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N54L Setup and working but a couple of questions


gb77

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Hi,

 

Thanks for all the guides/threads on how to setup Xpenelogy. Using them I've managed to get my N54L setup and also the OpenVPN plugin.

 

I have a couple of questions issues outstanding, the answers to which I didn't find on the various threads:

 

1) All the guides say to leave the USB Key unplugged so the drives can go to sleep. Does this still apply if you've changed the VID & PID as per the instructions here: http://xpenology.me/how-to-update-boot-loader/ ? I presume not as DSM can no longer see the USB Key now.

 

2) The guides say to plug the key into the motherboard USB port. If I can leave the key in (depending on the answer to question 1) I'd prefer to have it plugged in to one of the outside ports. I'm using an old standard sized key and (possibly overkill) but I don't want it to block airflow.

 

3) I initially installed with the original 2GB in the machine. Another 4GB (OWC1333D3ECC4GB) arrived from Amazon and I added it, but its not being detected (have tried swapping the DIMMS over, but still only shows 2GB). I tried deleting (using DSM restore factory option) and reinstalling, but still doesn't detect the 4GB DIMM. I'm at a loss now wether its a faulty DIM, N54l issue (possibly need BIOS update) or its the original DSM install has locked in the device as 2GB RAM somehow.

 

The device will be used as storage for four 3MP IP CCTV cameras and OpenVPN remote access to view these/recordings.

 

Any help greatly appreciated. Been reading for hours on the RAM issue in particular.

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Hello and welcome to the forum,

 

First you need to tell us what version of the loader and DSM you are using. Without that basic info it's difficult to help, but here are some preliminary answers:

 

1) Which guides are you referring to? It seems to me that you are referring to old and outdated guides. The USB key should NEVER be removed. It is necessary for DSM to boot properly. If for some reason you need to reboot or there is a power failure and the USB key is not plugged then DSM will not boot.

 

2) You can plug the USB key in whichever port pleases you although it seems in some machines DSM does not detect all usb ports for some reason. Anyhow, any port will do but I do recommend you use a USB 2 port instead of a USB 3 port if there is any in your machine. Also to answer your question more precisely, I would recommend you plug your USB key in to one of the outside ports, not because it will effect air flow honestly, but because it will be easier to access when you need to update the loader.

 

3) It is difficult to comment on that. Personally I have 16GB of RAM and all are seen by DSM (see my signature for more info). It could be a faulty RAM, incompatible RAM, damaged slot, Bios issue/config, mismatched RAM capacities etc etc. I would recommend using 2 RAM sticks of the same capacity to start, making sure both RAM are exactly the same specs. Try only plugging the new 4GB RAM see if it is detected to start with.

 

4) As for the CCTV cameras, please be informed that if you use Surveillance Station only 2 licenses are free, meaning only 2 cameras. To add more cameras you would need to buy licenses accordingly for each camera but here is the problem; I am not sure it will work and if it does there is no guarantee that it will last forever since you are already infringing the license of DSM by using a software that can only the used on Synology genuine hardware. By the way, we do not condone piracy here so you might need to find another solution for your CCTV cameras. There might be other packages out there for handling camera feeds but I am not knowledgeable in that area.

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Hello and welcome to the forum,

 

Hi, thank you for the welcome and taking the time to reply

 

First you need to tell us what version of the loader and DSM you are using. Without that basic info it's difficult to help,

 

Sorry, can't believe I forgot to mention that, here goes:

 

Hardware: HP N54L (1 x 4GB ECC & 1 x 2GB ECC, but only 2GB being detected). Server was bought new a few years ago and has never been used until now.

Loader: XPEnoboot_DS3615xs_5.2-5644.5.img

DSM: DSM_DS3615xs_5644.pat, updated to DSM_5.2-5644 Update-5 (applied all the updates in series.

 

Loader Source: https://download.xpenology.xyz (the link to .5 loader doesnt seem to be working @ xpenology.me)

DSM Source: http://xpenology.me/downloads/

 

but here are some preliminary answers:

 

1) Which guides are you referring to? It seems to me that you are referring to old and outdated guides. The USB key should NEVER be removed. It is necessary for DSM to boot properly. If for some reason you need to reboot or there is a power failure and the USB key is not plugged then DSM will not boot.

 

2) You can plug the USB key in whichever port pleases you although it seems in some machines DSM does not detect all usb ports for some reason. Anyhow, any port will do but I do recommend you use a USB 2 port instead of a USB 3 port if there is any in your machine. Also to answer your question more precisely, I would recommend you plug your USB key in to one of the outside ports, not because it will effect air flow honestly, but because it will be easier to access when you need to update the loader.

 

Used this for the loader, changed PID & VID, but didn't change SN/MAC as will only be using openvpn package which works without the need to change SN/MAC:

 

http://xpenology.me/how-to-update-boot-loader/

 

Used this as a general walkthrough guide (but also read through lots of N54L/Xpenology threads):

 

https://josephlo.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/yet-another-xpenologydsm-on-hp-n40l/

 

Thank you for confirming I can leave the USB stick in there. As you say I've probably been confused by some of the older threads I read. As they seemed to suggest the disks wouldn't spin down with the USB Key in there. Also they seemed to suggest plugin into the motherboard USB port. I guess I'll move it to an outside port, provided it boots I'm good.

