OS6 now works on x86 Legacy WARNING: NO NTGR SUPPORT!

[AMRivlin]

Update: It is now unofficially possible using NTGR images to update legacy hardware to os6.X
See Post #3, for directions to install 6.2.1 on x86 Ultra and Pro Models. (ARM NOT SUPPORTED by this OS)
Be forewarned, this requires a SYSTEM WIPE and likely voids any warranty support from NTGR

Supported so far: pro 2/4/6, ultra 2/4/6, old pro / Pioneer Pro, 2100v2
Not Supported: NVX and 2100v1

Thanks go out to "HomeBrew Anonymous" for making this possible.




Update 2: A firmware image to downgrade back to 4.2.26 is now available. See this thread. While this downgrade should get you a working system again on the supported firmware, be forewarned this requires a SYSTEM WIPE and NetGear also does not provide support for this downgrade. If you have issues seek help on these forums.



Original Post/Gripes
I have been reading these forums since Monday's announcement and there has been a resounding "ooof" regarding the fact the Ultras and Pros are unsupported for future OS improvements.

To clear the air: it would appear Netgear will never support os6 on past hardware. I have almost come to grips with this, and at least they have been open and honest with their forward direction and aren't stringing us along. viewtopic.php?f=138&t=70131

The upside is our devices still work and are mostly stable and eventually we can upgrade to a new shell that has os6 support, but in the meantime our $500-1000 investment is unable to take advantage of modern features we all desire.

I don't think I can add a poll here at RN forums, but I would like to garner support for a 100% unsupported home brew of the os6 on Pro6 units.

If we get enough support perhaps a talented member(s) here would help release a homebrew of sorts.
The 3 main caveats are:
1. Netgear will never be held responsible/your warranty is void
2. A format is required (new FS and OS)
3. Data loss is highly possible

If you are still interested please post a reply to this thread.

[StephenB · Accepted solution]

mdgm and I have decided that its time to lock this thread.  So please do post any new OS6 on Legacy issues on their own threads.

[AMRivlin]

(I am a hardware guy and know little about programming) but I would be willing to help raise awareness / indiegogo, or cheerlead this process.

And to anyone at Netgear or the Jedi Council, this is the spirit of ReadyNas users, we are a collection of enthuiasts of varying levels of technical ability. We want to tinker, enhance, and most of all expand our minds, I mean features. 🙂

XBMC, Plex, iOS, Android all have rich user bases helping to add and improve their experiences, now is our chance.

[AMRivlin]

Directions to upgrade your x86 legacy hardware from 4.X to 6.x
Supported so far: pro 2/4/6, ultra 2/4/6, old pro / Pioneer Pro, 2100v2
Not Supported: NVX and 2100v1

You will lose all of existing data on board.
You will most likely lose support from NTGR

1. BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP
2. Download 6.0.X package from NTGR
3. Edit the latest IMG for instalation by 4.2 Frontview
3. Install via 4.2.x menu
4. Reboot
5. Factory Default the system
Specifics here: http://netgear.nas-central.org/wiki/Con ... ReadyNASOS

OR (once your data is backed up)

Optional (do before step 2 below): R4toR6_Prep_Addon.bin (26 KB) (upload before modified IMG, don't reboot, avoids the need for manual factory default in between)

OS6 in 3 Steps: 1. Download pre modified IMG, (see link above to see what has been modified)
2. Upgrade firmware in Frontview 4.2 (with above file)
3. Reboot & factory default via boot menu



This has been tested on Pro6s and Ultra6s.

Current Issues:
-Fans run loud, possibly fixed via firmware edit soon.
-Genie (NTGR Appstore does not work, do NOT enable)

Post your experiences.






Thanks go out to "HomeBrew Anonymous" for making this possible.

[tiranor]

AMRivlin wrote:

I have been reading these forums since Monday's announcement and there has been a resounding "ooof" regarding the fact the Ultras and Pros are unsupported for future OS improvements. To clear the air: it would appear Netgear will never support os6 on past hardware. I have almost come to grips with this, and at least they have been open and honest with their forward direction and aren't stringing us along. viewtopic.php?f=138&t=70131 The upside is our devices still work and are mostly stable and eventually we can upgrade to a new shell that has os6 support, but in the meantime our $500-1000 investment is unable to take advantage of modern features we all desire. I don't think I can add a poll here at RN forums, but I would like to garner support for a 100% unsupported home brew of the os6 on Pro6 units. If we get enough support perhaps a talented member(s) here would help release a homebrew of sorts. The 3 main caveats are: 1. Netgear will never be held responsible/your warranty is void 2. A format is required (new FS and OS) 3. Data loss is highly possible If you are still interested please post a reply to this thread.

Interested, but unfortunatly, i think it'll all have to come from the community...

1. Netgear will never be held responsible/your warranty is void
As it already is when tweaking via SSH or tweaking the hardware, we have to factory defaut the nas if we want some support.

2. A format is required (new FS and OS)
Of course, but it was already mandatory with 4.2.16 when the FS changed and 3TB HDD came around

[AMRivlin]

this is what i am proposing.
Homebrew=created at home, not in the lab.

