Linux on DS220+

[shriker]

Hi everyone,

im new to this forum. I wonder if it is possible to install any OS on the DS220+. Is there any known solution to access the Bios or get any display signals?
i saw some pics of the board, is there some documentation of the pin headers on the board?
Or did someone try to flash the internal USB dom.

thanks for any help.

 

[Telos]

No successful reports of that. Better to build your own sever, or use Proxmox or OMV on PC hardware.

 

[rtoledo2002]

Hi everyone,

im new to this forum. I wonder if it is possible to install any OS on the DS220+. Is there any known solution to access the Bios or get any display signals?
i saw some pics of the board, is there some documentation of the pin headers on the board?
Or did someone try to flash the internal USB dom.

thanks for any help.

It already has Linux in it, and it has a kernel that has NO know security issues on it. so don't even bother, plus other than " made in house " . like Truenas , Freenas and Unraid , those may be too demanding of your hardware, what you have is just as good for that small cpu in your unit. this is just my opinion

 

[shriker]

No successful reports of that. Better to build your own sever, or use Proxmox or OMV on PC hardware.

I already own one, so in wanted to see if there is a known way to do it. I saw it is possible on some qnap devices.

-- post merged: 28. Mar 2022 --

It already has Linux in it, and it has a kernel that has NO know security issues on it. so don't even bother, plus other than " made in house " . like Truenas , Freenas and Unraid , those may be too demanding of your hardware, what you have is just as good for that small cpu in your unit. this is just my opinion

I would use it with debian or ubuntu server and run some docker on it. I only use docker on my synology. It would be nice to run a more standard OS.

 

[rtoledo2002]

Well they say hope is spring eternal, so keep hoping. BUT as far as I know their OS sits in special PROMS. I am by no means a expert. I just own a DS 918+. I have tried for years to install DD-WRT in some routers that come with those special PROMS that won't allow you to run any other

 

[dsana123]

Hi shriker. I managed to install Arch Linux on an external USB of the DS 220+.

I'm trying to figure out how to control the fans and the LED at the moment, so by no means is it a completed project yet.

If you're hoping for an easy install process I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I can outline what I did - it's somewhat complicated and involves building a bootloader linux kernel. There may be an easier way, but this is what I did:


1. I built a bootloader linux kernel with an initramfs which contains kexec and libgpiod. The kexec program allows one to boot another linux kernel, and libgpiod allows one to enable GPIO pins (this is needed so that USB and HDD power is enabled). I created an init program in initramfs that enables the external USB, searches for my Arch Linux installation on external USB, then uses kexec to boot to my Arch Linux kernel

2. I copied the bootloader linux kernel and initramfs on to the USB DOM, added a new grub menu entry and configured grub to boot to my bootloader by defaut. I have not installed DSM, so do this I connected a USB->TTY adapter to the DS220+ (the serial connector is at the bottom of the DS220+). The DS220+ runs grub, and the grub menu will appear on the serial connection - after three seconds the DS220+ will boot to the DSM bootloader and will give you a login prompt. I found login information and how to mount the USB DOM by searching the internet.

3. I modified the initramfs on my Arch Linux installation to enable GPIO pins (for USB and HDD access)


For development I bought a Raspberry PI 4B as this has a USB device controller. I configured the USB for USB mass storage mode with VID/PID of F400/F400 (it won't be recognised by Synology otherwise), and this allowed me to load my bootloader linux kernel in grub from the external USB conveniently.

 

[shriker]

Hi shriker. I managed to install Arch Linux on an external USB of the DS 220+.

I'm trying to figure out how to control the fans and the LED at the moment, so by no means is it a completed project yet.

If you're hoping for an easy install process I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I can outline what I did - it's somewhat complicated and involves building a bootloader linux kernel. There may be an easier way, but this is what I did:


1. I built a bootloader linux kernel with an initramfs which contains kexec and libgpiod. The kexec program allows one to boot another linux kernel, and libgpiod allows one to enable GPIO pins (this is needed so that USB and HDD power is enabled). I created an init program in initramfs that enables the external USB, searches for my Arch Linux installation on external USB, then uses kexec to boot to my Arch Linux kernel

2. I copied the bootloader linux kernel and initramfs on to the USB DOM, added a new grub menu entry and configured grub to boot to my bootloader by defaut. I have not installed DSM, so do this I connected a USB->TTY adapter to the DS220+ (the serial connector is at the bottom of the DS220+). The DS220+ runs grub, and the grub menu will appear on the serial connection - after three seconds the DS220+ will boot to the DSM bootloader and will give you a login prompt. I found login information and how to mount the USB DOM by searching the internet.

