I need to add new functionality to a chinese Linux-based time attendance clock. More specifically I need to make It SNMP capable, which is not available by factory default. After some research I found a login:password which worked for the TelNet login and managed to get inside the system with root privileges.
The first thing I did was to figure out which Linux distro was It running: cat /etc/issue throws this:
"PXA Linux Preview Kit Kernel 2.6.29 on armv5tejl"
I did a quick google search and found that "PXA Linux is a port of the Linux kernel for PXA based processor based devices and machines." I dont understand why It's running a PXA Linux Preview Kit on an armv5tejl. I gave no importance to this fact, and got to the next step: finding which package manager has this system:
I tried several commands: apt-get, aptitude, rpm, dpkg, yum, slapt-get, ipkg, and several others. None of them worked.
I found that the system had Busybox installed. More specifically BusyBox 1.15.3. In this BusyBox I couldnt find any of those commands. I found that BusyBox does implement rpm and dpkg but this version doesnt have them. The only command which seems to be "software installation related" I found was the command "install". From BusyBox docs:
"install [-cdDsp] [-o USER] [-g GRP] [-m MODE] [source] dest|directory
Copy files and set attributes"
But probably it doesnt replace the package manager tool. I think that I need to get a way to install dpkg or rpm, and then use them to install the SNMP packages I want. As I read, the lowest level package installation tool is dpkg so I don't have a clue on where to begin.
Can someone give me some advice on how to approach this issue? How can I install a package with no package manager possiblities at all?
You won't be able to install additional software to that system via a package manager. Such devices aren't designed like that. The firmware that was shipped with the device is all there is. What would be the incentive of the device manufacturer to maintain a package repository with general purpose linux software?
But not all hope is lost. You can of course try to compile the needed software yourself (and by that extend the firmware). For that to work you will need a suitable ARM cross compiler (GCC). Via static linking your SNMP package won't have any dependencies to the library versions already on the device (so you don't need a sysroot matching the libraries on the device).