Re: Beta Tester Wanted (new Windows app for ReadyNAS)

emoacht · ‎2012-12-16

To MED1975

Hmm... I tested shutdown with my Duo (V1, RAIDiator 4.1.10) and it worked fine.

1. Could you quickly check the password set in NAS Herder does not have any space at the beginning or at the end? ReadyNAS seems not allow spaces at the beginning or at the end of password. Spaces at the middle are okay.

2. Could you post log of NAS Herder related to shutdown command? To enable log, Settings --> Other --> Record on log file --> Actions (.txt). Then log file will be created in the folder where NasHerder.exe exists. I think you can find related part by time stamp. If sending shutdown command is successful, "<status>success</status>" will be included.

emoacht · ‎2012-12-16

To gibxxi

Thank you for your report.

1. I am not very sure whether "care" or "monitor" is appropriate. The reason I used "cared" in Scan Dialog is functions of NAS Herder include starting and shuting down as well as monitoring. I am flexible if there is any good alternative.

2. Adding restart functionality sounds interesting. BTW, I restart ReadyNAS only after changing some settings in FrontView. If you don't mind, let me know in what case you want ReadyNAS restarted without using FrontView?

3. Internally, shutdown functionality from main window and from task tray icon are identical. Both will fire the same code. So... could you explain more the reason of "but when and only when the main window is open"?

gibxxi · ‎2012-12-16

Hi emoacht,

The use of the word "cared" is a bit confusing to me, and doubtless will be to others. Are you a native English speaker? To me the word "Monitor" (or monitored / monitoring) just fits better. You could also use the phrase "Scan For" or "Scanning For...", "Cared" just doesn't really fit for me grammar-wise.

The taskbar item was a seperate point to the shutdown functionality report. I would like to see a taskbar item when the app is open, and have it disappear when the app is minimized.

As for the reasoning behind adding reboot functionality, a lot of my add-ons are managed or administered in their own windows, and do not require frontview. Also sometimes I might be connected to the NAS via SSH/FTP and want to apply some changes. Sometimes if I reset my router, the NAS will not appear to the desktop until a reboot of either. It's just something handy to have, to not have to navigate through frontview just to reboot the NAS.

StephenB · ‎2012-12-16

Nice little app (just downloaded it). As a native English speaker, I agree with gibxxi - "monitor" is better than "cared". If you have more functionality than shutdown, you could substitute "manage". But I don't think it does enough management yet to merit that name.

emoacht · ‎2012-12-16

Thanks gibxxi and StephenB

1. As for "cared", I am not a native English speaker and so responses from native speakers are helpful to me. Maybe "monitored" will be enough. I will change it in next version.

2. And taskbar item, I got your point. Yeah, it is natural for a Windows app to show up in taskbar when it is open. I thought as long as task tray icon is shown, it will be enough to inform user of existence of the app. Let me think.

3. I understand the cases that restart functionality is needed. Adding a option to add "Restart" button will be a solution. Maybe in next version.

gibxxi · ‎2012-12-16

Great app though emoacht. Totally replaces RAIDar for me. Nice work.

🙂

emoacht · ‎2012-12-21

Thanks gibxxi

Released NAS Herder Ver.0.8.5 .

Changes from Ver.0.8.4:

Added Reboot function.

Changed wording in Scan Dialog.

Modified to automatically remove space(s) at the beginning or at the end of Admin Password.

Fixed bugs in handling extraordinary result of RAIDar Protocol.

To use Reboot function, check [Enable Reboot NAS] in [Synchro] tab of Settings Dialog.

gibxxi · ‎2012-12-25

Reboot function working fine, Nice work emoacht. Happy Xmas! 🙂

couch_potatoe · ‎2013-01-09

Just stumbled on this thread - I'd love to use the software, unfortunately...

Can't get the prog to detect my 1100!

Running on 64 bit Win 7 Home Premium with SP1 and .NET 4 Extended and the firewall turned off. The 1100 is running 4.1.10.

Ping, Frontview and RAIDar work quite happily from pc but the NAS Herder scan fails to find the NAS. The logs appeared to be empty as well. I tried hard-coding the mac, ip etc into the NAS Herder config but still no joy 😞

Turning on "Use SSL rather than RAIDar protocol" results in the NAS showing as online but no NAS data presents itself...

Am I missing something?

Thanks!

Andy B.

WOOHOOO Finally got it working! 😄

And, as expected it's just what the doctor ordered...

