Install Debian 6.0 (Squeeze) On Buffalo Linkstation Mini

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Image:Kurobrick.png
WARNING!

There is a possibility that you could brick your NAS with these instructions. Please make sure that you read the entire page carefully. These instructions may void your warranty. Proceed at your own risk.



Linkstation Mini

Contents


Overview

The following process converts a Buffalo Linkstation Mini (model LS-WSxxxxGL/R1) into a fully functional GNU/Linux server running Debian version 6.0.1a (Squeeze) with Linux kernel (version 2.6.32-31) and [1] (Mirroring) configuration. No disassembly required. If you desire [2] (Striping) configuration and you are willing to disassamble your device, then follow this article instead. Here is how the process works:

  1. Use ACP Commander software to establish Telnet session with device
  2. Uncouple secondary drive partitions from existing RAID configuration
  3. Partition and format secondary drive, install Debian 6.0, and prepare for initial boot
  4. Reboot device, establish SSH session with device, and complete installation

Requirements

  1. Buffalo LinkStation Mini models LS-WSxxxxGL/R1 running stock firmware (LS-WSXxxxxTL/R1 models will not work)
    • If your device has already been modified to run another operating system and/or firmware, you should revert to stock firmware
    • This process was tested with model LS-WS1.0TGL/R1, but other models may work as well
  2. Ubuntu 10.04 Desktop Edition CD-ROM (download and burn this disc image)
  3. Computer which can boot the Ubuntu 10.04 Desktop Edition CD-ROM and access the network successfully (most modern computers meet this requirement)


Instructions

Note: Do not attempt to execute the following commands as a single script. Instead, copy and paste each block of commands into a shell window and monitor the resulting output for errors

    Prepare Device

  1. Disconnect power cable from device
  2. Disconnect all USB devices (and keep them disconnected for the duration of this process)
  3. Move device switch to "on" position
  4. Attach device to network
  5. Connect power cable to device
  6. Wait for device to finish booting (no blinking lights)
  7. Open device web interface (factory default address is http://192.168.11.150, or use the IP address assigned by your network)
  8. Login (user = admin, password = password)
    9.  
    WARNING!

    The next step will erase all data on your Linkstation Mini. It is recommended that you backup your existing data. Proceed at your own risk.


  9. Remove existing RAID configuration (Disk Management | RAID Setup | RAID Array 1 | Change RAID Array ...)
  10. Create new RAID1 (mirroring) array (Disk Management | RAID Setup | RAID Array 1 | RAID Mode: RAID1 ...)
  11. Wait for "Building RAID Array" to complete

    12. You may proceed immediately after the array has been built (you do not need to wait for the drive check to complete)

  12. Boot Ubuntu 10.04 Desktop Edition CD-ROM on computer
  13. Select language as desired (English)
  14. Click on "Try Ubuntu 10.04 LTS" (to use Ubuntu without making any changes to your system)
  15. Open a new terminal window (Applications | Accessories | Terminal )
  16. Start a new bash shell with root privileges 
    sudo bash
  17. Install OpenJDK (for running ACP Commander software) 
     apt-get update
 apt-get -q -y install openjdk-6-jre
  18. Download ACP Commander software (acp_commander.jar) 
     wget http://downloads.buffalo.nas-central.org/Users/rpinchbeck/lsmini/acp_commander.jar
  19. Determine IP address of device and assign it to environment variable (substitute appropriate IP address) 
     IP_ADDRESS=192.168.11.150
  20. Instruct device to enable Telnet and remove root password 
     java -jar acp_commander.jar -t ${IP_ADDRESS} -o
  21. Establish Telnet session with device 
     telnet ${IP_ADDRESS}
  22. Login as root (no password required)
  23. Set recent date and time (prevent error messages about file dates, format=MMDDhhnnYYYY) 
     date 050900002011
  24. Kill all unnecessary processes 
     kill -9 $(ps | grep -vE '\[.*\]|(init)|(syslogd)|(klogd)|(getty)|(telnetd)|(-sh)|(ps)|(VmSize)|(grep)|(kill)|(awk)' | awk '{print $1}')
    25.  
    WARNING!

    Your device will no longer boot after the next step. You must complete the installation of the Debian operating system before your device will boot again.


