SSH Service Won't Start

[grittyminder]

Greetings!

I just got a GuruPlug and was fiddling around with it for the first time today. The first thing I set out to do was disable the Wifi, Bluetooth, the DNS service, the DHCP service, and IP forwarding by commenting out most of the stuff in /root/init_setup.sh. Next, I tried to set a static IP, but upon reboot the static IP address information was ignored and DHCP took over. While I was searching the net for a way to configure a static IP (which is how I found this forum) I decided to disable SSH access for root. This is where the trouble started. After rebooting I found that I was unable to SSH into the box. Ping returned fine. A quick port scan of the box revealed that port 22 was closed (other ports, such as FTP and HTTP were open), which means that the SSH service is not starting up, or cannot start up. I don't think that I made a mistake in the SSH server config. It is possible that due to some weird interplay between the SSH server service and the weird static/dynamic IP problem the SSH server service was unable to start up. I don't know--is there some sort of known issue related to this?

Anyhow, I need a way to access the box. I don't have a JTAG board and would prefer not to order one because I live overseas and globalscaletechnologies charges an arm and a leg for international shipping. Besides, shipping takes forever--I want to fix this problem now!  :p

Does anybody have any ideas?

[PacoLM]

apt-get install ssh

[Confusticated]

Have you tried to FTP in as the user you created to replace the root SHH login ?
It is highly unlikely you will be able to FTP in as root, it is normally blocked by default.

Otherwise serial console looks like your only option.
You don't have to buy a JTAG, google for a 3v3 Serial to USB adapter, most commonly used on mobile phones, I bought one on ebay for 5 Euros.
The issue I have is trying to source a plug to fit the guruplug UART port, I gave up and stuffed the stripped wires into the socket.

[grittyminder]

> Have you tried to FTP in as the user you created to replace the root SHH login ?
> It is highly unlikely you will be able to FTP in as root, it is normally blocked by default.

Actually, I did! I neglected to mention that I created a non-root user account for myself to use prior to the SSH troubles. So I tried FTP-ing into the box with my non-root account, but I couldn't read the init_setup.sh file due to insufficient permissions. (I gave the non-root account sudo root permissions--I don't suppose that there isn't a way to activate sudo from an FTP prompt, is there? :p ).

> Otherwise serial console looks like your only option.
>You don't have to buy a JTAG, google for a 3v3 Serial to USB adapter, most commonly used on mobile phones, I bought one on ebay for
> 5 Euros. The issue I have is trying to source a plug to fit the guruplug UART port, I gave up and stuffed the stripped wires into the socket.

Thanks for the advice. I like the 3v3 Serial to USB adapter idea. So you say that I just need to strip the wires on the non-USB side and just stuff them into UART port on the box?

[Confusticated]

Once you are in via FTP, you need to be a bit of a Hacker to find a weakness to exploit.
The FTP is pretty open by default, you can go anywhere and copy files back and forth with
the only restriction being the file system permissions.

See if you can modify anything run at system boot, via crontab (your own as well as the system one), or executed via the web interface to act as a script launcher.
If you find something write a small script that will make the changes you require and FTP it across.

So you say that I just need to strip the wires on the non-USB side and just stuff them into UART port

That is what I did, checking everything three times to make sure nothing was shorting out and that I had the connections round the right way before
connecting the USB lead to my PC and powering up the plug. Get it wrong and likely say goodbye forever......this is a 'last resort' or 'adrenalin' hack