Netgear won't bring it to fruition, so we (the community) will build it. The code is available, it will require some leg work.

[ihartley]

Why would Netgear release their intellectual property for anyone to copy???

[AMRivlin]

BTRFS of which os6 is based on is GNU GPL.
I will monitor sf.net and see when it is posted there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Btrfs
http://sourceforge.net/projects/easynas ... =directory

While NG won't support this effort directly, I think they see benefit in the user group continuing development and a rich user community (at least I hope they would)

[tiranor]

Unfortunatly, they needed ample time and countless bumps from the community to release the source of their lastest firmwares (i still don't know if 4.2.22 sources are available)

But let's hope !

[chourmovs]

hundred percent interested by a new software/boot-loader, but why a port of OS6 and not something more "free" ?
let's back-engineer

[SHS_]

As a long-time Debian junkie, just putting my interest down... to put some longevity into my (not actually that old) Pro 6. :?

[ahpsi1]

+1

I too am more of a 'hardware' guy than dev but I can at least offer to beta test on any of the models I own or have access to.

I still remain confused by Netgear's stance on supporting existing x86 models. Quoting JabbaTheHut:

The ReadyNAS OS 6 is only available on the new products. We are not supporting units in the field based on older operating system versions to the latest version. There are many reasons for this. There is a fundamental file system change which makes upgrading difficult to impossible for devices in use. The data risk associated with any upgrade. Even with the factory default option, there are hardware limitations on the previous generations which would need to be overcome.

Fundamental file system change, agreed. Factory default should obviate this point, no? Wikipedia's entry on Btfrs states:

Btrfs can warp to fit unusual spatial layouts because it has very little metadata anchored in fixed locations. The btrfs-convert tool exploits this ability to do an in-place conversion of any ext[2,3,4] file system by nesting equivalent Btrfs metadata in its unallocated space. This produces a hybrid file system that can be mounted as either ext[2,3,4] or Btrfs. If mounted as a Btrfs, all the converted files are available and writeable in the default subvolume; the old ext[2,3,4] filesystem itself is made visible as a large sparse file (mountable as a read-only disk image) in separate subvolume that can be deleted to commit the conversion. If mounted as ext[2,3,4], the conversion is rolled back.[26]

Makes it sound less daunting? Data risk associated, blah blah blah - yes, there is a data risk just getting out of bed in the morning - point conceded and ignored. Hardware limitations on previous generations - this one concerns me. What hardware limitations are there? RAM? Upgrade. CPU? On an x86 Pro, don't think so. SATA controller? Maybe? Either way, we are talking about a Debian system that supports Btfrs. Nothing special there. It has a web server and some pretty screens. It has a few services tweaked and quite a few scripts written. XRAID2 = Netgear and maybe there is the bigger issue. May need to be content with standard RAID modes? Also, for the same reasons you can't simply modify a Pioneer to a BE Netgear writes in some protective code to perform a model or signature check - is it a violation of licensing or copy-write to overcome this limitation?

Are there any encrypted modules or a requirement for encryption in the boot image? Is any of the code licensed in such a way as to prevent a homebrew? If it can run on a Pro (which, it has been stated is just an x86 box with a nice case) it could run on any x86 box, like a generic 2RU SuperMicro box. Would Netgear feel brand dilution was an issue and issue a C&D? Hopefully no. It would be nice to have an official NTGR 'blessing' (hint hint).

In any case count me in.

[TeknoJnky]

I am all for an open user supported 'homebrew' os 6, but honestly I would rather have a community supported open OS like a standard debian or other NAS-specific type open OS (nexenta,freenas,openfiler, et al), that we can 'jailbreak' our readynas to run whatever we want to.

[StephenB]

TeknoJnky wrote:
I am all for an open user supported 'homebrew' os 6, but honestly I would rather have a community supported open OS like a standard debian or other NAS-specific type open OS (nexenta,freenas,openfiler, et al), that we can 'jailbreak' our readynas to run whatever we want to.

An open OS6 is an interesting idea, but I think it would require a fair bit of effort on Netgear's part to support it [likely both technical and licensing effort]. The OS will hopefully continue to evolve, so it would not be a one-time thing for them either.

So I think your scenario is more plausible than 'homebrew os6'. It might require some limited help from Netgear on the 'jailbreak' - for instance, bootup and some device drivers. But it wouldn't require a lot of effort for them, and nothing on-going. Possibly it could even be done without their help.

[chourmovs]

Upon my experience, a lot of people with moderate experience should be able to jail break those debianoriented devices,even with legacy drivers. My only questionning and concern should be "why is it not already done !!". Especially if you concider the benefit...
There must be a good reason for that 😞

[chirpa]

I don't see an 'open OS6' but just an alternative OS. Debian can be loaded just fine on the x86 systems, among other OSes. I've seen Windows 7 on one, VMware ESXi, Citrix XenServer, etc. For the HyperVisors, a CPU upgrade is recommended for the old Pro (6bay) model, as the stock CPU doesn't have VT-d support. The Pro6 has a better CPU in it, but still entry level.

