status update about 1.04RC5 firmware and reported bugs

1. After reboot, the time is 1 hour behind: can be reproduced and will be fixed now

2. Firefox cannot change password from user: can be reproduced and will be fixed now

3. HDD cannot be in standby: cannot be reproduced

4. Unicode part under review when mounting samba share with unicode characters (not displayed properly on cfullhdma, when using nfs no problem

Posted in Life 14 Comments »

After getting good feedback from various users and testing myself as well I was really unhappy with the way the UPnP server was integrated and causing issues with updates. And not to forget having issues with Playstation 3 and suddenly missing SRT support again (neat feature which is not available within many UPnP servers, so I could get some fame… (I already have cause we do have Kernel NFS ;-) ).

Today a new release for beta testers ..  1.04RC5.

What is extremely important is that after firmware upgrade you NEED to reset the CH3SNAS to factory defaults. If you do not do this than certain scripts will not be updated from firmware into flash.

1. Fixed: users should be able to play 8GB MOVIE files through the UPnP AV server (Especially PlayStation 3 users)
2. Fixed SRT support:  When a DMA is actively requesting for the SRT file the UPnP server gave it and the subtitles were displayed correctly during playback.
3. Fixed & Updated: some users reported that updating the UPnP AV server was not possible, no new files were entered into the database. We have verified the working and we have re-introduced the ‘RESCAN’ button to give users the ability to force a database rescan.

Please be notified that if you modify the SHARE PATH (by default folder ROOT) into a folder which contains a white space the auto-update feature will NOT work

So do not use: ‘Media Video’ but use ‘Media-Video’ or ‘Media_Video’ otherwise the inotify tool will not start. It does not matter if the main shard folder is containing folders with white spaces in its name. Just do not start with it.

Download the 1.04RC5 here

Note: messages recieved upon the ‘kernel’ messages seen is under debugging/investigation. If someone has an easy ‘how-to reproduce’  it could be useful

Posted in Weblog related 44 Comments »

As it was the purpose to have the 1.04RC3 being released officially I’ve decided not to release it through the official channel. I have just received an important bugfix which was finished earlier than expected. So probably early next week this version will be released.

In this release only the following has been fixed:

• The samba server time setting is not synchronized with FTP server and device web time setting.

This means that in certain conditions you could see time differences when uploading / copying files to the CH3SNAS.  Download the 1.04RC4 here

Note: the PS3 issue is still under debugging. Playing a 7GB .ts media file can show the correct size, but it can only be played for 2 hours.

Posted in Work 54 Comments »

After listening to users of CH3SNAS I finally present you the 1.04RC3 which will be released on the official webpage soon as 1.04-0627 version

Release notes:

In this release we have fixed a number of issues needed to be fixed for an official release:

(this release is about to be released through the official channel as wel as official supported download)

1. http://ch3snas/server.pem & http://ch3snas/etc/shadow can reveal information: fixed
2. Certain UPnP Devices (Like PlayStation 3) could only browse but not play content: fixed
3. Files > 2GB could not be played entirely: should be fixed
4. Issue with mt-daapd when using bonjour tool: Partly fix: we only support to see the status. New features needed can be proposed and if useful, we can try to add.

Please reset your device to factory defaults after upgrading to have certain scripts work properly. Without resetting to factory defaults I cannot guarantee any option to work properly.

Download the 1.04RC3 file here.

Posted in Generic, Work 18 Comments »

Suddenly …. after hours of thinking, analyzing .. I’ve found it … Yeah …

If the DNS IP address within the CH3SNAS is equal to the gateway address it will NOT work (or sometimes work).

Your router will forward DNS stuff, so normally the IP address of the router can be given as DNS server .. but on NFS level it is causing issues.. No idea why ..

It took me a lot of patching and I needed a lot of settings to be changed but as well as here in my office as at home both parts are working the fullest now…

Phew.. Thanks for everyone commented… maybe maybe this is helpful for someone outthere ..

Posted in Life No Comments »

I’ve written earlier a simple howto for users with a CH3SNAS to work with NFS. UNFS is a user space implementation of the NFSv3 protocol. This is working flawlessly on the CH3SNAS with various Linux PC’s I am running (CentOS, Debian, Linux Embedded device etc.. )

but for a VMware implementation I need the READDIRPLUS procedure which is not available in UNFS. So I need to run Kernel-NFS on the CH3SNAS

Fonz fun_plug is providing Kernel NFS (enabled in the CH3SNAS) and UNFS. Installation is easy and almost fool proof.

The issue is following: on all my linux boxes (CentOS, Debian etc.. ) I get following message:

mount: mount to NFS server ‘192.168.1.60′ failed: timed out (retrying).

• rcpinfo -p 192.168.1.60 gives all correct info
• showmount -e 192.168.1.60 gives all correct exports
• rpcinfo -u 192.168.1.60 gives:

program 100005 version 1 ready and waiting
program 100005 version 2 ready and waiting
program 100005 version 3 ready and waiting

• Showmount -a 192.168.1.60 gives the mount points I ‘tried’ to use:

All mount points on 192.168.1.60:
192.168.1.100:/mnt/HD_a2

and even syslogd gives on the NFS server (CH3SNAS):

Jun 12 18:33:07 DEVELOPMENT daemon.notice mountd[1868]: authenticated mount request from 192.168.1.100:615 for /mnt/HD_a2 (/mnt/HD_a2)

• Portmap is running at server and client!!

