BeatificaBytes

Pre-installation

To install it, you will need several other things first :

1. Git, to be installed as explained here.
2. Composer, to be installed as explained here.

Get the sources

Now, open a SSH Console using Putty, log in as an administrator and enter the root mode.

Look for the Git URL of the SSPKS project : https://github.com/jdel/sspks.git

In the SSH console, type the command:

You should see the following output:

complete the source

Run the following command (it’s using the script named “composer” created as illustrated in the How to “install Composer on Synology”):

It should display the following output:

Next, move the complete stuff to your web site and link it with a folder ‘package’ where you will store your spk files. Here, I am using a folder in the web repository.

In a browser, open the test page: http://<your NAS>/sspks/selftest.php

If everything is OK, copy now some spk filez in to the ‘package’ folder (I.e.: in \\<Your_NAS>\web\packages). For each spk file named XXX.spk, add:

• its logo named XXX_thumb_72.png (size 72×72)
• its logo named XXX_thumb_120.png (size 120×120)
• its INFO file named XXX.nfo
  • This one can be extracted from the spk

Finally, open the main page: http://<your NAS>/sspks

Et voilà.

To install Composer, the following extensions must be loaded into php: curl, openssl and phar.

Connect into your DSM, open the Web Station via the Main Menu and enter the PHP Settings. There, select first the “PHP version” = “PHP 5.6”, tick the Extensions: curl, openssl and phar, and click Apply. Next, do the same for the “PHP version” = “PHP 7.0”.

Configuring extensions for php as illustrated above is only valid for the WebStation.

Open a SSH Console via Putty, log in as an administrator and enter next the root mode.

To load extensions into php, their respective php.ini file must be updated manually (Ex.: Edit them from a SSH console using VI). Path to php.ini are:

• php70: /usr/local/etc/php50/php.ini
• php73: /usr/local/etc/php73/cli/php.ini

In php ini, under the section [PHP] add the following lines

extension = phar.so
extension = openssl.so
extension = zip.so

To install Composer, use following commands:

This should display the following message:

On Synology, php is not the command to use to run Composer. Instead, one should use php56 or php70. Ex.:

To make use of it more easily, you can create a script. Use the command vi

Enter the modification mode by typing the letter “i”.

Type the following text:

Press ‘Esc’ to quit the modification mode.

To write the changes and quit vi, type next “:wq” (without the quotes).

Make the script executable with the following command:

Try now:

Et voilà.

NB.:

• The following command can also be used to install ‘composer’ with the ‘php’ command: curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php — –install-dir=/usr/local/bin –filename=composer
• The following command can be used to update ‘composer’ : sudo composer self-update

Enable SSH

Log as admin into your Synology via the DSM web interface. If you don’t know its URL anymore, run the Synology Assistant on your PC (The setup can be found for your model on Synology’s download page) to find your NAS. Right-click on it to connect.

Notice that for illustration purpose, my NAS is named here “Hades” and has 192.168.0.200 as local IP.

Once logged in DSM, open the Control Panel. If you see only three lines of icons (titled File Sharing, Connectivity and System), then click on the blue link “Advanced Mode” in the top-right corner.

You should see a dark “console” icon named Terminal & SNMP in a fourth section named Applications.

Click on that icon and in the tab Terminal appearing now, tick the option Enable SSH service. Configure the Port number that your want to use, E.g. 22, 5022, or any port still free.

Notice the message: only account in the administrators group will be able to log in SSH console. On the opposite, you won’t be able to log in with the root account.

The System default user should be such an administrator account. But you can create another one and add it in the administrators User group. Ex. here after a user named “administrator”:

Also, as recommended, go next into the Security section of the Control Panel and enter the Account tab to tick the option Enable auto block. E.g.: you can block there any IP address which failed 3 times to log in during the last 15′. You can also tick the option Enable block expiration to unblock such IP after e.g. 15 days.

Notice: this “auto block” feature has been very useful for me when I started to use a VPN on my NAS to access internet. Many IP, mainly from Russia and China, have been blocked.

PS.: SSH is recommended over Telnet, as using encrypted communications. But if you really want, you can also enable it.

