ReadyNAS duo / RND2000 V2 disk mount and password reset

Hello Everybody,

Thank you for all the participants in this forum, it helped me a lot.

I relocated across continents, and after some years things settled back to "normal". After 5+ years I realised I required some data that was stored on my ReadyNAS duo v2. dug it out from the cellar, and fired it up - all perfect, except the password was long forgotten, The web-interface not accessible due to the TLS issue. The nfs share I set up for some folders I could still access - but the data I needed was elsewhere. Without a password it was out of reach.

On my road-warrior laptop, I was able to mount the disk thanks to all the info on this forum. Some hicups:
On my Arch Linux laptop, the moment I connected the harddrive via USB, the disk was recognized and listed as /dev/sda, the partitions as sda1, sda2 and sda3. But immediately the corresponding /dev/mdxxx RAID array virtual devices was created (in my case md125, md126 and md127), indicating the RAID array has been created. Consequently the process normally described in forum posts did not work.

For each of the three virtual mdxxx devices, I first had to run:

# mdadm --stop /dev/mdxxx

Once that was done I could follow the prescribed routine:

# apt-get install mdadm
# mdadm --assemble --scan
# vgscan
# vgchange -a y
# mount -o ro /dev/c/c /mnt

I could get my data. However, to further use the NAS, I did not want to copy 2 TB of data and factory reset the NAS, so I mounted the 4GB partition:

# mount -o rw,noatime /dev/mdxxx /mnt/

then I did:

# nano /etc/passwd

And in the line for both root and changed the line

root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash

to

root::0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash

i.e., removing the x (the 'x' in this line means that the password is actually stored hashed in the shadow file, see The Complete Guide to the /etc/shadow File in Linux )

Then unmounted, stopped the RAID array and put the drive back in the NAS.

I did this with both drives in the NAS, as I do not know what will happen if the two drives had different data, if left or right would take precedence. I then powered up the ReadyNAS duo v2. by default ssh does not allow passwordless login, the web-interface is not usable, so I connected to the serial port:

# screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200

Once through the boot sequence, I could log in without a password:

Then created a new password:

# passwd

and did the same for user admin.

I could access the NAS via ssh again, though the cipher used is outdated

ssh -oHostKeyAlgorithms=+ssh-rsa root@xxx.xxx.x.xxx

Alternatively one can add the following to the client's /etc/ssh/ssh_config

Host readynas
    Hostname xxx.xxx.x.xxx
    User root
    HostKeyAlgorithms +ssh-rsa

and then simply use

ssh readynas​

to get a secure shell connection.

All seemed fine, but when I tried to install rdynsxtrs's Apache web server update via ssh to enable TLS v1.2 ig ot the following errors:

# dpkg -i *.deb
dpkg-deb: `apache2_2.2.34-0+rnx1_armel.deb' is not a debian format archive
dpkg: error processing apache2_2.2.34-0+rnx1_armel.deb (--install):
 subprocess dpkg-deb --control returned error exit status 2
dpkg-deb: `apache2.2-bin_2.2.34-0+rnx1_armel.deb' is not a debian format archive
dpkg: error processing apache2.2-bin_2.2.34-0+rnx1_armel.deb (--install):
 subprocess dpkg-deb --control returned error exit status 2
dpkg-deb: `apache2.2-common_2.2.34-0+rnx1_armel.deb' is not a debian format archive
dpkg: error processing apache2.2-common_2.2.34-0+rnx1_armel.deb (--install):
 subprocess dpkg-deb --control returned error exit status 2
(Reading database ... 24563 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace apache2-mpm-prefork 2.2.34-0+rnx1 (using apache2-mpm-prefork_2.2.34-0+rnx1_armel.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement apache2-mpm-prefork ...
Preparing to replace apache2-utils 2.2.34-0+rnx1 (using apache2-utils_2.2.34-0+rnx1_armel.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement apache2-utils ...
dpkg-deb: `libssl1.0.2_1.0.2g-1.0rnx1_armel.deb' is not a debian format archive
dpkg: error processing libssl1.0.2_1.0.2g-1.0rnx1_armel.deb (--install):
 subprocess dpkg-deb --control returned error exit status 2
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of apache2-mpm-prefork:
 apache2-mpm-prefork depends on apache2.2-common (= 2.2.34-0+rnx1); however:
  Version of apache2.2-common on system is 2.2.16-6+squeeze1.netgear1.
 apache2-mpm-prefork depends on apache2.2-bin (= 2.2.34-0+rnx1); however:
  Version of apache2.2-bin on system is 2.2.16-6+squeeze1.netgear1.
dpkg: error processing apache2-mpm-prefork (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of apache2-utils:
 apache2-utils depends on libssl1.0.2 (>= 1.0.2d); however:
  Package libssl1.0.2 is not installed.
dpkg: error processing apache2-utils (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 apache2_2.2.34-0+rnx1_armel.deb
 apache2.2-bin_2.2.34-0+rnx1_armel.deb
 apache2.2-common_2.2.34-0+rnx1_armel.deb
 libssl1.0.2_1.0.2g-1.0rnx1_armel.deb
 apache2-mpm-prefork
 apache2-utils

I still do not know if this is related to the method I used to change the root and admin password (Do these have to be the same password?)

I then did notice that the /etc/passwd- looked as follows:

/etc# cat passwd-
root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
daemon:x:1:1:daemon:/usr/sbin:/bin/false
bin:x:2:2:bin:/bin:/bin/false
sys:x:3:3:sys:/dev:/bin/false
sync:x:4:65534:sync:/bin:/bin/sync
man:x:6:12:man:/var/cache/man:/bin/false
lp:x:7:7:lp:/var/spool/lpd:/bin/false
mail:x:8:8:mail:/var/mail:/bin/false
proxy:x:13:13:proxy:/bin:/bin/false
avahi:x:20:20::/var/local:/bin/false
www-data x:33:33:www-data:/var/www:/bin/false
sshd:x:40:65534::/var/run/sshd:/usr/sbin/nologin
statd:x:41:65534::/var/lib/nfs:/bin/false
ftp:x:97:97::/home/ftp:/bin/false
mysql:x:44:54:MySQL Server,,,:/var/lib/mysql:/bin/false
admin:x:98:98::/c/home/admin:/bin/false
nobody:x:65534:65534:nobody:/nonexistent:/bin/false
backup:x:1000:65534::/c/backup:/bin/false
media:x:1001:65534::/c/media:/bin/false
Debian-exim:x:9:9::/var/spool/exim4:/bin/false
uucp:x:10:10::/var/spool/uucp:/bin/false
messagebus:!:100:101::/var/run/dbus:/bin/false

but in the /etc/passwd file the line for root looked like the line to be expected in the /etc/shadow file:

/etc# cat passwd | grep -e root -e admin
root:$6$E742.khC$Ai2Tc6Ork04R4Qt9mvJMou/BOCtB3v5kXRNSE0Gii.bBFWxCDBNyjSc8Gb3UY4V3XMxUInjzr8AL4amhiZWy9/:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
admin:x:98:98::/c/home/admin:/bin/false

More interesting, the hash in the /etc/shadow file is different and it is be the hash for the old and forgotten password. Also interesting, the shadow file used $1$ (md5 hash) format whereas the passwd file used a $6$ (sha512 hash)

/etc# cat shadow | grep root
root:$1$3BpsauEn$pUCuwxZGh4NueZSMicJAN/:15189:0:99999:7:::

Does anybody know what is going on here or what would be the right solution?