  25. Free secondary drive (/dev/sdb) partitions from RAID configuration 
     mdadm --manage /dev/md0  --fail /dev/sdb1
 mdadm --manage /dev/md1  --fail /dev/sdb2
 mdadm --manage /dev/md10 --fail /dev/sdb5
 mdadm --manage /dev/md2  --fail /dev/sdb6

 mdadm --manage /dev/md0  --remove /dev/sdb1
 mdadm --manage /dev/md1  --remove /dev/sdb2
 mdadm --manage /dev/md10 --remove /dev/sdb5
 mdadm --manage /dev/md2  --remove /dev/sdb6
  26. Make sure secondary drive is not in use 
     if hdparm -z /dev/sdb ; then echo; echo "SECONDARY DRIVE READY (/dev/sdb)"; echo; else grep sdb /proc/mounts /proc/mdstat; echo "Please check that /dev/sdb is not in use"; fi;

    27. The following commands will delete all existing partitions on the secondary drive and reconfigure it as follows...

    Partition Mount Size Type Description
    1 /boot 128MB fd linux raid autodetect
    2 swap 256MB 82 linux swap
    3 / (root) 12GB fd linux raid autodetect
    4 /srv 100% fd linux raid autodetect
  27. Repartition secondary drive (substitute partition sizes as desired) 
     PARTITION1_SIZE=128MB
 PARTITION2_SIZE=256MB
 PARTITION3_SIZE=12GB
 echo -e "d\n1\nd\n2\nd\n3\nd\n4\nn\np\n1\n\n+${PARTITION1_SIZE}\nn\np\n2\n\n+${PARTITION2_SIZE}\nn\np\n3\n\n+${PARTITION3_SIZE}\nn\np\n\n\nt\n1\nfd\nt\n2\n82\nt\n3\nfd\nt\n4\nfd\nw\n" | fdisk /dev/sdb
  28. Create and activate swap partition 
     mkswap /dev/sdb2
 swapon /dev/sdb2
  29. Create RAID volumes 
     echo "y" | mdadm --create --verbose /dev/md11 --level=1 --raid-devices=2 missing /dev/sdb1
 echo "y" | mdadm --create --verbose /dev/md13 --level=1 --raid-devices=2 missing /dev/sdb3
 echo "y" | mdadm --create --verbose /dev/md14 --level=1 --raid-devices=2 missing /dev/sdb4
  30. Format RAID volumes 
     mkfs.ext3 -F /dev/md11
 mkfs.ext3 -F /dev/md13
 mkfs.ext3 -F /dev/md14


    31. Install Debian System

  31. Mount RAID volumes 
     mkdir -p                /mnt/lsmini
 mount -t ext3 /dev/md13 /mnt/lsmini
 mkdir -p                /mnt/lsmini/boot
 mount -t ext3 /dev/md11 /mnt/lsmini/boot
 mkdir -p                /mnt/lsmini/srv
 mount -t ext3 /dev/md14 /mnt/lsmini/srv
  32. Install root filesystem (from archive of debootstrap stage 2 files) 
     cd /mnt/lsmini
 wget http://downloads.buffalo.nas-central.org/Users/rpinchbeck/lsmini/debian/6.0/bootstrap-debian-6.0.1a-armel-stage2.tar.gz
 tar --extract --verbose --same-permissions --gzip --file /mnt/lsmini/bootstrap-debian-6.0.1a-armel-stage2.tar.gz
  33. Install custom kernel (Debian 6.0 kernel 2.6.32-31) 
     cd /mnt/lsmini
 wget http://downloads.buffalo.nas-central.org/Users/rpinchbeck/lsmini/debian/6.0/kernel-2.6.32-31-debian-lsmini.tar.gz
 tar --extract --verbose --same-permissions --gzip --file kernel-2.6.32-31-debian-lsmini.tar.gz
  34. Install custom boot loader (force boot from /dev/md13) 
     cd /mnt/lsmini
 wget http://downloads.buffalo.nas-central.org/Users/rpinchbeck/lsmini/initrd-md13-armv5tejl-softfloat-1.0.tar.gz
 tar --extract --verbose --same-permissions --gzip --file /mnt/lsmini/initrd-md13-armv5tejl-softfloat-1.0.tar.gz
  35. Prepare host settings (adjust host name and IP addresses as needed) 
     HOST_NAME=lsmini
 HOST_ADDRESS=192.168.1.77
 HOST_NETMASK=255.255.255.0
 HOST_GATEWAY=192.168.1.1
  36. Configure network interface (/etc/network/interfaces) 
     echo "# Used by ifup(8) and ifdown(8). See the interfaces(5) manpage or"  >/mnt/lsmini/etc/network/interfaces
 echo "# /usr/share/doc/ifupdown/examples for more information."          >>/mnt/lsmini/etc/network/interfaces
 echo "#"                        >>/mnt/lsmini/etc/network/interfaces
 echo "auto lo eth0"             >>/mnt/lsmini/etc/network/interfaces
 echo "iface lo inet loopback"   >>/mnt/lsmini/etc/network/interfaces
 echo "iface eth0 inet static"   >>/mnt/lsmini/etc/network/interfaces
 echo " address ${HOST_ADDRESS}" >>/mnt/lsmini/etc/network/interfaces
 echo " netmask ${HOST_NETMASK}" >>/mnt/lsmini/etc/network/interfaces
 echo " gateway ${HOST_GATEWAY}" >>/mnt/lsmini/etc/network/interfaces
 rm -f /mnt/lsmini/etc/udev/rules.d/[0-9]*-persistent-net.rules  # remove all persistent network devices (force auto detection of eth0)
  37. Configure host name (/etc/hostname) 
     echo "${HOST_NAME}" >/mnt/lsmini/etc/hostname
  38. Configure mapping from address to host name (/etc/hosts) 
     echo "127.0.0.1 localhost"           >/mnt/lsmini/etc/hosts
 echo "${HOST_ADDRESS} ${HOST_NAME}" >>/mnt/lsmini/etc/hosts
    39.  
    WARNING!