Install Putty and open a SSH console

Download Putty from here and install it on your PC. It’s an open source SSH and telnet client.

Run Putty and enter an administrator account in the Auto-login username of the category Connection > Data (as illustrated bellow in the right screenshot, I am user the user named “administrator” created previously and member of the User Group “Administrators”). Next enter your Host Name (or IP address) and Port in the Category Session (as illustrated bellow in the left screenshot). Check that the selected Connection Type is SSH.

In order to avoid weird characters to be displayed on the console, when connecting to a linux, you have to also define the following settings (found here):

Terminal > Keyboard > The function Keys and Keypad = Linux

Window > Translation > Remote Character Set = UTF-8

Connection > Data > Tarminal Type String = linux

Finally, select the Default Settings entry and click on the Save button next to it. This is important to keep your setting for the next time you will run Putty.

Now, click on the Open button and the bottom-right. This will start the SSH session with the preconfigured account “administrator”. You just have to type his password.

Notice: on the first use, Putty will display a warning message about the encryption. You have to accept it.

PS.: You can similarly open a Telnet session if you did enable it.

Enter root mode

Although you may not log in as root in a SSH console on your Synology, you may enter “root” mode by typing the following command:

You will be prompted for a password. Type again the password of the administrator account.

Voilà, you are now connected on your NAS as a root.

Enjoy.

PS.: Here is the official Synology documentation to log on your NAS via SSH or Telnet.

Moving some “standard” Shared Folders used by Synology’s Packages didn’t result in any issue. Ex.: when moving the “music” folder, Synology prompted me to ask if it could stop properly the “Audio Station”. And once the folder moved, I was able to restart the “Audio Station” without any problem later.

But this wasn’t the case for the “Plex” folder.

Opposite to moving the “music” folder, Synology didn’t stop here explicitly the “Plex Media Server” Package. But once the “Plex” folder moved, the Package appeared to be stopped anyway. And trying to restart it, the following error was displayed by the Package Manager: Failed to run the package service …

I found the following error in the log file using the command: cat /var/log/messages

What was weird, is that I was still able to browse the movies in Plex Apps. The reason was that Plex processes were still running as I noticed later.

To fix the problem, I did open a SSH Console using Putty, logged in as admin and went into root mode by typing the command: sudo -i

I did next kill all the Plex processes:  kill -9 $(ps -gaceux | grep ‘plex’ | awk ‘{print $2}’)

I went to the Plex Media Server path: cd /var/packages/Plex Media Server/target

And did replace the old volume of the library (volume3) with the new one (volume1) : sed -i “s/volume3/volume1/” plex_library_path

Et voilà, I was next able to start the Plex Media Server Package.

In my Package, named Package Mover (See Blog’s menu SPK Server), I am using the command ‘df’ to list the existing Volumes. This is the one that was extremely slow.

To investigate the problem, I did display the errors of the System Kernel with the command ‘dmesg’ and found plenty of messages like ”CIFS VFS: Unexpected lookup error -112″

I also noticed that when ‘df’ was finally displaying results, there was no information about the volume1.

As by accident, I remembered that I did use CIFS VFS to recently mount some shared drives of a remote Windows Server, I checked if there was any issue with those. And there was:

I noticed how serious was this issue when my shell crashed while trying to autocomplete the name of a mounted folder:

=> Shell killed !!

So, I did unmount and delete all the subfolders, and the problem disappeared

Now, ‘df’ executes within a ms and lists all the expected information!

Errors were appearing although the option was disable both for php 7.0 and php 5.6.

Impossible to uninstall the WebStation as the Configuration Center see that various other Packages denpend on it: Apache2.4, WordPress, Apache2.2, phpMyAdmin.

Also impossible to downgrade by manually installing a previous version.

So, I had no choice but connect on my NAS via a SSH console using Putty and enter the root mode (with the command sudo -i) to delete the WebStation Setup :

• ls -la /var/packages/WebStation/target  => this is showing you the volume<x> where it’s installed
• rm -R /usr/syno/etc/packages/WebStation
• rm -R /var/packages/WebStation
• rm -R /volume<x>/@appstore/WebStation
• rm -f /usr/syno/synoman/webman/3rdparty/WebStation

I did next manually installed the WebStation 2.0.1-0111 from https://usdl.synology.com/download/Package/spk/WebStation/

I had to reconfigure the General Settings and Php Settings, et voilà.

