It applies to the following versions:

• ReadyNAS firmware version Raidiator 4.2.11
• VMware Server v2.0.2-203138.i386

First of all, let’s prepare:
1. Upgrade your ReadyNAS to the current firmware release using the Frontview control panel -> System -> Update -> Remote -> Reboot.
2. Decide on where you want to put your virtual machines, I decided to put them on a share of their own which I created. I called it “vm”. Create this share via Frontview. This makes sense in so far as VMware will create the files for virtual machines with “root” privileges, meaning only the root user will have access to these files via SMB or other access methods unless you reset share privileges via Frontview.
3. Decide where you want to put the ReadyNAS source code and VMware installation packages. I chose the already existing backup-share.
4. Install the EnableRootSSH addon to gain access to the ReadyNAS via SSH. You can download this add-on here: http://www.readynas.com/download/addons/x86/4.2/EnableRootSSH_1.0-x86.bin and install it via Frontview in System -> Update -> Local. Reboot.
5. You will need an ssh client such as putty.
6. You will need to register an account on vmware.com to download the free VMware Server. Get the i386 package, not the 64-bit package. This guide was compiled against version 2.0.2-203138.i386

Now let’s get started:
With putty, connect to your ReadyNAS and login as the “root” user. The password should be the same as your FrontView admin-password. You are now at the command prompt for your NAS.

#Note the following line:
Linux YOURNASNAME 2.6.33.4.RNx86_64.2.1 #1 SMP Wed May 19 19:36:51 PDT 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux
#If you did all the earlier preparation right, your NAS will be running the x86_64 Linux Kernel in version 2.6.33.4. Let’s continue some preparations:

apt-get update && apt-get install build-essential

#This will install the necessary Linux components for compiling your kernel and VMware server. There will be a prompt if you really want to install these packages, as well as a prompt that a few packages could not be authenticated. Answer both with YES.

#Then let’s change into our work directory:
cd /c/backup
#We are now on the backup share. All shares you create via Frontview will be created within the directory /c/. Avoid using other Linux paths as they probably will be on the system partition of the NAS, which is only 5GB. It is not a good idea to have that run out of space.

#Then we will download the ReadyNAS GPL Package for Raidiator 4.2.11:
wget -q http://www.readynas.com/download/GPL/RNDP6xxx_4.2.11_WW_src.zip
#Let’s unpack it:
unzip -q RNDP6xxx_4.2.7_WW_src.zip -d ./GPL
#Now we will have to compile a new kernel to get the modules we need to run VMware Server.
cd GPL/linux-2.6.33.4
make ARCH=x86_64 oldconfig && make ARCH=x86_64
#This is going to take a while. You can go get another cup of coffee.

#We will need to tell Linux that we compiled a new kernel and its associated modules, as well as where to find it. For this we make a symbolic link:

ln -s /c/backup/GPL/linux-2.6.33.4/ /usr/src/linux
KERN_DIR=/usr/src/linux

#There has been a slight change in symlinks with kernel 2.6.32 onward which requires us to create two additional symlinks. Without these, VMware setup won’t work later on:

cd /usr/src/linux/include/linux
ln -s ../generated/utsrelease.h
ln -s ../generated/autoconf.h .

Now on to install the VMware server. First let’s copy the downloaded archive for the VMware server on the backup share.
Back in the ssh session, we’re going to unpack it, but first let’s change back into the backup share directory:

cd /c/backup
#and let’s unpack it:
gzip -d VMware-server-2.0.2-203138.i386.tar.gz
tar –xvf VMware-server-2.0.2-203138.i386.tar.gz

#Now we need to install some patches for VMware server to make it compatible with our kernel version:
wget http://risesecurity.org/~rcvalle/VMware-server-2.0.2-203138-update-2.patch

The following is taken from Ramon de Carvalho Valle at rise security (http://risesecurity.org/2010/04/02/vmware-server-2-0-2-update-patch-2/). Thanks to him for creating the patch.

