FAQ

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
3. 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.
4. 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.

Answer:

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?

Type
Write MB/s
Read MB/s

FTP:
3 - 4
4 - 6

SMB:
2 - 3
3 - 4,5

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

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: pivotaro...@gmail.com

Robert, Thank you for this, much appreciated -Stan

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: hagedorn.michael

external dependencies for the source. I had to install: liblz2-2

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: ols...@gmail.com

a very good job this firmware. I have a question: if the vlc can be installed as streaming server, or something else for transcoding purposes ?

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: robert1...@gmail.com

Hi Guys. Thanks for positive comments. :) I updated the FAQ, but please send me an email too, because I don't have notice about new comments. Regards,Robert

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: fernando...@gmail.com

libncurses-dev is also needed to "make menuconfig"

thank you for this firmware.

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: nisha...@gmail.com

Does this have UPNP or DLNA Media server functionality?

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: filipe.g...@gmail.com

Is it possible to run snake os on a virtual machine? with vbox or vmware?

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: zxn100...@gmail.com

Can i choose the filename encoding setting for non-unicode OS or FTP? Does your new OS support languages besides English?

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: vanto...@gmail.com

Any chance we get a compatible WLX-j651 SnakeOS? Thank you

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: fmail...@gmail.com

Hi there! having troubles with this, is anyone using it over wifi for serving media files? I know My wireless is not the bottleneck (listening mp3s from a pc to another works just fine), so I thought the small cpu or little ram of this nas would be the problem... but no one is reporting problems here, so I am bugged!! I tried both ntfs and fat with similar results (I know ntfs is not recommended, but fat should be ok!) Also, I have a thumb drive that won't mount at all: I can see it in the "drives" section, but not in the "shares" section (i.e.:it won't show up in the list of my devices)... any idea?

Thank you!!

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: gsola...@gmail.com

Hi fmail.oz,

I use to work on linux, and some times it wount mount NTFS or VFAT FS, the reason for that is an unclean previous umount. To solve that do an FSCK on windows prior to connct to the device.

Good Luck!

GSV

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: akos.per...@gmail.com

Hi

I first tried to use NS-K330 with original firmware, and attached my WD 1,5TB in external HDD box. Originally the HDD has 1TB free space, 0,5TB is used. The original firmware could only see the free space... why is it? Is it different at Snake OS? I would also like to see the data which is already on the HDD.

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: erklb...@googlemail.com

Can someone please create a How to download usenet/nzb with this os? NzbGet? would be nice too

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: ing.arma...@gmail.com

i buy a wlxkj652 but the cpu is : Calvium networks STAR cns2132-250fp128-aeff-g 218HM91g.5a E1018-g

is compatible with snake OS ??????

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: stanisl...@gmail.com

ing.arma..., look at the board on which SnakeOs? was developed - isn't it the same as yours ?

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: Markos...@gmail.com

is there a way to use this as a tftp server?

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: thomsp...@gmail.com

Does anyone have the file: variousmodules-2.6.16-gazineu.tgz from the google groups? Really need usb-serial, and hope to not have to compile my own modules.

thank you

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: thomsp...@gmail.com

Both Phillipe and Liong were so kind to send me the modules. I have uploaded them on my dropbox in case anyone else needs them: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14504776/variousmodules-2.6.16-gazineu.tgz

Perhaps you can even host them in the downloads section here?

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: KhirsLo...@gmail.com

Hi, ¿somebody would do a faq said how compile applications for nas how bittorrent, amule and others? Best Regards Khirs

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: jaiso...@gmail.com

Instal transmission.opk ?

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: sirhamac...@gmail.com

Please put in FAQ : How to set a printer to use in Linux : Add Remote Printer as : socket://nas-ip:9100

Do not try : lpd://nas-ip/lp0, because does not run.

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: marius.s...@gmail.com

Hi guys,

I'm trying to follow the Q: Compile. Hey guys it is great, How can I make my own one?

question above, using the branches/1.3.2 source from svn

Following the instructions above and setting the path using: Export PATH to point to arm compiler. export PATH="path-to-source"/tools/arm-uclibc-3.4.6/bin:$PATH where I substitute "path-to-source" with the canonical path of my source tree I can't run the build script, which fails on all my regular linux executables (like mv, rm, cp, echo, etc).

The path appears to be set correctly which I can show both by doing an echo $PATH and by looking for the commands:

...snakeos# which arm-linux-gcc /home/xxx/snakeos/tools/arm-uclibc-3.4.6/bin/arm-linux-gcc

snakeos# which mv /bin/mv

This must mean that the path is being overridden in the script, rules or Makefile.

Can someone say where I should fix it?

Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: pgutm...@gmail.com

To update the question FTP Write permissions problem for anonymous, you need to not only perform the chmod to 777 but also reboot the NAS otherwise the permission-change won't take effect. So if you've changed permissions, chmod reports no error, but an ls -l still shows them as being 755 then you need to reboot in order for the NAS to recognise them as being 777.

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: edenilso...@gmail.com

hello guys, I have a server "snake" and I wanted to put the '/ bin' I created a script so that when I use the mv command to appear for a progress bar that connection and ssh / telnet or do not remain idle thus avoiding the fall session.

But when I try to put my script in / bin says she does not have write permission in the directory.

I have to do it another way, or get permission to root so I can use my script?

sorry my english .. google translator

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: pcala...@gmail.com

Can you chmod the folder to something less restrictive (e.g. 770 or 777)?