Install first IPKG as explained here and, in the ssh console, run next as root: ipkg install git

You can also simply install it using ipkgGui. That’s even much easier than using a ssh console 😉

Now, you can use the command git in a ssh console…

Ex.: first thing you should do is to set up your name and email by typing:

To clone a remote projet, in a local folder,  type:

where “remote_branch-name” is a branch like “master”, “develop”, …

The URL can be found using the “Clone or download” button of any GitHub project (See “Clone with HTTPS”).

To update that project with a specific branch, type e.g.:

Documentation can be found here.

NB.: To install Git Server, look here

If I look into the Storage Manager, I see no progress:

To see some progress, try the following command in a ssh console:

One can see that a disk is currently resyncing and should end in xxx minutes. Another one is waiting for a resync.

Personalities : [linear] [raid0] [raid1] [raid10] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4]
md3 : active raid5 sdd7[2] sdc7[1] sdg7[0]
     1953485824 blocks super 1.2 level 5, 64k chunk, algorithm 2 [3/3] [UUU]
     [===>...............] resync = 28.7% (281233152/976742912) finish=846.3 min speed=13696K/sec
md5 : active raid5 sdd6[4] sdc6[3] sdg6[2] sdb6[1] sda6[0]
     1953485824 blocks super 1.2 level 5, 64k chunk, algorithm 2 [5/5] [UUUUU]
     resync=DELAYED
md2 : active raid5 sdd5[6] sdc5[5] sdg5[4] sdf5[3] sde5[2] sdb5[1] sda5[0]
     11692100736 blocks super 1.2 level 5, 64k chunk, algorithm 2 [7/7] [UUUUUU U]
md4 : active raid1 sdh5[0]
     3902187456 blocks super 1.2 [1/1] [U]
md1 : active raid1 sda2[0] sdb2[1] sdc2[2] sdd2[3] sde2[4] sdf2[5] sdg2[6] sdh2[ 7]
     2097088 blocks [8/8] [UUUUUUUU]
md0 : active raid1 sda1[0] sdb1[1] sdc1[2] sdd1[3] sde1[4] sdf1[5] sdg1[6] sdh1[ 7]
     2490176 blocks [8/8] [UUUUUUUU]

Post under construction…

Connect on a Synology

• via SSH console: see here
• via GateOne on DSM: see here

Synology Commands

• Located in /usr/syno and /usr/syno/sbin resp. for binaries and script requiring root privileges
• Interesting scripts in /usr/syno/etc.defaults/rc.sysv/ (to be used as root)
  • ./apparmor.sh {start|stop|restart|try-restart|reload|force-reload|status|kill|add_packages_profile|remove_packages_profile}
  • ./share-preapre.sh start
  • ./sftp.sh reload
  • ./tfpt.sh reload
  • ./ningx.sh reload
  • ./synomount.sh {start|stop}
  • ./pgsql.sh {start|stop|restart|reload|status}
  • ./S80samba.sh {start|stop}
  • ./S83nfsd.sh {start|stop}
  • ./inetd.sh { prestart_telnetd | poststop_telnetd | prestart_cups_lpd | poststop_cups_lpd }

Other command paths:

• installed via opkg: /opt/bin and /opt/sbin

Interesting Paths

• Web folder: /var/services/web
  • Reference onto /volumex/web
• Package folder: /var/packages/<Package Name>
  • See 3rd Party Packages bellow
• Link onto all 3rd party packages
  • /usr/syno/synoman/webman/3rdparty

Synology Services

• Names:
  • Packages’ service name: pkgctl-<package>
  • Ex.: pkgctl-WebStation
  • For others, execute: /usr/syno/sbin/synoservicecfg –list
• Config
  • path: /usr/syno/etc/synoservice.d/<service>
•  Commands:

Need to be root:

