BeatificaBytes

Once the update started, the progress eventually appeared stuck…

After 2 hours, I decided to open the admin interface (http://<MySyno>:<adminPort>) and was able to log in. But back into the Control Panel, I saw the message “DSM updating is in process…”…

It would not have been a big issue if it didn’t prevent me to update any packages. Trying to do so was resulting in a popup blocking any automatique on manual installation/update. I was also unable to restart or shutdown properly the NAS for the same reason.

To solve this situation I had to kill the upgrade process:

1. Open a SSH console using Putty to connect onto the NAS
2. Login as administrator
3. Enter the root mode using the command: sudo -i
4. Kill the update processes typing the command: kill -9 $(ps aux | grep -e SYNO.Core.Ugrade |grep -v grep | awk ‘{ print $2 }’)

I was next able to update other packages… I did next restart the NAS but for some reasons, it never rebooted completed (neither detected by the Synology Assistant nor accessible via the Admin webUI). I had therefore to do a hard reboot 🙁

Now, although I am still unable to reboot properly or upgrade DSM, I can at least install (or update) packages, possibly to help me in backuping everything before a complete reset.

NB.: I also tried to upgrade from SSH, without success.

Using the feature auto, I got an error message:

Using an explicit download or the explicit path of the patch auto-downloaded, I get no error:

Fortunatelly, in all cases, the DSM is not suck in “updating in process”

It is available here on GitHub.

For example, you could package apps like Chris Hager’s Most Simple Ajax Chat Ever

Or package a more advanced tool like php Server Monitor

This Tool is available here on GitHub.

First, define the Notifications to be sent:

1. Open a dos command prompt, and execute: telnet <YourSynoHostname>
   1. As an alternative, I am using the free telnet client “Putty” to open SSH Console.
2. Login as administrator
3. Once connected via telnet, enter the root mode with the command ‘sudo -i’, using here also the password of your administrator
4. Execute next: cd /usr/syno/synoman/webman/texts/
5. Execute: ls
6. Now you see a list of folders for each language supported by your Synology. You must at least defined your custom notifications in the ‘enu’ version and next the version that match your language.
7. Copy the file with the definition of the existing notifications in a shared folder to edit it easily: cp enu/mails /volume1/web/
   1. I presume here that the web station is enabled, otherwise, copy the file ‘mails’ in any other shared folder.
   2. As an alternative, you can use the Package “Config File Editor” to edit “/usr/syno/synoman/webman/texts/enu/mails”
8. Edit now this file ‘mails’ (e.g.: with notepad++: \\<yourSynoHostname>\web\mails)
9. Add your new custom “tags” at the end of the file with an adequate definition (see bellow for an example). You must specify a Title, a Subject, the text, and a Category with its priority. The category is used to group the Notifications in the DSM > Control Panel > Notification > Advanced Tab. For each Category, specify one of the possible values with a “Priority”, separated by a coma. The priority is used to filter the notifications in the “Advanced” tab (Look at existing tags in the file for illustration):
   1. Possible values for “Category”
      1. Backup/Restore: group under ‘Backup and Restoration’ in the “Advanced” tab
      2. CMS
      3. External Storage
      4. HA: grouped under ‘High-availability cluster’
      5. AHA: not displayed in the “Advanced” tab but related to External Storage
      6. Storage: grouped under ‘Internal Storage’
      7. USB Copy: not displayed in the “Advanced” tab but related to External Storage
      8. Power System: grouped under ‘Power supply’
      9. System
      10. PerfEvent: not displayed in the “Advanced” tab but related to System
   2. Possible values for “Priority”
      1. Important: displayed as Critical
      2. (no value): displayed as Informative

         

10. Save your changes (E.g.: back to the telnet console, execute: cp /volume1/web/mails enu/mails)

Examples:

Next, define how to sent those custom Notifications if and only if they are in a Category which does not appear in the “Advanced” tab of the “Control Panel” > “Notifications” pane > “Advanced” tab (Ex.: the categoryPerfEvent). It’s indeed via that Tab that you should to enable  the desired delivery modes: “email”, “sms”, …. which is obviously only possible for Notifications in a Category which is displayed.