There is a serial port on the systems, various sites and some posts on here have pin-out details; one such site: http://natisbad.org/NAS/index.html There is also a VGA header on the motherboard of the 6-bay x86, using an old VGA ribbon cable from videos cards work, or make your own; again, there are pin-out details if you search. With the VGA header, its as simple as a USB cd-rom drive and keyboard, and you have a generic PC to do as you wish.

The internal USB flash has the boot image for RAIDiator, that can be modified to load another OS, without booting off a disk slot. That flash is only 128MB in size though, so a bit limited. It can be accessed in booted RAIDiator with a special command to USB sub-system (can share that later). You can also boot into tech support mode for raw access to it; http://netgear.nas-central.org/wiki/TechSupportMode

The LCD screen on supported models is also accessible via serial port address; some info here: http://www.nexentastor.org/boards/9/top ... ssage-8241

[AMRivlin]

chourmovs wrote:
"why is it not already done !!". Especially if you concider the benefit... There must be a good reason for that 😞

It is a $ issue. Devoting a full team towards a legacy system costs $ but has no revenue. Instead they wish to focus on monetization of a new line. So we users need to "go it alone"

[chourmovs]

AMRivlin wrote:
It is a $ issue. Devoting a full team towards a legacy system costs $ but has no revenue. Instead they wish to focus on monetization of a new line. So we users need to "go it alone"

don't worry , I don't expect nothing from Netgear, i'm not here for a long time but it's quite fast to understand :?

My concern is that in fact no one has cross the river and try to develop it's own software/distribution for entertainment purpose, on a deprecated device for exemple.
For me, It changes from android world where almost everyone (i exagerate of course) seems to be able to develop it's own system and seems to have good linux/java (for frontview fork)/hardware/driver skill, despite the fact that hardware is even more complicated in mobile world. There's much more emulation in fact
Here in netgear world, only a little number of people seems to have the skill to purpose interesting things, it's a statistical problem because we're finally little number of users and even more little number to be interested in tweaking
Here is my concern and i'm a little pessimistic when i hope to get an easy-to-setup solution with a 10 lines how-to.
Let's pray for a messi 😄

[TeknoJnky]

IMO, any homebrew or 'jailbroken' alt-os would need to be able to make it dead easy for the 'not-as-technical' people to switch to (and back to stock), ideally I would think it better to leave the stock flash alone and either boot from usb key or straight from disks.

I realize that the majority of the users here, and probably a lot of nas users in general, are far more technically savy than a typical consumer, but no doubt there is a ton of these technical users that would not necessarily want something that is more time consuming to use/configure/upgrade than what raidiator provides.

I guess what I am thinking of, is the "DD-WRT" equivalent for readynas. Something that provides a much more update/standard system and flexibility, but without necessarily requiring a bunch more (or different) technical knowledge.

[StephenB]

TeknoJnky wrote:
IMO, any homebrew or 'jailbroken' alt-os would need to be able to make it dead easy for the 'not-as-technical' people to switch to (and back to stock)...

Agreed. Also, the flash isn't changed, then the hardware warranty isn't affected.

[chirpa]

On the Pro(6), you can get into the BIOS easily via serial/vga. You could change the boot order to another device besides the internal USB flash. That way it auto-boots the right stuff, but you could always fail back to the internal USB to 'return to stock'. The 2/4 bay units ignore any changes to the boot order, always defaulting to the internal drive; so you'd always need to hold Backup button on boot to use another boot device. Imagine power outage reboot, RAIDiator comes up and sees its not on the disks but something else is, it may auto factory default it!

[TeknoJnky]

would it be possible to create an addon that would change the flash to default boot to usb (only if there is a usb bootable disk), so to avoid the potential auto-factory-default and need to change bios boot order?


assuming there is not, then we would need safe and simple way to flash a custom bootloader (if only to boot a usb or sata volume) to flash memory, and be able to restore the factory image when needed.

[chirpa]

The USB flash has syslinux.cfg on it, which describes the boot menu. You could change 'Normal' boot to be another initrd/kernel image, instead of RAIDiator. For ease of restoring, could move the original kernel boot to SkipVolCheck, since thats rarely used.

[arnomc]

I bought 1 year ago an Ultra2 because this product was based on an Intel Atom, so it seemed to have a good longevity as a plateform (or future enhancements) compared to ARM products. It turns out that i was wrong (and also i had a bad surprise on the hardware unannounced D405 instead of D425). I found very rude that Netgear choosed to deceive deeply the 'not that old' buyers (after less than 1 year) : there will never be any major firmware update compared to the 3 years long warranty !! I know the 2 are not completely related but the huge difference is for me abnormal. I prefer the ethics of Synology's business model.
I would be glad to try this os6 on a legacy x86 readynas (which are still on sale by the way... but i guess not for long)

[ReadyAS]

Hi Everybody!
I'm very interested in upgrade my ReadyNAS Pro 4 to OS6, but I can not afford to lose my data on it.
I can make the backup of course and restore after upgrade, but what guarantee is that there won't be any problems on my NAS?
I thinking about the potential problems unique to ReadyNas Pro 4, which won't be interested for support and never repaired :(.

[tarkeen]

Do hope make for NVX. Do want.