount it) at the folder “/opt”. Normally the Pogoplug’s internal flash memory is read-only, so we cannot create files or folders. So we’ll make the Pogoplug internal memory available for both read and write and then create our folder.

• mount -o rw,remount /
• cd /mkdir optmount /dev/sda1 /opt
• mount / -o remount,ro

Installing Optware on the USB Flash

For this section, you can get general instructions for installing Optware on Pogoplugs at NSLU2-Linux by OddballHero. I am going to change things a little to install Optware directly on the USB flash drive. We’ll install the ipkg manager, then Optware, and finally rsync.

First, you need to find the current ipkg manager by visiting this web site:

http://ipkg.nslu2-linux.org/feeds/optware/cs08q1armel/cross/stable/

On that web page, look for the line that begins with “ipkg-opt”. The file name will look like “ipkg-opt_0.99.163-10_arm.ipk” (current as of September 2011). Make a note of this file name. We’ll download the file (with wget) to the /tmp folder and get things installed. Modify the “wget” and “tar” commands I give below with the current “ipkg-opt_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_arm.ipk” file name.

• cd /tmp
• wget http://ipkg.nslu2-linux.org/feeds/optware/cs08q1armel/cross/stable/ipkg-opt_0... xvzf ipkg-opt_0.99.163-10_arm.ipk

The tar command will extract three files, including data.tar.gz. We’ll extract the files we want directly to the USB flash drive we mounted to /opt earlier.

• cd /
• tar xvzf /tmp/data.tar.gz

Now you have Optware on your USB flash drive, living in the /opt directory, which is the USB flash drive. Next we’ll tell the ipkg manager to get packages from nslu2-linux.org. The following command is all on one line:

• echo 'src cross http://ipkg.nslu2-linux.org/feeds/optware/cs08q1armel/cross/stable' >> /opt/etc/ipkg.conf

(If you know your way around *NIX, you can just edit /opt/etc/ipkg.conf and add the line as well.)

Update ipkg Manager

To make it easier to type commands, let’s add the new Optware commands to our environment with the PATH variable and then update ipkg.

• PATH=$PATH:/opt/bin:opt/sbinipkg update

Installing Nano (Optional)

 The rest of these instructions requires editing text files in the Pogoplug. From here, I’ll tell you what lines to insert into text files, or give you examples of the text files, but I cannot tell you which buttons to press. I am going to suggest that you do a Google search for “nano editor” and do some reading, and visit Nano’s site at http://www.nano-editor.org/. Otherwise, figure out how to use “vi” which is already available to you.

To install Nano, type

• ipkg install nano

To edit a file named textfile.conf with Nano, type

• nano textfile.conf

Installing Rsync

Finally, we can install rsync. We’ll use the ipkg manager to get it installed. You can read up on configuring rsync at http://www.samba.org/ftp/rsync/rsyncd.conf.html but I will give you a very basic, but not secure, set up of rsync.

• ipkg install rsync

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