    Do not modify the last column of /etc/fstab... any value other than zero will cause the device to hang on startup. Basically, the system fails to detect the RAID volumes, sends the failure message to the console, waits for keyboard input (that can never arrive), and cannot respond to pings or any other network traffic. Don't find out the hard way.


  39. Configure mount points (/etc/fstab) 
     echo "/dev/sdb2   none      swap   sw,pri=1                     0  0"  >/mnt/lsmini/etc/fstab
 echo "/dev/md13   /         ext3   noatime                      0  0" >>/mnt/lsmini/etc/fstab
 echo "/dev/md11   /boot     ext3   noatime                      0  0" >>/mnt/lsmini/etc/fstab
 echo "/dev/md14   /srv      ext3   noatime                      0  0" >>/mnt/lsmini/etc/fstab
 echo "none        /dev/shm  tmpfs  noatime,nodev,nosuid,noexec  0  0" >>/mnt/lsmini/etc/fstab
  40. Configure network name resolution (/etc/resolv.conf) 
     cp -a /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/lsmini/etc/resolv.conf
  41. Change root password (new password = lsmini) 
     SED_FILE='/mnt/lsmini/etc/shadow'
 SED_SEARCH='^\s*root\:\*?\:'
 SED_REPLACE='root:$6$bmlbpJYn$xAgZr6KxoRLjDcPZNDBcnMF52gZrU7xkib43LhSlAvzVS4OqmiHaxB0GInPtoaPQ2FguHQQuxM95cMfvUnYn31:'
 sed -r "s/${SED_SEARCH}/${SED_REPLACE}/" -i ${SED_FILE}
  42. Workaround bug in Debian 6 (/etc/network/run links to /dev/shm/network, but directory is missing, which prevents network interfaces from starting) 
     mv /mnt/lsmini/etc/network/run run.original
 mkdir /mnt/lsmini/etc/network/run
 touch /mnt/lsmini/etc/network/run/ifstate
  43. Prepare for reboot (Overwrite factory-installed boot files with custom ones) 
     cd /mnt/lsmini
 rm -rf /boot/*
 cp -a /mnt/lsmini/boot/* /boot/
  44. Wait for RAID synchronization to complete 
     while egrep -iq '(recovery)|(resync)' /proc/mdstat; do
     clear
     cat /proc/mdstat
     sleep 5
 done
 clear
 cat /proc/mdstat
 sync
  45. Unmount RAID volumes 
     sync
 cd /mnt
 umount /mnt/lsmini/boot
 umount /mnt/lsmini/srv
 umount /mnt/lsmini
  46. Reboot device 
     reboot; logout


