3. More Setup

Unlike many devices that provide a web interface for initial setup, the Kuro Box takes a bit of a different approach. Curiously, the initial setup for the box is accomplished via a Windows executable that appears to run best in Windows 98 and below! Fortunately, I had an old Windows box on my network that I could use, but other users in the Kuro Box forums have had mixed experiences running the installation program.

However, one developer documented a way to do the entire installation by telneting into the box and performing the setup from the command prompt. So if you want, or need, to take this approach, the installation is documented here in the Kuro Box forums on their web site. Once the device is initialized, it boots into its default software configuration, running a Samba-based Windows file server, AppleTalk file server, telnet server, ftp server, and more!

Tip: Another approach is to use run the Windows KuroBoxSetup.exe program in Wine on Linux as described here.

The Kuro Box was initially released in Japan, and it's just getting started in the US, so in some places the heritage and relative immaturity of the box show. Detailed documentation is sparse, and by default, the web configuration user interface is in Japanese. Fortunately, if you're not fluent in Japanese, there's a separate download from the Kuro Box web site Downloads page to overlay the web directory with English language files.

Unfortunately, the download does not install cleanly. Each file in the cgi-bin directory has a MSDOS style line ending that causes execution to fail. So before the scripts can be executed, the line-endings have to be changed. A couple of developers on the forums have posted small scripts to automate the change, but as of this writing, the bad overlay is still in place.

In addition to the cgi-bin issue, the user interface shows other problems such as mislabeled buttons, a reference to setting up a Network Time Protocol client, but nowhere to set the server, nowhere to manually select a DNS server etc. In defense of the state of the web interface, this box is marketed toward custom developers who will be rewriting or removing the interface anyway. The delivered interface should just be considered an example or base to work against.

Figure 4: KB configuration web User Interface