1. Go back to the telnet console and execute: cp /usr/syno/etc/notification/notification_filter.settings /volume1/web/
   
   1. As an alternative, you can use the Package “Config File Editor” to edit “/usr/syno/etc/notification/notification_filter.settings”
2. Edit the file ‘notification_filter.settings’ (E.g. with notepad++)
3. At the end of that file, insert a configuration line for each custom tag, specifying how the notification must be sent (Look at the other line for illustrations). Possible delivery mode are:
   1. mail
   2. sms
   3. mobile
   4. cms: this is the native popup notification mechanism of DSM, enabled by default for all notifications
   5. msn: not supported anymore since 17th July 2014
   6. skype: not supported anymore since 17th July 2014
4. Copy the file back to its original location: cp /volume1/web/notification_filter.settings /usr/syno/etc/

Examples:

Now, reboot your Synology

It seems that in the past, I was able to apply my changes in those files without a reboot. But while testing this trick on DSM 6.x, I didn’t find how to do it without a reboot.

Finally, modify your script to sent your notifications:

1. Edit your script (E.g. with notepad++).
2. Add where required the following command: /usr/syno/bin/synonotify <YourCustomTag>
3. Save your changes.

In the example here after, I sent notifications depending on the success or failure of the previous command:

Finally, check that the “Notifications” are enabled on your Synology and tick options like emails, SMS, … for the new tags if required:

1. In your DSM, go to “Control Panel” > “Notification” > “E-Mail”
2. Tick the option “Enable e-mail notifications”.
3. Complete all the fields in that tab. At least: SMTP server, SMTP port, SMTP authentication and Primary email.
4. Send also a test mail from this tab to verify your settings.
5. Go next to the “Advanced” tab
6. Tick the “E-mail” option (and possibly others) for the new tags which appear now in the list.
   1. If the tags do not appear, close and reopen the control panel. restart your DSM!
   2. The tags appear with their Title under their Category

And here are the outcomes: a popup message and an email

Pay attention that the tags are case sensitive ! Also backup the changes you made in the file ‘mails’ and ‘notification_category’ as they will be overwritten for sure when you will update the DSM… Finally, delete the files ‘mails’ and ‘notification_category’ from your web folder…

Notice: the user EConceptApplications suggested on Synology Forum to use a script as here under to automatically reinsert the notifications

Notice: a reader, k13tas, suggested that it was much easier to reuse an existing notification tag and customize its text via Control Panel > Notification > Advanced. Indeed, those changes are not lost after a DSM update.

Notice: a reader, Rusmin, posted here that he found how to pass parameters to be used  in the notification message, via a hash json string. In his sample, one passes the value “value1” via a variable named %VAR1%. The value can obviously come from any variable of your shell script. Ex.: $PPID, $MyVariable, $$, etc…

NB: another reader, Paul Marcos, reports however that for him:

this wouldn’t work with the brackets:

/usr/syno/bin/synonotify Tag_Name ‘{“[%VAR1%]”: “value1”}’

but this, without the brackets would:

/usr/syno/bin/synonotify Tag_Name ‘{“%VAR1%”: “value1”}’

After the migration top my new NAS, I have reinstalled JDownloader. This one is using a script to run a java application via “nohup”. Nohup’s log is growing fast and takes a lot of storage, preventing my NAS to download the DSM updates.

I found it was the culprit via an ‘iterative’ procedure suggested by maxxfi on the forum of Synology:

• Open a SSH console using “Putty” and connect on the NAS as administrator
• enter the root mode with command: sudo -i

Use your admin password. Once authenticated as root, type:

• cd /
• du -ks [a-u]*

That command will give you for each subdirectory whose name begins with a letter from a to u (so to avoid the volumeX) the total amount of disk space in use. Wait that it finishes and search for which directory shows the biggest numbers, and type:

• cd <directory>
• du -ks *

Repeat the analysis going deeper into the directory tree until you are able to pinpoint the culprit. Finally, use the appropriate “rm <filenames>” command to delete the largest folder/files.

In my case, the largest file was /root/nohup.out

But in the past , I also had to deleted /var/log or /var/log/messages and reboot prior updating the DSM.

In a Putty session, to know the free space in the system partition, type: df -k