It would appear that it doesn't like running on a system that has Oracle Virtual Box installed - have a sneaking feeling it gets confused by the Virtual Box Virtual Network "Cards".

I haven't reinstalled Virtual Box to see if it breaks it again yet, but I will sometime soon and post findings back here...

Andy B.

fastfwd · ‎2013-01-26

emoacht wrote:
Released NAS Herder Ver.0.8.5.

Thanks, it's very useful. One problem, though:

In Frontview on my Pro Pioneer, I see:

but in NAS Herder 0.85 I see:

Is it possible that you've accidentally swapped the two temperature inputs?

dsm1212 · ‎2013-01-26

That's a frontview bug that has been reported before. And, think about it, cpu temp should always be higher than sys temp.

Steve

fastfwd · ‎2013-01-27

dsm1212 wrote:
That's a frontview bug that has been reported before. And, think about it, cpu temp should always be higher than sys temp.

Thanks, Steve. Yeah, I thought about that... And:

Here's NAS Herder's graph of the last ten days:

The yellow trace, marked "System", spikes every four hours when rsnapshot does a "du" on a multi-million-file external USB drive (the big spike near the right edge of the graph is "updatedb" running on that drive). Meanwhile, the blue trace marked "CPU" hardly moves during those periods of high CPU load. Shouldn't the "CPU" graph behave like the "System" graph, and vice-versa?

Also, see the big dislocation midday on the 22nd? That's when I opened up the box and blew a ton of dust out of the fans. All the temperatures are lower afterward, but the "CPU" temperature is MUCH lower. Why would that be? I'd expect CPU temp to be very well-controlled by the tight feedback loop between the CPU and its huge heatsink/fan, and I'd expect the System temperature to be allowed to drift a lot more so long as it wasn't too close to the high-temperature limit. That's exactly opposite the behavior shown by the NAS Herder graph.

So... Maybe I'm missing something obvious (and please let me know if I am -- it's late here and maybe I'm just not thinking clearly), but to me it looks as though all signs point to the graphs being switched in NAS Herder rather than in Frontview.

dsm1212 · ‎2013-01-27

Well, you may be right. Although it seems hard to believe the inside of this box is so hot. On real PC's the cpu core temps are usually higher, but maybe these slower CPU's it's not that case. The air blowing out of mine is not even warm, but frontview says the system temp is 55C right now so based on that and some other postings I thought it was wrong. I have SSH access, but I don't see what tool they are using to get these temps. The /proc support seems to be missing in Etch and the sensor tools are not installed.

Dust in the CPU fan/heatsink can have a big impact on CPU core temps so if you cleaned that out when it was bad I would not be surprised at an improvement.

On the other hand maybe they are just not measuring what we think they are. If that's the case then you are probably right.

steve

Masato · ‎2013-01-29

Hi,

I have ReadyNAS Duo v2 (ARM) using latest RAIDiator 5.3.7. I have been trying your application (Ver.0.8.5) in my Windows7(x64) PC, but "Shutdown" and "Reboot" commands (SSL) do not work (Other functions work well). Password (no spaces), Firewall (turned off), .NET Framewark 4.0 (Full version installed) were chacked. The log text descibes "Could not confirm that the command was accepted." Do these functions work with ARM version?

Thanks

Masato

zamboni · ‎2013-08-01

zamboni wrote:
I just want something my peripheral vision can glance at - like my CPU temps/RAM/network.

In any event, thanks for this effort! There is a Yahoo! Gadget, but I do not want to install it on my PC as I had issues with the Yahoo Gadget "engine" sucking memory & CPU on my previous XP install. Maybe that can be ported?

I just want to say I appreciate this app. I do wish there were a "gadget" for the desktop - but apparently MS killed Win7 gadgets July 2013. They still work, can get no more. MS says there's a "security hole", please upgrade to Win8. Um... NO!

I really wish there were a desktop gadget window showing the NAS status, but this is better than launching my browser, logging into my NAS and checking status.

Any upgrade plans - like emailing events? I've had a disk die, and not noticed for weeks since I rarely look where my NAS is. Maybe a threshold to force shutdown if a temp is reached (and email a specific address)?

Can it make coffee? 😎

gibxxi · ‎2013-09-07

You can subscribe to email updates via the sourceforge subscribe link halfway down the page (from the link posted in the first post).

fastfwd · ‎2013-11-14

emoacht wrote:
I will appreciate it if someone take time to test it and report the result with the name of ReadyNAS system. Also, any comments or suggestions will be welcomed.

