BlackArmor NAS Network Storage Server

[Hajo]

It's christmas time ;-)

I've successfully replaced the original Seagate firmware with a customized Debian GNU/Linux 5.0.7 (Lenny) system. For your convience, you only have to upload a 'magic' service pack to your NAS and the rest of the installation gets executed automatically:

http://www.noerenberg.de/hajo/pub/seagate-blackarmor-nas.txt

WARNING: replacing the firmware is a dangerous process and may damage your NAS permanently! You have been warned!

Hajo

[netware5]

Merry Christmas Hajo! Thank you very much for your efforts, this is a real Christmas present for all owners of NAS 220! Before going to apply your service pack I would like to ask some questions:

1. The Web Interface still exists? If yes, then what kind of changes apply?

2. Samba server still exists? I am asking this question because of your previous statement that you use only NFS, not SAMBA.

3. What if the "Public" share does not exists or the user rights had been modified? In my case it exists, but I made some modifications on user rights.

4. What version of FTP server you apply? Does it support secure ftp?

5. Do you plan to provide us with some kind of "release notes" to explain main differences with the original FW?

[Hajo]

netware5,

please find my comments to your questions below:

1.) The web interface does not exist anymore. After applying the SP, the system starts with a Debian Lenny minimal system (basic system binaries and SSH daemon only). However, you are free to install additional packages via the Debian package management system. For configuration, you'll have to use your favourite text editor.

2.) apt-get install samba

3.) The SP searches for the root fs image at /DataVolume/Public/custom-rootfs_full.tgz(+.md5). If it is not able to open the image file for any reason, the SP only patches the preroot image (NAND flash), and does not replace the main system.

4.) apt-get install vsftpd/proftpd/...

5.) there are nearly no similarities between the original fw (Seagate/Wistron proprietary) and the Debian system (open source Linux distribution). During installation, all Seagate system files are removed (except the Linux kernel and a few supplementary files).

Installation of the Debian/GNU Linux system is only recommended for people with (at least) basic linux administration skills.

As of today, the installation has only been tested on one (my) BA220. I can not guarantee that it works for your system as well. If things go wrong, you'll need at least a custom-made serial cable to monitor/change the boot process (u-boot loader).

debian-armel:~# cat /etc/debian_version
5.0.7
debian-armel:~# uname -a
Linux debian-armel 2.6.22.18 #1 Mon Mar 15 14:19:05 CST 2010 v0.2.4 armv5tejl GNU/Linux
debian-armel:~# free
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:        125492      70796      54696          0       6076      49360
-/+ buffers/cache:      15360     110132
Swap:      1044792       3812    1040980

Hajo

[netware5]

Hajo, thank you very much indeed for your answer. I'm planning now the migration

[CyberMaxX]

Hajo -

Just wanted to say thank you for the great Holiday Gift to us all. 

Nice Work!

Cheers

[ashantonio]

Wowwww

Any news about? transfer rates?

iscsi support?

Thxxxx

[Hajo]

ashantonio,

iscsi-target (IET) is working fine. I've compiled the necessary kernel module (iscsi_trgt.ko) last week. I'll include it in my next release of the Debian rootfs. Openvpn support (tun.ko) will be included as well.

I'll post some speed measurements later.

Hajo

[ashantonio]

Great!!

Let us informed about !!

Really good. Please do not delay!!

Thank youuuu

[FHWN12]

Thank you Hajo, I didn't try your solution yet. Before, I have a few questions: Is the transfer speed better? CIFS reed, write, FTP reed, write ? What about the problems with routers? Is this a hardware problem? Can I set ftp permissions for a subfolder (for dyndns access) ? I have basic linux administration skills, but I don't want to spend much time for it. Thanks very much … FHWN

[Hajo]

ashantonio,

Performance is about 20MB/s for writing and 24MB/s for reading (gbit network, RAID1 BA 220). Since my time is very limited these days, these are just some quick tests (tests have been repeated to suppress caching effects, though).

1. CIFS, linux smbclient to NAS samba server (default Debian install, no smb.conf tuning)

smb: \public\> mput movie*  
Put file movie-xy.avi? y
putting file movie-xy.avi as \public\movie-xy.avi (20738.5 kb/s) (average 20738.5 kb/s)                                

smb: \public\> mget movie*
getting file \public\movie-xy.avi of size 736686080 as movie-xy.avi (24601.4 kb/s) (average 24090.7 kb/s)              
smb: \all\>

2. iscsi, copy file to target (ext3 fileio image via IET-iscsi)

iscsi-client: ~/movies$ dd if=movie-b.avi of=/mnt/iscsi-target/movie-b.avi
4540812+0 records in
4540812+0 records out
2324895744 bytes (2.3 GB) copied, 111.962 s, 20.8 MB/s

3. iscsi, bonnie++ benchmark (ext3 fileio image via IET-iscsi)

Version 1.03d       ------Sequential Output------ --Sequential Input- --Random-
                    -Per Chr- --Block-- -Rewrite- -Per Chr- --Block-- --Seeks--
Machine        Size K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP  /sec %CP
iscsi-client    1G 19427  22 20352   2 20457   2 103531  99 +++++ +++ +++++ +++
                    ------Sequential Create------ --------Random Create--------
                    -Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- -Create-- --Read--- -Delete--
              files  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP
                 16 +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++

4. raw hdd speed (bonnie++ executed on NAS BA 220 RAID1)

Version 1.03d       ------Sequential Output------ --Sequential Input- --Random-
                    -Per Chr- --Block-- -Rewrite- -Per Chr- --Block-- --Seeks--
Machine        Size K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP  /sec %CP
debian-armel   300M  1777  97 46019  61 23283  38  1821  99 51580  56 381.9   5
                    ------Sequential Create------ --------Random Create--------
                    -Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- -Create-- --Read--- -Delete--
              files  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP
                 16  8584  94 +++++ +++ 12630  91  9280 100 +++++ +++ 14194 100

I'm currently checking various kernel/network-related issues, maybe there will be some news later. Maybe not

Hajo