Extensions not working?

[jgreenburg]

Hello, I am new to the Tiny Core Linux distro.  I have used several other distros for setting up servers but Tiny Core really attracts me because of it's extremely low system requirements and ease of use.  I have played around with the distro for awhile now but I cannot get one very important feature to work, the extensions.   I have setup the distro and done a frugal install to the hdd under physical boxes and vm's under virtual box, vmware, and xenserver.  But each time I have issues with the extensions. 

After I get past the point where my TCL machine is booting up, I go to load an extension.  I am able to use the extension browser to find the extensions I want and I set them to "on boot" and press go.  It does it's seemingly normal routine of downloading the extension and gets to the point where it appears to be done.  But no matter what extension I load, even after a reboot.  They do not appear to be functional.  I have tried nginx and openssh for example.  I load these particular extensions but I am not able to communicate with the server.  I am not familiar enough with TCL to determine if the service is running for either one but I know if I do a port scan on the IP, neither port 80 or port 22 are open.  I checked to see if it was a firewall issue but from what I read by default iptables is turned off.

I was able to load nano as an extension and use nano from the terminal afterwards so I believe the extensions in general are working.  Is there some extra configuration I have to do to get nginx or openssh running?  Are services by default listening on the eth0 interface?
It seems like all network based services aren't working out of the box for me, is there a simple fix someone can point out?  I dont mind calling myself an idiot

[gerald_clark]

You need to read the info file for the extension.
Each server should have a startup script in /usr/local/etc/init.d.
These startup scripts need to be run.

You will have to modify /opt/bootlocal.sh and add a call to the startup scripts for the servers or use the services button on cpanel.
Then you will need to add the config files to /opt/.filetool.lst.
Then you need to do a backup to save the modified opt files and the config files.

[jgreenburg]

Thanks, I didn't know where the init.d was located at.  I was able to open up the openssh script and find that it calls for a config file that doesn't exist , I fixed that issue, started the service, and now everything is good. 
I looked at nginx and it looks like it only has binaries packaged.  I still need to hunt them down but once I find them I should be able to write the script for that as well.  Thanks for your help!

[maro]

Furthermore I trust you are aware of what you'll need to undertake to have servers (e.g. OpenSSH listening on port 22) running in a VM to be accessible from the host. You'll either have to choose a suitable networking mode (depending on the VM) or use port forwarding. This is a generic problem for which each VM might provide different options. Please check out the guides of whichever VM you are using for the relevant information (unless you know that stuff already).

[jgreenburg]

Yes, I have worked with sun/oracle virtualbox, XenServer and ESXi for years.  I know that portion, and a majority of linux.  I'm just learning the differences between tinycore/microcore and my ordinary Debian or CentOs distros.

I was able to get ssh and nginx working after skimming through the scrips and seeing that files were missing or calling for conf files that only had examples present instead.  I have a service script under init.d made up for nginx and I'll just need to update the filetool.lst and save change to the FS(which I'll have to find under the wiki how to do that again). 

Is there any reason these extensions do not work outside of the box?
would it be ok if I repackaged these extensions as an OOB(out of box) edition so there isn't so much work to get TCL provisioned and in production?

[curaga]

Starting a service by default that requires configuration is just wrong, IMHO. If the user has not done that, it's either errors, or unsuitable default config. Maybe you want to run several different instances instead of one. Maybe you need to pass command-line arguments to the daemon. Etc...

Deploying custom extensions is certainly OK, but we wouldn't accept such in the repo.

[Rich]

Hi jgreenburg

calling for conf files that only had examples present instead.

Is there any reason these extensions do not work outside of the box?

I can think of a couple. For some extensions it may be that there are too many variables such as
differing hardware or environments to provide a "one size fits all" or even a "one size fits most"
solution. For others (ssh for example), it could be because the end user should tailor them to properly
address any security issues that may be present in their environment. As a result, sometimes sample
conf files are provided as a starting point.

would it be ok if I repackaged these extensions as an OOB(out of box) edition so there isn't so much work to get TCL provisioned and in production?

If you wish to modify extensions for personal use, here is a brief writeup that may help:
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,12212.msg65911.html#msg65911
If you feel you have generic modifications that might be beneficial, contact the maintainer and confer
with them.