You can apt-get install most any "misssing" command. But you need to be very careful not to overright any existing files with updated ones either explicitl;y or as a part of updating dependancies. Most probably won't cause a problem, but the Netgear unique part of the NAS OS is compiled specifically for the versions installed, and changing them can create problems.
I am, by all standards a Linux novice, and my staff is equally unskilled in Lunix knowledge. We like to pride ourselves in helping make widgets and improving profitability. That is why we have Netgear merchandise.
I did an apt-get install man/
Received a 47 line output telling me stuff was happening and when it was done got a 'man 7 undocumented' error message. Same error message for a 'man ls' command. apt-get install
Your advice to be very "careful not to overright any existing files with updated ones..." was interesting. For the novice recognizing what constitutes this condition is not possible.
Again I ask the simple question "Is there documentation regarding which of the Linux 'commands/apps' are available with the current OS."
Finally as a second question what commands will 'damage' the Netgear system if installed.
The NAS is not intended to be used as a generic Linux system. Netgear, in fact, warns that it may deny support if they determine that you've used SSH to change things you should not that have caused or contributed to the problem. So, of course, they're not going to assist you in doing that by documenting the available commands. Given you are a self-proclaimed Linux newbie, you really shouldn't be messing around "under the hood" unless you are following some pretty specific instructions or just using basic status type commands.
if you want to become more proficient in Linux, a virtual machine is the recommended way to go. I personally prefer VirtualBox. If you make a VM snapshot before doing anything, you can always get back to where you started.
As for man on the NAS, most of the man pages themselves are also not installed, so it'll be of marginal help even if you do get it working.
Thank you for your reply. Although technically adroit it is essentially worthless from the standpoint of a user with almost 50 systems under management nationwide.
And now I feel compelled to digress.
Netgear sells merchandise to make systems and people more productive. The GUI interface is very important to most users since they just want to get stuff done.
As an example, neither you or I need to understand aspiration theory and pressure sensitive venturi to use your car, you just expect it to work. The fluid flow equations for that system are quite complicated, some would say elegant. That said, most of the world just wants it to work.
I do not need a lecture on how I can damage the system or how I should understand Lunix. I want a system that works and can be managed. CLI interfaces are a poor substitute for a GUI but that is what we get with the current version of ReadyNAS systems..
Think about the early versions of CPM or DOS and the available served market -- in the tens of thousands. Now think about Windows based systems – intuitive GUI and generally used throughout the world. with a population in the tens/hundreds of millions. LibreOffice essentially copied the Windows paradigm and even exchanges data almost flawlessly between the two implementations.
So we get back to the essential question, are some of the Linux commands and apps available for semi-capable users to employ in their daily management goals. Pretty simple question and since nobody has chimed in, my guess is that they are not available.
My personal view is that a splendid product like the ReadyNAS systems is being held back by the lack of an intuitive GUI or at least a fuller complement of Linux commands.
So we get back to the essential question, are some of the Linux commands and apps available for semi-capable users to employ in their daily management goals. Pretty simple question and since nobody has chimed in, my guess is that they are not available.
My personal view is that a splendid product like the ReadyNAS systems is being held back by the lack of an intuitive GUI or at least a fuller complement of Linux commands.
The design of the NAS OS is not such that they have provided command line tools for user administration. If that's what you wanted, you bought the wrong product. Perhaps you should look into FreeNAS.
What do you find non-intuitive about the GUI, keeping in mind it's intended purpose as a NAS/SAN, not a general purpose computer?
What do you find non-intuitive about the GUI, keeping in mind it's intended purpose as a NAS/SAN, not a general purpose computer?
Start thinking about the ReadyNAS system as an object of production. Management goals relate to acquisition cost, technical support costs, replacement lifecycle, failure prediction and response, etc.
At the current time there are several commands that are very important and not part of the GUI ... smartctrl app for information about disks and the essential equivalent of TOP for evaluation of CPU and other resource utilization.
Generally speaking the CLI interface of all systems (Lunix or Windows or Apple) provide a powerful interface that can be daunting for the semi-technical user. GUI interfaces provide a shell around those powerful commands that is user friendly and provides some degree of protection against inadvertandt action by operations personnel. Additionally they enscapulate the data that is or should be important to the user in a friendly manner.
Back to the automobile example -- understanding carburator/aspiration theory is not required for the average user to start and ue the automobile. The gas guage is one example of a GUI -- there are others related to this imperfect example.
Operating and providing 3rd level support for a reasonable number of NAS (different vendors) in mid and large scale businesses, the daily operation and all management is done strictly by using the supplied GUI. Everything between the GUI and the OS is not documented, there are no APIs or config files published.
When it comes to overall system load monitoring, disk status/health monitoring, network interfaces, ... there is no other way then digging things out from the shell and the utilities. Should not be difficult to pick the data you want to access. 8-)
SMART status is available from the GUI and in the log files. Much of what you are looking for is in the Linux-dash application (see the "Available Apps" page of the NAS GUI.
SMART status is available from the GUI and in the log files. Much of what you are looking for is in the Linux-dash application (see the "Available Apps" page of the NAS GUI.
GUI automation does not scale or create to much overhead for large business or enterprise monitoring systems - much easier to extract the expected data from a service script, from syslog, and a (full) access to the Kernel memory log. Luckily, many of these "embedded" Linux systems on NAT platforms are very similar for this purpose.
From SSH, enter rnutil --help. rnutil is a major piece of the ReadfyNAS puzzle. No guarantee anything stays the same, but it does allow you to do many thngs. By the way that's R N U T I L, the "rn" can look like an "m" in the post. If you poke around in /usr/bin, you can find some more stuff. I make no guarantees you won't sabotage the NAS using the command line tools.
The get_disk_info and create_system_logs sub-commands just generate reports, so should be safe, They can be useful to run on a schedule via a cron job so a remote process can collect them. I do just that with get_disk_info because the GUI does not display that information for my 24-bay expansion unit. But I put the report in a folder where I can view it if needed without having to go back into SSH or create a whole set of logs rather than have it collected by some external process.
Some of the others are tricky. I have both a ReadyNAS virtual machine and a "sandbox" NAS I can try things out on before I use them on a NAS that has real data on it. I did find it very useful to create a volume on a set of drives in the expansion unit, too, since the expansion drives don't show up in the GUI. But few will need to or should do that.