• • /usr/syno/sbin/synoservice −−help
  • /usr/syno/sbin/synoservicecfg −−help (alias of above)
  • /usr/syno/sbin/synoservicectl −−help (limited features of above)
  • /usr/syno/sbin/synoservicemigrate −−help
  • Ex.: synoservice −−restart pkgctl-WebStation

No need to be root:

• • /usr/syno/sbin/synopkg
  • /usr/syno/sbin/synopkgctl
•  Status for Packages:
  • Each service has a file named “enabled” which is created when the service is started via the Packager Center UI (/var/packages/<package>/enabled).
  • This file is deleted once one stops the service via the Package Center UI.
  • This file is not deleted if one stops the service with the command line /usr/syno/sbin/synoservicecfg –stop pkgctl-<package>
  • This ile is not recreated if one (re)starts the service with the command line /usr/syno/sbin/synoservicecfg –start pkgctl-<package>
  • Command line ex.:
    • /usr/syno/sbin/synoservicecfg –stop “pkgctl-AudioStation”
    • output: warn: The runkey of service [pkgctl-AudioStation] has been set to “No”
    • /usr/syno/sbin/synoservicectl –stop “pkgctl-AudioStation”
    • output: pkgctl-AudioStation stoped.
• List all Services
  • /usr/syno/sbin/synoservicecfg –list
  • /usr/syno/sbin/synoservicecfg –list-config
• More options
  • /usr/syno/sbin/synoservicecfg —help-dev

3rd Party Packages

• Access path: /usr/syno/synoman/webman/3rdparty/
  • This is a link to the binaries/web page/scripts of the actual application to run.
  • ls -la /usr/syno/synoman/webman/3rdpart/<packagename> will give you the actual path
• Access Url: http://<YourNas>:<Admin Port>/webman/3rdparty/<Package Name>/….
  • To check the URL of a 3rd Party Package, simply Right Click on it in DSM’s Main Menu and select “Open in new window”
• Setup path (scripts, config, enabled “flag”, INFO): /var/packages/<package>/
  • This is the location of all info used be DSM to install, access and run the package
  • Link onto the package itself /var/packages/<package>/target => /volume<x>/@appstore/<Package Name>
    • target/ is only created after the installation and can therefore not be used in Package’s pre-installation script.
  • Link onto the package configuration : /var/packages/<package>/etc => /usr/syno/etc/packages/<Package Name>
    • etc/ is only created after the installation and can therefore not be used in Package’s pre-installation script.
• Installation path: /volume<x>/@appstore/<package>
  • This is the path to the binaries/web page/scripts of the application.
  • Found via: ls -la /var/packages/<package>/target
• Configuration path: /usr/syno/etc/packages/<package>
  • This is the path where the configuration settings of the application can be stored.
  • This path is not deleted during an upgrade/uninstallation.
  • Found via: ls -la /var/packages/<package>/etc
• List the custom feeds: cat /usr/syno/etc/packages/feeds

So, concretely, the structure of a Package Folder under /var/packages/<Package name> is like:

• conf/
• enabled
• etc -> /usr/syno/etc/packages/<Package name>
• INFO
• scripts/
  • postinst
  • postuninst
  • postupgrade
  • preinst
  • preuninst
  • preupgrade
  • start-stop-status
• target -> /volume<x>/@appstore/<Package name>
• WIZARD_UIFILES/
  • install_uifile or install_uifile.sh
  • uninstall_uifile or uninstall_uifile.sh
  • upgrade_uifile or upgrade_uifile.sh
  • NB.: each file can be postfixed with the language. Ex.: install_uifile_enu or install_uifile_fre

NB: Sometimes, ‘target’ can be a link on -> /usr/local/packages/@appstore/<Package name>

Volumes

• Volume Raid storage calculator: https://www.synology.com/fr-fr/support/RAID_calculator

Logs

• Main Log path: /var/log/
• Package installation log: /var/log/synopkg.log
• Services log:  /var/log/synoservice.log
• Services’ path start/stop logs: /var/log/startup
• Apache’s log: /usr/local/etc/apache22/logs /usr/local/etc/apache24/logs
• nginx’s log: /var/log/nginx/