#Extract VMware Server modules:
# Change working directory to vmware-server-distrib/lib/modules/source/
$ tar -xf vmci.tar
tar -xf vmmon.tar
tar -xf vmnet.tar
tar -xf vsock.tar

#Apply the patch:

#Change working directory to vmware-server-distrib/
patch -p1 < ../VMware-server-2.0.2-203138-update-2.patch

#Archive VMware Server modules again:

#Change working directory to vmware-server-distrib/lib/modules/source/
$ rm -f vmci.tar
rm -f vmmon.tar
rm -f vmnet.tar
rm -f vsock.tar
tar -cf vmci.tar vmci-only/
tar -cf vmmon.tar vmmon-only/
tar -cf vmnet.tar vmnet-only/
tar -cf vsock.tar vsock-only/

#And now let’s go install the VMware server:

cd vmware-server-distrib
./vmware-install.pl

#You will get several prompts now which you can all accept at face value except for one: You *must* change the default value for where to put the storage for virtual machines to a path within the /c/ directory. For this I prepared my “vm” share. Hence, I changed the path to “/c/vm/”. This is to make sure your virtual machines won’t kill the system volume of the ReadyNAS.

End notes and limitations:
Thanks to chirpa at the ReadyNAS forum for helping with my questions about the kernel and GPL package and for supplying me with early access to the GPL resources.
Enjoy.

Known limitations:
- The VMware server webinterface seems to have its issues on browsers other than Internet Explorer. I recommend you install the VMware Infrastructure Client to access the VMware host and its virtualised guests.
- Sometimes if you manually restart the VMware services by running “/etc/init.d/vmware restart”, the virtual network service does not want to properly restart. This requires re-running the configuration script “/usr/bin/vmware-config.pl”.

It applies to the following environment:

• ReadyNAS PRO firmware version 4.2.5

• VMware Server v2.0.1-156745.i386

You will need the following from the web (you can download ahead or just run with the commands I’ll enter later)
Netgear Kernel Sources for your NAS: http://www.readynas.com/download/GPL/RNDP6xxx_4.2.5_WW_src.zip (change version as needed)
VMware Server 2
VMware Server 2 Update for Kernel 2.6.27

These are the commands I used to install VMware Server:

cd /c/backup
apt-get update && apt-get install build-essential
wget -q http://www.readynas.com/download/GPL/RNDP6xxx_4.2.5_WW_src.zip
unzip -q RNDP6xxx_4.2.4_WW_src.zip -d ./GPL
cd GPL/linux-x86-2.6/
make config
make && make prepare
[... wait a bit...]
ln -s /c/backup/GPL/linux-x86-2.6/ /usr/src/linux
KERN_DIR=/usr/src/linux
[put your VMware install files on your backup share as well]
cd /c/backup
gzip -d VMware-server-2.0.1-156745.i386.tar.gz
tar –xvf VMware-server-2.0.1-156745.i386.tar.gz
cd vmware-server-distrib
./vmware-install.pl

… you’ll get a lot of prompts now, using the defaults should work fine now. If during vmware-config it won’t compile the vmware modules, you should use the update (unpack and run ./runme.pl).

Enjoy.

First of all, some history:

I’ve been a user of the PRO’s predecessor, the ReadyNAS NV+ for almost 3 years now. Its primary use has been that of a file and media streaming server. I have also had another NV+ in use as part of my employers server infrastructure, where it also works as a file server for archive and storage.
There were a couple of things that made me choose the ReadyNAS NV+ over its competition, but mostly I was convinced by reviews such as this, along with user feedback in forums and comments. For the most part, I can truthfully say I have been very happy with the NV+, as it has been rock-solid. There were no crashes or problems and configuration – at least for my usage scenario – has been dead simple.
There was only one minor gripe: Once you have a couple TBs of data, or your job includes moving hundreds of gigs of data on a regular basis, network throughput really comes to the foreground. With the NV+, under most if not all real-world applications, throughput maxed out around 30MB/s. This might not sound all that bad, considering most people still use 100Mbit networking, which tops out at around 12MB/s – but Gigabit Ethernet can move 120+MB/s and I’m an impatient fellow.