3. I modified the initramfs on my Arch Linux installation to enable GPIO pins (for USB and HDD access)


For development I bought a Raspberry PI 4B as this has a USB device controller. I configured the USB for USB mass storage mode with VID/PID of F400/F400 (it won't be recognised by Synology otherwise), and this allowed me to load my bootloader linux kernel in grub from the external USB conveniently.

Awesome, this is what i‘m searching for. Can you tell me which port the serial is. Which pins and voltage and your baudrate?

I found some unsolderd connector which suspiciously looks like a HDMI-Port. I dont know yet how to find out. Maybe its possible to get to the bios menu

 

[dsana123]

Awesome, this is what i‘m searching for. Can you tell me which port the serial is. Which pins and voltage and your baudrate?

I found some unsolderd connector which suspiciously looks like a HDMI-Port. I dont know yet how to find out. Maybe its possible to get to the bios menu

I have attached a photo showing the underside of the DS220+ with the jumpers connected to the serial port.

The serial header contains six pins in the following arrangement:

   o o o
   o o o
-----------
motherboard

The three pins closest to the motherboard should be used.

I bought this USB->TTY adapter (selected because it was one of the cheapest I could find): link to eBay listing

Not exactly sure which TTL voltage level is required, but I did some reading up on the chip used in the USB->TTY adapter before purchase, and the indication was that various TTL levels were supported.

Hopefully the photo will show you the colour coding of the wires, but here is a textual description:

• Green wire closest to the power switch (Tx of TTL adapter)
• White wire (Rx of TTL adapter)
• Black wire (Ground)

I installed picocom and used this command to connect to the DS220+:

picocom -b 115200 /dev/ttyUSB0

Upon powering on the unit the grub splash screen appears, and you have three seconds before grub automatically boots the default menu entry.

Press Control-C to cancel the automatic boot. I have attached a photo showing the grub menu.

Press 'c' to enter the grub command shell.

Synology have a cut-down version of grub so some features are not available (such as chainloading).

If you use the 'ls' command you can see which devices are available. Because the external USB devices and HDD devices are not powered on you won't see them on the list. I used a Raspberry PI 4 configured with USB mass storage gadget mode connecgted to the USB port as per my previous post, and grub detects that device because the Rasperry PI is self-powered and does not rely on the USB VBus pin to initiate connection.

 

[mrjay]

Hi shriker. I managed to install Arch Linux on an external USB of the DS 220+.

I'm trying to figure out how to control the fans and the LED at the moment, so by no means is it a completed project yet.

If you're hoping for an easy install process I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I can outline what I did - it's somewhat complicated and involves building a bootloader linux kernel. There may be an easier way, but this is what I did:


1. I built a bootloader linux kernel with an initramfs which contains kexec and libgpiod. The kexec program allows one to boot another linux kernel, and libgpiod allows one to enable GPIO pins (this is needed so that USB and HDD power is enabled). I created an init program in initramfs that enables the external USB, searches for my Arch Linux installation on external USB, then uses kexec to boot to my Arch Linux kernel

I'm trying to run UBUNTU on ds220+

What gpios did you enabled?

 

[mrjay]

OK. I managed to do it by

echo "ENABLING GPIO 944 + 0x14 = 965"
cd /sys/class/gpio/
echo 964 > ./export
echo out > ./gpio964/direction
echo 1 > ./gpio964/value
echo "DONE."

echo "ENABLING GPIO 944 + 0x15 = 965"
cd /sys/class/gpio/
echo 965 > ./export
echo out > ./gpio965/direction
sleep 5 && echo 1 > ./gpio965/value
echo "DONE."

echo "ENABLING GPIO 29 + 944 = 973"
cd /sys/class/gpio/
echo 973 > ./export
echo out > ./gpio973/direction
echo 1 > ./gpio973/value
echo "DONE."

echo "ENABLING GPIO 30 + 944 = 974"
cd /sys/class/gpio/
echo 974 > ./export
echo out > ./gpio974/direction
echo 1 > ./gpio974/value
echo "DONE."

How did you dealed with leds?

 

[mrjay]

To disable blinking blue power led:

sudo i2cset -f -y 1 0x2e 0x0 0xFF

where 1 is i2c bus number with address 0x2e