Run Command line Programs on the QSB from a PC?

[RodneyFulk]

I am sorry if this is a simple question. I ordered a QSB 2 days ago and I should have it in a day or so and I am new to this type of hardware. 

What I want to do is connect to this board with my laptop and from my laptop run programs on the QSB preferably from a command line and receive the results from the command without using the LAN port. Some of the programs running on the QSB will be using the LAN port so I can not use that port to connect to the laptop.

Something as simple as getting a directory listing from the QSB remotely using the laptop would be a good start. 

Eventually the intent is to use my laptop to control from 4-10 QSB. Each QSB will have its own program to run and may not return the results immediately. When I get my QSB this is one of the items I want to try getting to work. I can not go into details about this at this time due to the nature of what I will be doing. I am a Digital Media Software Engineering Student and I am looking to build a special setup for a project I am working on for school.  

Thank you!

[RodneyFulk]

H R@ Arduino is far from powerful enough.. I may end up with i.MX 6 processors with this application. Although I am impressed so far at how fast this i.MX53 board is. And wireless is not an option.

[KrishnaPavan]

@Rodney Fulk :: Use Arduino & Zigbee. As Simple as it is.

[RodneyFulk]

With the example I used the Laptop would be used as a bridge between the Internet and the internal network in a way but they never would be physically connected. With my daytime job we use something like this. We have a process network around the plant and then we have the internet network. They never connect but there is a computer that pulls information from the process network and provides that information to the internet so it can be used to produce reports and such. Because the bridging computer is using the LAN ports on both sides it would be possible for a hacker to "break through" the bridge and get to the internal network. In my actual application the laptop will not be hooked to a network and will use the i.MX processors as an isolation device. By using a USB or Serial connection there never is a link between LAN ports making it much harder for a hacker to get through to the laptop. Well anyhow I should have my QSB on Thursday and then I will begin playing with it. Thanks for the help so far.

Sounds like it should be simple to get this running.

[RandyKrakora]

It should work well either way, but you would need a lot of USB->Serial adapters for all the QSBs.

You mentioned you cannot connect the QSB ethernet to the laptop, but then in your example you say that's how they will send their data to the laptop...not trying to split hairs, but if it were up to me, I'd start with connecting via ethernet to all the QSBs and using ssh to run programs and scp to collect results from the QSBs or have them ftp results to the laptop. Something like that, there's lots of options with ethernet. You can always isolate the QSB network from the internet at the laptop ( dual ethernet dongles or something ).

But either way, if you run into issues or have questions, keep posting! :)

[RodneyFulk]

Thanks Jorge, that may be my best bet. With one QSB that will be easy but when I am doing 4 or 5 of them I am not sure how well this will work out. My laptop does not have serial ports so I will have to use a USB-Serial conversion cable. Will the  USB OTG port work the same way?

I will likely use a USB hub to make multiple connections when I have more than 1.

Randy,

Due to the nature of the application I need to be able to remotely run applications on the QSB from the Laptop. The main purpose is to insulate the Laptop from the Network so the further I move from the LAN port the better off I am. I was thinking maybe the JTAG would do what I want but I have not actually messed with this before but I see videos where people are doing this commonly but I am unsure how they are doing it. The programs I am running are Linux based so I will definitely be using one of the ubuntu setups.

As a practical example of the sort of thing I want to be able to do:

Lets say I have a QSB that has a series of programs on it to run laboratory tests. The QSB will automatically send this information to a server or other computer on the network connected to the internal LAN that it is on. Eventually I could have 5 or 6 different QSB each hooked up to different processes. The laptop then would actually control each of these QSB via special software and run the programs on each to perform the processes they need to do at the time they need to do it. The laptop would then also log whatever results happen from each QSB. The laptop might be hooked to the internet and be able to provide the end results to a web page. the QSB's would be on the mentioned internal network and the Laptop on the internet with neither network connected to the other to prevent hackers from having any sort of direct connection to the internal network. This is NOT my application but is an example of the sort of thing I can accomplish with this.

Reason why I can't explain my application is because it is new technology I am tinkering with and if I get it to work I plan to patent the idea but need to figure out if it will work before I do so.

[RandyKrakora]

Do the boards come with an Ubuntu uSD? If so, just connect a keyboard, mouse and VGA monitor to the QSB and you can do whatever you want. You could also connect a USB->ethernet dongle to get an extra LAN port and use ssh to connect to the QSB, if you really don't want to share it with the other one that your programs will use. Lots of options here...

[JorgeRama_rezRi]

Hi Rodney,

The simplest way is to use connector J16 in the QSB to communicate with the serial port in your computer (COMx), using they Hyper Terminal or a similar program. Our drivers already have the UART port available for this purpose.

Best regards.

Jorge.