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Just installed Ubuntu Server 24.04.4 on Ultra4, how to organize partitions?
Hi,
I tinkered with trying to get SMB multipath working on OS6, but as Debian Jessie has not been supported for many years I decided to try to load modern Linux distro on my Ultra 4. After lot of tinkering, I got it working. I used ubuntu-24.04.4-live-server-amd64.iso (but assume other distros would work too).
For those who want to know how to install, I can detail the process later on in the thread. (I am still testing and might re-install again). It involved booting off a USB stick containing Ubuntu distro while "listening" via USB-to-serial connection in PuTTY and couple of extra steps.
What I wonder is:
What is the optimal/fault tolerant way of configuring boot partitions?
My Ultra 4 contains one 128MB "USB drive" (basically internal USB stick) and four SATA drives. 128MB is too little for a modern Linux distribution so currently, bootloader boots off 128MB drive, but then continues from 100GB partition I created on one of the four 2TB drives.
Rest of space (4x1.8TB) can be partitioned and formatted as RAID5.
While everything works, if sdd (where I put Linux distro on) dies the system will not boot.
How did this work on original firmware? Did whole Jessie fit on 128MB?
Can I create a RAID 1+0 partition on all four drives, and somehow let NAS boot of 128MB drive and continue on RAID1+0?
Many thanks.
OK, I will comment myself as I got it all running. Ubuntu boots just fine on Ultra 4 internally now. No need for USB sticks of external drives.
The trick is in doing disk configuration right once you boot from Ubuntu USB installer. Chose "custom storage layout".
- Remove all partitions from all drives (except USB stick). Yes, that includes internal 128MB flash...no going back now
- Create MD0RAID5 or RAID1 partition across SATA drives as you fancyf, format ax ext4 (btrfs might work too, haven't tried)
- Mark 128MB flash as boot (this will place grub on it)
- Mount RAID partition as /, this will place everything on RAID5.
Once you press "Done" it will start doing the work. Be prepared, it will take loooong time. Copying files from USB takes time, but so does creating parity for RAID5 array. We are talking hours and maybe days.
Also, chose quality USB stick. I had it abort after few hours due to USB being corrupt.
I now have ReadyNAS-shaped Linux server and it rocks!
6 Replies
OK, I will comment myself as I got it all running. Ubuntu boots just fine on Ultra 4 internally now. No need for USB sticks of external drives.
The trick is in doing disk configuration right once you boot from Ubuntu USB installer. Chose "custom storage layout".
- Remove all partitions from all drives (except USB stick). Yes, that includes internal 128MB flash...no going back now
- Create MD0RAID5 or RAID1 partition across SATA drives as you fancyf, format ax ext4 (btrfs might work too, haven't tried)
- Mark 128MB flash as boot (this will place grub on it)
- Mount RAID partition as /, this will place everything on RAID5.
Once you press "Done" it will start doing the work. Be prepared, it will take loooong time. Copying files from USB takes time, but so does creating parity for RAID5 array. We are talking hours and maybe days.
Also, chose quality USB stick. I had it abort after few hours due to USB being corrupt.
I now have ReadyNAS-shaped Linux server and it rocks!
Baud rate is not a big deal. You set it to 9600 to see BIOS and NAS booting. If you start seeing garbage in terminal after BIOS splash screen (when USB stick starts booting) , just disconnect PuTTY session and connect with 115200 baud again.
I will try to create RAID1 across all drives and put Ubuntu there. If that suceeds, I will have full fledged up-to-date Ubuntu server tunning on 16 year old NAS :D
P.S. All this was motivated by me not being able to get SMB 3.11 multi-channel working and break 1Gbit/s limit on single file transfer. Ironically, I got it working in Ubuntu and then applied that fix to NAS OS6. It worked there as well! But OS6 is not supported so it might be a good idea to update the OS anyway.
The baud rate is not consistent across different models of NAS for legacy units, so anyone following your lead. There is a post somewhere on the forum that lists at least some of them, but it's very old and I could not easily locate it.
If you change your OS partition to be a RAID1 across all drives, there may be more to it.
Yes, flash content is removed and I am never going back to OS6. Re: booting w/o USB, I just used Ubuntu install tool, created ext4 100GB partition on one of four SATA drives, told it to mark flash as boot drive (basically where to put grub) but install linux on 100GB partition. After that, NAS booted itself w/o any external drives. But Ubuntu is a bit too much of a system so right now, I am tinkering with DSM.
P.S. You need to switch tty from 9600 baud during "BIOS" phase to 115200 baud during Ubuntu installer boot phase (or just configure it to 115200, and hold "backup" button until you see it booting. Afterwards, it is easiest to tell installer that you want to use SSH and continue from there.
When the time comes, you may want to put the step-by-step in a separate thread. Many will be very interested as to how you boot from the flash and then pass control to the drive(s) since booting directly from the drives isn't an option. That's a step you don't see in most currently available posts on alternate OSes for ReadyNAS. I've given people general info on how Netgear does it, but I've never seen a post where it's actually done with an alternate OS and I've never tried an alternate OS myself.
Did you back up your flash content before you proceeded (with dd is best, but at least the vpd file)? If not, and you deleted the vpd file, then you lost the possibility of going back to any ReadyNAS OS.
FWIW, stock ReadyNAS firmware creates a 4GB OS partition on each drive, and then creates a RAID-1 group (mirrored on all drives). So you could try doing that with 100 GB partitions on each drive.
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