If something goes wrong and you look for information, delete all existing logs (rm -R) and redo the failing operation. Next, look for newly created logs 😉

Web Server

The Web server can be nginx, apache22 or apache24, as:

• Configured globally in the Web Station > General Settings > HTTP back end Server or
• Configure per Virtual Host in Web Station > Virtual Host

Config files are per Web server types:

• Apache 22’s configs are under /usr/local/etc/apache22. Ex.:
  • virtualhost config file: /usr/local/etc/apache22/sites-enabled/httpd-vhost.conf (notice: changes in this file are lost after restarting the Web Station)
  • httpd conf file:  /usr/local/etc/apache22/conf/httpd22.conf
• Apache 24’s configs are under /usr/local/etc/apache24
• Nginx’s configs are under usr/local/etc/nginx

But also in the Web Station configs:

• Virtual Host, depending if using php56 or php 70, are also in  /var/packages/WebStation/etc/php56/conf.d/webstation_vhost.ini (notice: changes in this file are lost after restarting the Web Station)

Restart Web Server:

• synoservicecfg −−restart nginx
• synoservice −−restart pkgctl-Apache2.4
• synoservice −−restart pkgctl-WebStation

Interesting website info here.

Plex Server

• Plex Media Server data path: /Volume<x>/Plex/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/
• Complete Server Backup:
  • Stop Plex Media Server (via the Package Center)
  • Copy the directory mentioned above to backup Plex’s database et configuration.
  • Restart Plex Media Server
• Database Backup:
  • Backups are in /Volume<x>/Plex/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Plug-in Support/Databases/
  • Stop Plex Media Server (via the Package Center)
  • Move away the followin file
    • com.plexapp.plugins.library.db
    • com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-shm
    • com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-wal
  • Rename the latest (or any older) com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-YYYY-MM-DD into com.plexapp.plugins.library.db
  • Restart Plex Media Server

Synology Certificates

They are (in most recent DSM version) under /usr/syno/etc/certificate/system

Synology Model

• Displays the CPU: cat /proc/cpuinfo
• Or simply: uname -a
• What kind of CPU does my NAS have?

Notifications

• Notification messages: /usr/syno/synoman/webman/texts/enu/mails
• Notification sending mode: /usr/syno/etc/notification/notification_filter.settings
• Other Notification messages (unknown usage): /usr/local/share/notification/dsm/enu/mails
• Command:
  • /usr/syno/bin/synonotify <notification>  ‘{“[%VAR1%]”: “value1”, “[%VAR2%]”: “value2”}’
• Debugging:
  • syno_hibernate_debug_tool –enable 10
  • syno_hibernate_debug_tool –disable

Event Logs

• Event messages: Events : /usr/syno/synosdk/texts/enu/events
• Command:
  • synologset1 [sys | man | conn] [info | warn | err] eventID(%X) [substitution strings…]

Package Installation scripts

• Documentation about installation scripts are here .
• The etc folder of the package is a link onto /usr/syno/etc/packages/<Package Name>/
• A script must exit 0 to succeed. Any other value will fail the installation/upgrade/uninstallation.
• One can redirect all errors into the log with code like this:

• All information logged in $SYNOPKG_TEMP_LOGFILE are displayed at the end of the installation/upgrade/uninstallation in any cases (success or failure).
• Add a <br> at the end of each line in $SYNOPKG_TEMP_LOGFILE to have a nice display. Ex.: sed -i ‘s/$/<br>/’ “$SYNOPKG_TEMP_LOGFILE”
• One can decide to fail an installation/upgrade/uninstallation with code like this:

In the ‘preuninst’ script:

if [ “${SYNOPKG_PKG_STATUS}” == “UNINSTALL” ]; then
${SERVICETOOL} –remove-configure-file –package $<Package Name>.sc >> /dev/null
fi

The structure of the <Package Name>.sc file is described here https://help.synology.com/developer-guide/integrate_dsm/install_ports.html

Following ports are used by Synology : https://www.synology.com/en-us/knowledgebase/DSM/tutorial/Network/What_network_ports_are_used_by_Synology_services

Using commands is only required with firmware version < 6.0-5936