 

 

3) It is difficult to comment on that. Personally I have 16GB of RAM and all are seen by DSM (see my signature for more info). It could be a faulty RAM, incompatible RAM, damaged slot, Bios issue/config, mismatched RAM capacities etc etc. I would recommend using 2 RAM sticks of the same capacity to start, making sure both RAM are exactly the same specs. Try only plugging the new 4GB RAM see if it is detected to start with.

 

Thanks for confirming it detects the full 16GB for you.

 

As the info in DSM control panel states its a DS3615, I thought perhaps it was just reporting the RAM that model should come with, rather then whats installed. Or perhaps because I initially setup without the 4GB module, it hadn't updated info centre. I enabled SSH and checked in Linux, but again it only shows 2GB.

 

I've switched the DIMM positions and still only the original 2GB is detected. So that tells me the slots are good. I guess the next step is to remove the 2GB and see if the 4GB DIMM is detected on its own. Its a bit fiddly pulling the board in the N54L, so thought I'd check it wasn't one of the aforementioned issues before I play around some more with the DIMMS.

 

4) As for the CCTV cameras, please be informed that if you use Surveillance Station only 2 licenses are free, meaning only 2 cameras. To add more cameras you would need to buy licenses accordingly for each camera but here is the problem; I am not sure it will work and if it does there is no guarantee that it will last forever since you are already infringing the license of DSM by using a software that can only the used on Synology genuine hardware. By the way, we do not condone piracy here so you might need to find another solution for your CCTV cameras. There might be other packages out there for handling camera feeds but I am not knowledgeable in that area.

 

The Camera's are Hikvision IP cams with onboard DVR functionality. So I'm not using Surveillance Station. The system is only being used to host the shared volumes that the cameras write to and also provide openvpn remote access to view the camera's/recordings.

 

That side seems to be working well. I can VPN from iPhones using openvpn connect app and view the cameras/recordings using Hikvision IVMS4500 (it connects to the cameras onboard DVR). I just have to setup VPN On demand now, heres a guide if anyone comes across this thread later and wants to achieve the same https://www.derman.com/blogs/iOS-OpenVPN-OnDemand-Setup

 

Now I just need to get to the bottom of this RAM issue :sad: Hopefully someone with some experience with N54L will come across this.

 

Thanks again for your answers to the other questions.

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Some further information regarding RAM. Looking at DSM interface it appears to sit at 8%. Given its only detecting 2GB, that suggests its using 163 MB. And that doesn't change even when I VPN in from iPhone and view all four cameras.

 

Does that seem right? The cameras are set to trigger on line crossing/intrusion detection, so not many writes going on. But I would have expected it to use more.

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Couple of further questions. The box is behind a firewall, but I have remote access via the openvpn plugin. Therefore it is exposed on port 1194 and any exploits in open vpn server plugin.

 

1) Should I also enable DSM firewall? I presumed there was little it could do to prevent an exploit on 1194/openvpn as it would also need to be opened on the DSM firewall as it is on my own firewall.

 

2) can I install the Synology updates showing up under control panel? Ive read mention of checking they are safe to install, but can't seem to find the relevant threads. As it's open via openvpn, I'd like to keep it as updated as possible.

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Did you get the 4Gb working? I can confirm that DSM reported 6Gb on 5.2 on my machine. I installed a crucial 4Gb ECC module some time ago and it all just works.

I can't comment on the firewall,

What I can say is that later versions of the 5.2 loader disabled writing to the BIOS and that stopped power schedules from working but other than that my box worked fine on later versions of 5.2. Do check that you have the correct setting in update and restore - important updates retaining the current version of DSM or you will be trying to get V6 working with the V5 loader!

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Did you get the 4Gb working? I can confirm that DSM reported 6Gb on 5.2 on my machine. I installed a crucial 4Gb ECC module some time ago and it all just works.

 

Unfortunately not. Tried it on its own and the server failed to boot. So pulled it out packaged it for RMA to Amazon. Thanks for confirming 6GB works in yours, I'll just try another DIMM I guess. Or alternatively planning to get a Gen 8 to setup in another location, so perhaps use the 4GB from that and populate 16GB in the Gen8.

 

I can't comment on the firewall,

 

Its only openvpn thats open to the world. Everything else is only accessible on the local network. Hoping thats ok, but not sure how updates work. i.e. If the openVPN plugin is standalone and I can update it through DSM, then I'm less worried about having port 1194 open pointing to that plugin.

 

What I can say is that later versions of the 5.2 loader disabled writing to the BIOS and that stopped power schedules from working but other than that my box worked fine on later versions of 5.2. Do check that you have the correct setting in update and restore - important updates retaining the current version of DSM or you will be trying to get V6 working with the V5 loader!

 

I'm a little confused about updates. I'm running XPEnoboot_DS3615xs_5.2-5644.5.img, which I understand is the bootloader. Then I've got DSM_DS3615xs_5644.pat installed and updated through DSM's interface manually to "DSM_5.2-5644 Update-5" (sequentially updated manually using the 5644 updates listed on the download page here).

 

Now I've got DSM set to not update automatically. What happens from here? I'm guessing we won't get any new 5.2 updates? In which case should I just move it over to DSM 6 now? It's just the security updates i'm concerned about, in particular for openvpn server as thats open to the world.

 

In terms of NAS functionality I don't need a lot. Storage via SMB share for CCTV, encrypted Time Machine backups and general file storage/serving. No transcoding or other Apps needed. And the box is behind my router firewall so not accessible other then via the openvpn plugin running on it, which allows me onto the network. Therefore, I don't think I need DSM feature updates.

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