Along comes the ReadyNAS PRO, which is in most user regards an evolutionary step over the NV+:

• 6 hot-plug drive bays instead of 4
• two Gigabit Ethernet ports (with support for teaming and failover) instead of one
• x86 architecture instead of SPARC
• support for RAID6
• support for X-RAID2 (more on that later)

Everything else, from a user perspective is pretty much the same:

• The ReadyNAS Pro uses the same interface (FrontView)
• it supports the same file protocols (SMB/CIFS, AFP, NFS, FTP(S), HTTP(S))
• it supports the same streaming media solutions (UPnP AV, iTunes, SqueezeCenter, Home Media Streaming Server)
• DHCP, WINS, Printer Sharing
• Active Directory support
• UPS support

So why choose the PRO over its much cheaper predecessor, the NV+? One word: Performance!

The ReadyNAS PRO is by far the fastest networking device I’ve seen yet. To be honest, I have no idea how fast it really is, and from my experience during the beta phase, no-one else really knows either.
Why is that, you ask? Well, it turns out that no-one within the group of testers had a client available that could serve data at faster than gigabit speeds. I was in fact planning on using IEEE 802.3ad to hook up a much faster server as well as the PRO to my network – but incompatibilities with my network hardware kept me from testing it. I’m still trying to track down some Cisco hardware to have another go at this but for the time being, I will refer you to the official testing data from Netgear, which I can personally tell you to be true.

In use, the limiting factor for me has been my client computer (a ThinkPad T61 with a 200GB 7.200rpm Hitachi HDD), where I’m regularly seeing transfer rates between 50-60MB/s – a huge improvement over the NV+ which gave me 30MB/s only on a good day (I had some issues with data fragmentation as the NV+ was nearly constantly filled to max capacity…). On a side note: If you use Vista, *don’t* have any kind of media files or players open because that just murders network throughput (more on this issue here).

So what else is there to say:
The one factor that lead me to the ReadyNAS line of products was its proprietary X-RAID technology. Let me explain about this for a short while:
RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks. This means that a disk failure will not lead to you losing data. There are basically three types of RAID terminology you need to know about:

• RAID 1: Mirroring – best for two disks, you loose 50% of your gross capacity
• RAID 5: Striping – starting with three disks, parity information is spread so that any one disk failure will not lead to data loss
• RAID 6: Striping with “hot spare” – starting with four disks, parity information is spread so that and *two* disk failure will not lead to data loss

There are also other kinds of RAID you can use like RAID 10, 50 or 60 but I won’t go into those as they don’t really apply for a NAS box. Back to the topic though: Typically, once you’ve decided on one version of RAID for your setup, you cannot go back. You cannot upgrade to larger disks, you cannot change much of anything whatsoever. That is, unless you have X-RAID:
The ReadyNAS has this trick up its sleeve which allows you to go from one disk to two (when it sets up a mirrored RAID 1 volume), then three (converting the RAID 0 to a RAID 5), up to 4 (with the PRO 6) disks. During the latter stages, all the NAS does is to expand the volume and restripe the parity information so it is evenly spread among disks. Netgear calls this horizontal expansion.
Once you hit the maximum amount of disks you could put into your box, there was only one way to upgrade to even higher capacity: Swap out each disk one-by-one for a larger capacity model, wait for resync, and once all the disks have been swapped, wait for the volume expansion to take place. With the ReadyNAS PRO, X-RAID2 is adding a new trick: vertical expansion. The moment your drive swaping allows for a redundant setup of two larger capacity disks, the NAS will expand the volume to include whatever new diskspace is available in a redundant setup. What’s that mean? Here’s an example:

Say you have 4 500GB hdds already in place and you need even more space, adding two 1TB drives would usually have lead to an additional 1TB of space – because in a RAID5 volume, all disks can only as much to the volume as the smallest disk in the array. With X-RAID2, the ReadyNAS PRO detects that there are two drives with an unused capacity of 500GB each, which it then uses to extend the volume by another 500GB, which are in a mirrored setting. Neat.

