Introduction

This is the Open Source SnakeOS FAQ.

SnakeOS is the best firmware for NS-K330 / WLX-652 and similar small NAS devices.

This device usually have 2 USB and one RJ45 Network connector.

Written by Robert Szabo

Questions and answers

Q: Where is the firmware /binary ?

Answer:

Use download section. Actual one is: http://code.google.com/p/snake-os/downloads/detail?name=snakeos-V1.1.0-20100418-from-snake.zip&can=2&q=

Be aware: from snake and from original stock firm is different! Many people reporting that they upgraded with wrong firmware and then it is bricked.

snakeos-V1.2.0-20100621-from-original.zip means upgrade this firmware if you have original stock firmware. snakeos-V1.2.0-20100621-from-snake.zip use this if you have a previous version of snake already installed.

Q: Can I upgrade my NS-K330 or WLX-652 with SnakeOS ?

Answer: Yes. Definitely. Recommended. More stable, and more functions.

Q: Where is user documentation?

Answer1: You can read it in download section.

Authors are: Douglas Gazineu, Jarko, José Maciel, Miguel Moreto

Q: Where to ask questions?

Answer: Read the forum and PAGES on the right side of

http://groups.google.com/group/dealextreme-nas-/topics?hl=en

Q: Device lost all connectivity, no answer for ping, ssh, http, ftp. What can I do?

Answer1: Hard Reset it.

NS-K330 has a reset button. Push it while powering on, with the reset button held in for 45 seconds (counted to 60 just in case). After it showed up under the default IP (or at least the one assigned by the DHCP server), by the MAC address. Some people reported that router must be power off also during NAS reset. Some other people suggest to directly connect NAS to PC via the ethernet cable, not via router.

Q: Serial connect

If hard reset was not enough - device not respond yet.

Answer2: If you are not lucky with hard reset, second chance you are able to serial connect to device and telnet via the RS232-TTL converter direct connect. You also have to connect nas with the rj45 cable for TFTP access.

Picture and description here: http://groups.google.com/group/dealextreme-nas-/web/serial-connection-how-to or http://groups.google.com/group/dealextreme-nas-/web/serialconnectionhowto-ns-k330?hl=en

Q: FLASHing -

Serial connect was not allowed - device not respond/boot. Seems bricked. :(

Answer3: If you not enough lucky with serial connection either, next chance to write and replace Flash. Flash contains the boot, and root partitions. (BIOS and Operation system together.)

There is a smart (and cheap) flash writer using parallel port + 4 resistor + 1 condensator. See detailes here http://rayer.ic.cz/elektro/spipgm.htm

With this you can reprogram your flash. (Or ask guys from the forum here to do for you.)

1. flash write,

http://groups.google.com/group/dealextreme-nas-/browse_thread/thread/08df34f7df625832?hl=en

2. And replace flash http://groups.google.com/group/dealextreme-nas-/web/nas-832-flash-chip-relocation-tutorial

Most of the user don't need flash replace. Most of them have local network related problems. (ex.: router don't give new IP address) So try first to shut down all network elements before try to replace flash.

Q: Default user and password for the web interface ?

Answer: admin/snake

Q: Compile - dependences. What are known external dependencies for the source compile?

1. upx-nrv, libcurl3-openssl-dev, liblzo2-2, build-essential, kernel-headers, mtd-tools, ncurses-dev, autoconf

Q: Compile. Hey guys it is great, How can I make my own one?

Answer:

1. Download source, (from Subversion at http://code.google.com/p/snake-os/source)
2. sudo su - became root

• Optional To adjust your kernel config:
1. Backup the "configs" folder
2. cp configs/str8132_defconfig_jffs2 kernels/linux/.config
3. cd kernels/linux folder
4. Export PATH to point to arm compiler. export PATH="path-to-source"/tools/arm-uclibc-3.4.6/bin:$PATH
5. make clean && make menuconfig
6. Adjust your kernel settings.
7. Copy back kernels/linux/.config file to configs/str8132_defconfig_jffs2 file.

1. Execute "sh ./mk_snakeos_image.sh" in the top level directory

If the script aborts with any error messages you probably need some packages installed to have development environment. See "Compile - dependencies" above for a list of required packages.

mk_snakeos_image.sh script was made by Douglas which compile the kernel and make root file system for JFFS, compress the binaries with UPX (which makes on the fly decompiled binary)

Compiled firmware is here:

snake_os/release/ and tftp-capable image on output/

You could upgrade your NAS with your newly created custom firmware, under the http://nasaddress/ under system/firmware menu

Q: FTP Write permissions problem for anonymous.

I have activated FTP. In FTP with anonymous only with write permssion.

Through samba i can read and write but by FTP i can only read. I haven't got write permissions even though I have configured it in Snake OS.

VSFTP root folder must have 755 but any sub folder for ftp write should have 777.

This can be done by using ssh to access the NAS and

chmod 777/usb/PATH-TO-FOLDER

Q: How to copy files from one mounted partition to another mounted partition?

Answer: Connect with SSH and run the command below. It will copy the files of source_folder to dest_folder and log the output to log.txt (place outside the involved folders).

nohup cp -av /usb/diska/source_folder /usb/diskb/dest_folder > /usb/diska/log.txt

This way, you can even disconnect the SSH client and the transfer will continue.

Q: Where is the source code / SDK of the STAR STR8131.

Answer: LSDK sources from cnusers forum: http://www.cnusers.org/

It needs free registration, which takes sometimes a few days.

Or download from here: http://www.megafileupload.com/en/file/206928/CNS2100-LSDK-6-8-2-zip.html

Q: How to acces data of USB hard drive?

1. SMB via NAS (hdd is attached to NAS USB and NAS is accessed via SMB)

2. FTP - with any ftp klient. ex. Fireftp. 3. direct access via PC USB. use http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2fsd/ or http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2read/ which can read even ext4 extents! 4. SCP - ssh based file management ex.: Winscp.

Q: What is the FTP/SMB performance on ext3 filesystem?

On NTFS the speed is MUCH_SLOWER!.

Speed on FAT almost as ext3, but not recommended.

Speed is much worst via wlan! less than 1MB/s !!

Use ext3 because it is fastest and safest, and SMB will hide which filesystem is under it.

Q: How can unrar files? Can I leave ssh session during unrar?

Yes. There is working ARM UNRAR for SnakeOs: ftp://priede.bf.lu.lv/pub/Arhivatori/RAR/unrar/unrar-arm.tar.bz2

or here in download section:

1. tar -xvf unrar-arm.tar.bz2
2. copy unrar to nas sda1 root (/usb/sda1/) via windows share
3. ssh to snake
4. cd to directory where do you want to unrar files
5. nohup /usb/sda1/unrar e -r *.r*

it will extract all rar files from all subdirectories! nohup allows to leave ssh session (without needing to be online.)

6. exit - leaving ssh.

Q: What is chroot? Why I need?

You can run hundreds of linux applications which are missing in the present SnakeOs. (chroot is shell (a kind of sandbox) where you have debian libraries, and environment within SnakeOS host.)

How can I do?:

Installation needs ~200MB disk space on attached USB and only 5 easy steps to set up.

See documents here: http://code.google.com/p/snake-os/wiki/Debian_Chroot

Q: How to save config in command line?

/usr/share/snake/config save

Q: How to make OPKG package ?

http://code.google.com/p/snake-os/wiki/Packaging