Tag Archives: rcS

How to recover ssh access to your pogoplug when hbmgr.sh has been removed from startup

Recently, I was tinkering with my pogoplug running openpogo and decided to comment out the hbmgr.sh line in my rcS startup file. I soon learned that  hbmgr.sh is responsible for starting dropbear and connecting your pogoplug to the my.pogoplug.com service. Because telnet was disabled and dropbear was not starting, I realized I no longer had SSH access to my pogoplug, although I could see my programs like transmission and asterisk were starting up ok.

I freaked out for a moment as I believed there was no way to recover ssh access…until I thought about it some more. Below are the steps to recover SSH access to your pogoplug running openpogo if you somehow disabled hbmgr.sh on startup:

This procedure will work with pogoplugs running openpogo, not sure if it will work for units NOT running openpogo since openpogo searches the opt/etc/init.d directory on startup to start any other scripts on boot.

PREP:
-power off the pogoplug
-download a linux live distro. Any modern live distro will do, knoppix, slitaz, ubuntu, etc.
-burn distro to cd
-boot off linux live cd
-plug in HD from pogoplug into the computer now running linux

ACCESS the HD:

-mount hard drive (you might have to open up gparted to see what device your HD is coming up as)
-start terminal
-access your hd mount
-do an ls -a (this command shows hidden files on the directory you are in. If you do not use the -a command, you will only see the directories you shared out through pogoplug).
-go into the /.opt/etc/init.d directory
-nano or vi a new file called S70ssh with ROOT permissions (otherwise you will not be able to write the file)

Enter in this line in the new file:

/etc/init.d/hbmgr.sh start

-save and exit
-chmod 777 the S70ssh file for good measure

FINISHING:
-Power down the linux system
-Plug the HD back into the Pogoplug and power cycle the unit.

After the unit restarts, the script should have run and started hbmgr.sh. Remember to delete the script S70ssh and make sure the /etc/init.d/hbmgr.sh start line is enabled or entered back into the rcS startup file.