Then again, who cares? In reality, most people will probably populate the NAS with all the disks they plan to put in it from the start and never think about it again until something breaks or they run out of space. Only then does this feature become important. What’s it good for then? Peace of mind!

I have pretty much summed up most I had to say, except for one thing: It’s quiet. Really quiet. Netgear did a great job designing the hardware for this thing as all my disks have been at below 40°C and I’ve had this thing on my desk without the fans feeling annoying.

To sum it up: If you’re looking for a fast, stable and userfriendly device to store your data, the ReadyNAS PRO will be the best choice currently on the market. It may be more expensive than its competition – but ease of use and maturity do count for something, most certainly in a business environment. Finally, a five year warranty along with the stellar support from the ReadyNAS team over at www.readynas.com/forum should put your mind at ease… it’s certainly convinced me.

-Jan Olbrecht

My acknowledgements and thanks go to the ReadyNAS PRO beta tester group and the Jedi Council over at the ReadyNAS Forum.

Anyway right now, I think now is the time to do it. For a change, I finally don’t have any kind of papers to write or other stuff to take care of that would cause me to prefer a stable XP installation. Anyway… here we go.

BTW, I know I haven’t written here in a while – then again, not so much has been happening in my life and who really cares about routine?

-Jan

;-)

-Jan

When I first got my IBM ThinkPad, it came with almost none of the famously known ThinkVantage suit of tools. OK, it came with lots of tools but their actual usefulness was rather redundant for a geek like myself. I soon opted for the additional diskspace I could get by not installing the tools (especially Rapid Restor).

Only 18 months into using the ThinkPad, I stumbled upon AccessConnections, a tool that really made my life easier by making changes to my network settings based on location profiles. It still wasn’t perfect though: Automatic profile switches didn’t occur at first because of lack of experience as to profile building on my part, DHCP issues (AccessConnections *needs* a working DHCP to automatically switch between profiles) and troubles with my 3com Wireless LAN PCMCIA-card (an early edition x-jack-antenna equipped 802.11b card).

With time came experience and I started appreciating the simple pleasures of easy-configuration switches offered by AccessConnection, still it didn’t really like working with my 3com card.

Today a lot of these issues changed: After upgrading to AccessConnections v3.21, it finally started accepting my card as a real wireless device, offering the whole set of preferences before only available to IBM devices or other vendors cards sold via the IBM website (mainly Cisco). By now AccessConnections is managing my wireless settings (and doing an admirable job, much less cumbersome as the sometimes enfuriating Windows configuration utility.

…. anyway, point being: this machine is now 3 years old, long since out of production and still there’s real, work-experience enhancing software additions made by IBM at no additional cost to myself. Did I mention I’m really looking forward to my next IBM ThinkPad? There is *no* other vendor with this kind of support for their machines. They may be a bit more expensive than others but at the end of their life-cycle, you got more out of them than their money’s worth.

-Jan

Fun fact #1: The Linksys BEFW11S4 allows you to install firmware updates even when the LEDs on the front tell you to send it to the manufacturer. Just use 192.168.1.1 as IP when TFTP’ing the new image. Even though the HTML interface doesn’t work at that time.

Fun fact #2: When the Wireless Link LED says “disabled” although it is enabled in the HTML interface, something in the firmware is broke. You have to install a 1.3.x firmware to get it up and running again. You also have to install that firmware *twice*, on the first run, the router still says it’s broken.

Fun fact #3: Installing a 1.4.x firmware afterwards will bring back the problem.

It’s 0420 and I’m really really tired. ‘nite

-Jan