Some time ago, I reported that my Pro Pioneer's CPU and System temperatures were swapped by NAS Herder -- CPU temperature was reported as "System" temperature, and System temperature was reported as "CPU" temperature (see my comments above from 26 and 27 January 2013).

Today I think I have found the reason:

In the RAIDar packets sent by the NAS, temperature values are identified only by number, not name. For example, here are the temperature-reporting portions of the RAIDAR packets from an Ultra 2 Plus and a Pro 6:

Ultra 2 Plus

Pro 6

Unfortunately, the numbering is not consistent across all products: For the Ultra 2 Plus, CPU temperature is temp1, but for the Pro 6 it is temp2. This information exists in the /frontview/conf/enclosure.db database, but it is not transmitted directly via the RAIDar protocol.

So NAS Herder must decide which temperature value is the CPU temperature. To do this, it looks at the "expected=" temperature range and assumes that the CPU's maximum expected temperature will be greater than the System's maximum temperature. In the examples above: For the Ultra 2 Plus, the CPU temperature is the one which is expected to be in the range [0-80C], not [0-65C]; for the Pro 6, the CPU temperature is the one which is expected to be in the range [0-85C], not [0-65C]. So NAS Herder's algorithm works, at least on those two products.

But it fails on the Pro Pioneer because that product -- although it has the same hardware configuration as the Pro 6 -- has a different CPU. And the high end of the CPU's expected temperature range is lower than the high end of the System's expected temperature range. This is a Pro Pioneer in the same environment as the Pro 6 above:

Pro Pioneer

See? Temp2's expected high temperature is only 60C for the Pro Pioneer, not 85C as on the Pro 6. So NAS Herder mistakenly chooses Temp1 as the CPU temperature value for the Pro Pioneer.

The algorithm will fail for any product whose maximum expected CPU temperature is lower than the maximum expected System temperature.

This bug could be quickly worked around by providing a "swap CPU and System temps" checkbox in the NAS Herder settings... But of course a nicer fix would be for NAS Herder to do something like read the "model" string from the RAIDar packet and then automatically choose the correct temperature labels from a lookup table. Here is the information from enclosure.db:

Note1

Note2

Note3

ReadyNAS Pro, ReadyNAS Ultra 6 Plus, ReadyNAS Pro 6

ReadyNAS NVX, ReadyNAS 1500, ReadyNAS 2100 (rev -1,-1,-1,1), ReadyNAS 3200, ReadyNAS 4200 (rev -1,-1,-1,2)

ReadyNAS 2100 (rev 1,2,2,1), ReadyNAS Ultra 4, ReadyNAS Ultra 4 Plus, ReadyNAS Pro 4, ReadyNAS Ultra 6, ReadyNAS Ultra 2, ReadyNAS Ultra 2 Plus, ReadyNAS Pro 2

ReadyNAS 3100

ReadyNAS 4200 (rev 1,2,3,1)

UteDohrs · ‎2013-11-14

V0.92
Scan shows:

xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
RN104
192.168.1.104
model!!0!!mode=pro::descr=ReadyNAS 104::arch=x86
ReadyNASOS!!version=6.1.2,time=1378503409,arch=arm
66

Why arch=x86 ?? Or means this my PC ??

emoacht · ‎2013-12-19

Hi guys. I am very sorry for not replying comments so long.
I have not noticed your comments until lately. The mail notification system of forum didn't work again. Now I understand I shouldn't count on it.

Masato, I don't know much about RAIDiator 5.xx. Shutdown function of NAS Herder emulates the shutdown from FrontView. So correct command string is necessary to perform it. If anyone tell me the command string, it might become possible.

zamboni, as you said, desktop gadget is, unfortunately, a dying technology. So no plan to make a gadget version. Regarding email notification, it would be possible. On the other hand, a ReadyNAS system has built-in email notification system. I think if a disk dies, it will be notifyed by the system itself. So it depends on necessity.

UteDohrs, a system of RAIDiator 6.xx seems to pretend to be x86 architecture even if it is actually arm based. It is interesting. Are there any difference of functions between x86 based and arm based especially on remote power on/off?

And fastfwd, yeah, you are comletely right. Current version of NAS Herder uses "expected" temperature range in responce of RAIDar Protocol to determine which item would be regarded as CPU. And as you described, it is not always true.