    47. Configure Debian System

  47. Wait for device to finish booting (no blinking lights)
  48. Assign new IP address to environment variable 
     IP_ADDRESS=192.168.1.77
  49. Use SSH to login as root (password = lsmini) 
     ssh root@${IP_ADDRESS}
  50. Change root password to something hard to guess 
     passwd root
  51. Select timezone 
     dpkg-reconfigure tzdata
  52. Ensure that date and time are correct 
     date
  53. Make sure primary drive is not in use (/dev/sda) 
     if hdparm -z /dev/sda ; then echo; echo "PRIMARY DRIVE READY (/dev/sda)"; echo; else grep sda /proc/mounts /proc/mdstat; echo "Please check that /dev/sda is not in use"; fi;
  54. Repartition primary drive (must have same partition sizes as secondary drive) 
     PARTITION1_SIZE=128MB
 PARTITION2_SIZE=256MB
 PARTITION3_SIZE=12GB
 echo -e "d\n1\nd\n2\nd\n3\nd\n4\nn\np\n1\n\n+${PARTITION1_SIZE}\nn\np\n2\n\n+${PARTITION2_SIZE}\nn\np\n3\n\n+${PARTITION3_SIZE}\nn\np\n\n\nt\n1\nfd\nt\n2\n82\nt\n3\nfd\nt\n4\nfd\nw\n" | fdisk /dev/sda
  55. Format and activate swap partition on primary drive 
     mkswap /dev/sda2
 swapon /dev/sda2
  56. Automatically mount swap partition at boot 
     echo  "/dev/sda2   none      swap   sw,pri=2                     0  0"  >>/etc/fstab
  57. Add primary drive partitions to RAID volumes (/dev/md11, /dev/md13, and /dev/md14) 
     echo "y" | mdadm --manage /dev/md11 --add /dev/sda1
 echo "y" | mdadm --manage /dev/md13 --add /dev/sda3
 echo "y" | mdadm --manage /dev/md14 --add /dev/sda4
  58. Disable login terminals (prevent error messages in /var/log/syslog every 5 minutes about /sbin/getty respawning too fast) 
     SED_FILE='/etc/inittab'
 SED_SEARCH='(^\s*[0-9]+\:[0-9]+\:respawn\:\/sbin\/getty\s+[0-9]+\s+tty[0-9]+\s*$)'
 SED_REPLACE='#\1'
 sed -r "s~${SED_SEARCH}~${SED_REPLACE}~g" -i ${SED_FILE}
  59. Configure package sources (/etc/apt/sources.list) 
     echo "deb     http://ftp.debian.org      squeeze         main contrib"  >/etc/apt/sources.list
 echo "deb-src http://ftp.debian.org      squeeze         main contrib" >>/etc/apt/sources.list
 echo "deb     http://security.debian.org squeeze/updates main contrib" >>/etc/apt/sources.list
 echo "deb-src http://security.debian.org squeeze/updates main contrib" >>/etc/apt/sources.list
  60. Update package lists 
     apt-get update
  61. Wait for RAID synchronization to complete 
     while egrep -iq '(recovery)|(resync)' /proc/mdstat; do
     clear
     cat /proc/mdstat
     sleep 5
 done
 clear
 cat /proc/mdstat
 sync


    62. Extras

  62. Allow USB flash drives formatted with the VFAT file system (Windows) to be mounted automatically in /media/usb 
     SED_FILE='/etc/usbmount/usbmount.conf'
 SED_SEARCH='^(\s*FILESYSTEMS\s*=\s*\")(.*)(\"\s*)$'
 SED_REPLACE='\1\2 vfat\3'
 if ! grep -E '^\s*FILESYSTEMS\s*=\s*\"((vfat\s+[^\"]*)|([^\"]*\s+vfat\s+[^\"]*)|([^\"]*\s+vfat))\"$' "${SED_FILE}"; then sed -r "s~${SED_SEARCH}~${SED_REPLACE}~g" -i ${SED_FILE}; fi
  63. Add user (never login as root again, use sudo command instead) 
     USER_NAME=visitor
 adduser ${USER_NAME}
  64. Allow user to become super user (using sudo command) 
     echo "${USER_NAME}    ALL=(ALL) ALL" >>/etc/sudoers


  65. Restart device 
     reboot; logout

    66. Congratulations! You should now have a working Debian 6.0 server running on a Buffalo Linkstation Mini.


See Also


References

Retrieved from "http://buffalo.nas-central.org/wiki/Install_Debian_6.0_(Squeeze)_On_Buffalo_Linkstation_Mini"
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