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RokuKevin's avatar
RokuKevin
Visitor
16 years ago

Enabling tcpdump on the Roku box

There is an undocumented feature that Roku developers have found useful in debugging some issues. In today's world of switched hubs that lack a promiscuous mode, having tcpdump on the Roku box may enable some of you to more easily get a packet trace to aid debugging.

To enable tcpdump packet traces on the Roku box, enter the remote code:
Home 5x, FF 3x, Rewind 2x

This brings you to a "secret" screen, where you can select:
"enable debug logging"

tcpdump is now enabled on the box. It creates a circular log of packet traces that can be accessed at http://<ipaddrOfDvp>/pkgs/ in log0,log1, log2,log3 that can be filled circularly.

Once the log is downloaded to your host, you can view it in your favorite tcpdump viewer (mine's wireshark: http://www.wireshark.org/)

--Kevin
Roku Developer Program

6 Replies

  • bcl's avatar
    bcl
    Channel Surfer
    16 years ago
    Awesome!

    Do you think you could start a Hints thread with all these great tidbits and tack it at the top of the developer forum so they don't get lost and are easy for new developers to find?
  • EnTerr's avatar
    EnTerr
    Roku Guru
    10 years ago
    Has this been disabled/retired ?
    I think was showing in 2015 but not now when i tried
  • belltown's avatar
    belltown
    Roku Guru
    10 years ago
    "EnTerr" wrote:
    Has this been disabled/retired ?
    I think was showing in 2015 but not now when i tried

    It seems to have disappeared. It wasn't much use anyway. The dumps it captured truncated most of the data. If you were lucky you could see part of the HTTP headers, but not much else.

    I've had more luck setting up an ad-hoc wifi network on my laptop, and connecting my Roku to that network. That allows me to monitor all communication between the Roku and my network.
    • Nicklee's avatar
      Nicklee
      Newbie
      2 years ago

      I'm in that secret menu right now and it's only saying factory reset USB test update software cycle software update server cycle channel store server but there is another code that asks you if you want to turn on pyh or phy and when you click on it it wasn't it won't let you enable it and then right below it it says dump kernels and something else what's that all about

      • Nicklee's avatar
        Nicklee
        Newbie
        2 years ago

        So I was putting in the code to go back to the colonel dump page which is the platform screen and I hit a new code and it brought me to a screen I've never seen before it's another TV secret screen and it was home five times rewind pause fast forward pause rewind pause fast forward

  • renojim's avatar
    renojim
    Community Streaming Expert
    10 years ago
    I think it was removed in 6.x. If not 6.x then 7.0. I've used the ad-hoc wireless network approach in the past, but I now have a router running OpenWRT that allows me to do all kinds of useful stuff.

    -JT