I am totally not understanding why I get time-outs. I do not have a firewall, I do not use iptables. Today I tried in another environment the same: always the error:

mount: mount to NFS server ‘192.168.1.60′ failed: timed out (retrying).

suddenly here at home after about 20 minutes trying to mount the NFS share, the NFS server has been mounted on my local system. But when umounting and mounting again I have again same situation. In my work environment it was totally not possible (standard Debian setup and a CentOS configuration) to have the NFS share mounted. Although it is similar setup ..

So although al tools tells me that everything is correct: I am not getting any mount :-(

Is there anyone with enough NFS knowledge who can tell me why the NFS share is not mounted?

Posted in Generic, Server-Status 8 Comments »

Release Candiate 2 1.04 firmware CH3SNAS

if this version is suitable enough it will be released on the Conceptronic website as 1.04 relaease.

In this firmware release:

UPnP Server instant update bug.

For freaks: the /usr/bin/inotify_upnp script was only be executed or running when the server was enabled and folder is ROOT, when enabling another folder, only prescan was executed. (Thanks Matthijs for doing some testings with me and having patience ;-) ).

Support for IFO, M2TS, TS, MKV etc. was added. Note: it’s extremely important that your media device is capable of working with UPnP AV with these extensions (especially on IFO and ISO part cause it can cause some issues when reading this data (unexpected UPnP AV feature).

A second remark is that you have to disable the UPnP server totally and reboot, so that the database will be updated removed and updated totally. Cause it’s possible that certain files are not being indexed or seen after disable / reboot / enable.

We also added a new feature in this 1.04RC2 release:

It is possible that a RAID1 enters a ‘DEGRADED’ status. Normally, after a reboot, the device will ‘RESYNC’ the HDD contents automatically. But in certain conditions the status will not change from ‘DEGRADED’ into RESYNC’ and you can only fix that when forcing the HDD to be member of the array again (fun_plug needed). The feature will only be seen when using your Harddisk in RAID1 mode.

A reboot is required for a forced resync.

Feedback is appreciated

Posted in Work 35 Comments »

Simple how-to to use NFS together with the Conceptronic CFULLHDMA and Conceptronic CH3SNAS, a Full HD Mediaplayer & Network Storage device.

if NFS is abacadabra for you and you have no knowledge of Linux: do not worry, than this feature is not your thing.

NFS is mainly used for sharing data between Linux < - > Linux systems. NFS is a good way for quickly accessing data on a ‘local’ device.

So for the CFULLHDMA it means that we make the CH3SNAS part of the CFULLHDMA by ‘creating’ a folder in the file system of the CFULLHDMA with all the content available from the CH3SNAS.

First of all make sure you are using latest “Fun_Plug” on the CH3SNAS. I have used 0.5 which is working together with the 1.04a1 firmware (I used for my test). Copy the 2 files (see info at Fonz’ page) in the Volume_1 and reboot. The installation was successful if you see the FFP folder.

Download and use Putty (telnet client) and enter the shell of the CH3SNAS, for quick enabling UNFS3 User-Space NFS Server you use following command:

sh /mnt/HD_a2/ffp/start/unfsd.sh start

There is also nfsd.sh available, but probably due to some configuration settings in the firmware of the CH3SNAS it did not work, so preferred startup command is the above one.

You can edit your fun_plug by adding above command, after a reboot NFS is automatically started again. (Preferred).

Now you have to configure your NFS share in the CFULLHDMA. To be honest: this is very very simple when you do it by your webbrowser ;-) using the remote is possible if no pc or keyboard is available. Good luck ;-)

http://[ip-address]:49152/web/IMedia

Next: create a new station. Enter a Name ie. NFS CH3SNAS

and the most important part is the URL to enter. By default the EXPORTS file of the CH3SNAS is sharing all folders, so pointing to the root is all you need to do.

nfs://192.168.1.60:/mnt/HD_a2

Press OK and your NFS share is saved.

Press the IMEDIA button on your remote or select it from your main menu, Select My Media, your NFS CH3SNAS is available now, select it and you will directly enter the Root (Volume)1 of your CH3SNAS

Posted in Weblog related 4 Comments »

Just released for those who like to test:

1.04RC1, if we get positive comments it will be released

Release notes:

We added/modified support for users and groups. The following does apply:

• A user can be a member of more than one group
  There are, however, some restrictions:

under samba, user can see “ALL” folders which he has the right to access.
under ftp, user only can see “the last mentioned” folder which he has the right to access.

• Workgroup can support any characters following the MS rule
• The UPnP Server is supporting new additional formats like: FLAC, IFO, ISO, MKV, M2TS, VC1, DIVX, AAC, M4A, SUB, APE, FLV, DV.

Please test and send me updates about the instant update of the UPnP Database, there is no refresh or crontab anymore as content is instantly updated. But I need feedback if this is working properly.

• Email alerts are now sent with valid hostname. Some SMTP servers did not accept the e-mails as a not valid hostname was sent.
• Add support for RFC3834; the e-mail New mail header “Auto-Submitted: auto-generated” is added to the message header.
• Add new function : clear printf queue, available at the menu optin Status -> Print Info
• Fixing DNS name of NTP server like: 1.conceptronic.pool.ntp.org” it was wrongly treated as IP string

Posted in Work 23 Comments »

CH3SNAS when using 1 disk, no matter which slot you are using: it will always be Volume_1 (standard mode or normal mode). Under the hood the Volume_1 is a a symbolic link to sda or sdb. If inserted left Volume_1 is a symbolic link to sdb if inserted right: the disk is sda

So at the bottom: the sda and sdb will make a reverse change, so the user won’t notice it has changed

So if you want to have sda equal to Volume_1 in all circumstances: start using the HDD in the right HDD tray. 

Posted in Work 3 Comments »