So, thanks to your information, I made a test version from verson 0.9.7. The algorithm to determine item of CPU is as follows:

Step 1: Use ReadyNAS model tabled based on enclosure.db. The model table will be saved in the same folder in csv format. You can edit the table from Settings Dialog -> Other tab -> "Change index type". Or you can directly edit the csv file. On closing Settings Dialog or restarting NAS Herder, new table will be reflected.

Step 2: If there is no information which matches the model name of current system, use the "expectred" temperature range as a fallback method.

I think this algorithm will cover the problem in principle. However, there are still a few problems:

Problem 1: Is there any clue in RAIDar Protocol to tell the revision of the systems like ReadyNAS 2100? Otherwise, it will be left to each user to manually edit the model table.

Problem 2: This is more essential. The enclosure.db inside a system of RAIDiator 4.xx has information only on the system of that version. It is quite natual but it means the same information on the system of 5.xx and 6.xx is necessary as well. Has anyone successfully retrieved the information already? I myself am going to get the system of 6.xx and so I will try it later though.

fastfwd · ‎2013-12-19

emoacht wrote:
thanks to your information, I made a test version from verson 0.9.7.

Thanks! I have downloaded the test version; I will try it tomorrow or this weekend.

sander11 · ‎2013-12-29

emoacht, I have a Pioneer Pro and using your test version making the changes I can verify it reads the correct values, or at least it is now the same as frontview.

Thanks for this awesome utility. I installed Windows 7 twice just to get yahoo widgets to run correctly so I could use the raidar widget, its nice to see I won't have to do that going forward. 🙂

fastfwd · ‎2013-12-29

fastfwd wrote:
emoacht wrote:
thanks to your information, I made a test version from verson 0.9.7.

Thanks! I have downloaded the test version; I will try it tomorrow or this weekend.

Oops, I forgot to post an update here. I've been running version 0.9.7 for a few days now, and it seems to be working well. Thanks again for making this utility available.

emoacht · ‎2013-12-30

Hail fastfwd and sander! Thanks for checking test version. It helps me a lot.

So, sander, your system is Pioneer Pro. The algorithm based on model table (Step 1) requires the model name included in RAIDar Protocol to match that in the table verbatim and Pioneer Pro is not in the table. Therefore, I think it is done by the fallback method (Step 2). So, it will be nice if I could add Pioneer Pro in the table. If you don't mind, could you paste response of RAIDar Protocol from "Show raw Response" in Scan Dialog? Details on the disks and volumes are not necessary. I need to know the exact model name there and description on "Temp" as well as the order of CPU SYS (and AUX?) in the FrontView.

By the way, I made a further test version which can show the toast notification (only on Windows 8 or 8.1) instead of balloon message. It can be enabled in Settings Dialog -> "Notification" tab -> "Notify by ...". If you are interesed, please try.

sander11 · ‎2013-12-31

OK, emoacht, here is the output, I hope this helps.

<MAC ADDR>
Qubert
<IP ADDR>
temp!!1!!status=ok::descr=58.0C/136.4F::expected=0-65C/32-149F
temp!!2!!status=ok::descr=36.5C/97.7F::expected=0-60C/32-140F
fan!!2!!status=ok::descr=1985RPM::type=CPU
fan!!1!!status=ok::descr=1776RPM::type=SYS
ups!!1!!status=not_present::descr=Not present
volume!!1!!status=ok::descr=Volume C: RAID Level X2, Redundant; 8867 GB (79%) of 11105 GB used
disk!!1!!status=ok::descr=Channel 1: Hitachi HDS5C3030ALA630 2794 GB, 35C/95F
disk!!2!!status=ok::descr=Channel 2: Hitachi HDS5C3030ALA630 2794 GB, 37C/98F
disk!!3!!status=ok::descr=Channel 3: Hitachi HDS5C3030ALA630 2794 GB, 35C/95F
disk!!4!!status=ok::descr=Channel 4: Hitachi HDS5C3030ALA630 2794 GB, 36C/96F
disk!!5!!status=ok::descr=Channel 5: Hitachi HDS5C3030ALA630 2794 GB, 36C/96F
disk!!6!!status=ok::descr=Channel 6: Hitachi HDS5C3030ALA630 2794 GB, 34C/93F
model!!0!!mode=home::descr=ReadyNAS Pro::arch=x86
RAIDiator!!version=4.2.21,time=1338489604
66

emoacht · ‎2013-12-31

Thanks, sander. Okay, Pioneer Pro seems to call itself "ReadyNAS Pro" internally and so it is the case that the model table (Step 1) surely works. And Fans... probably I should change the order of Fans depending of CPU or SYS. Thanks for that information as well.