Making Synology NAS command line usable

My Synology automation scripts

This project should be converted to Ansible. Any volunteers?

I have a Synology DS214play NAS box and its command line is pretty limited. Most of the commands are trimmed down copies of their UNIX counterparts. I like my NAS being NAS, but I also wanted to be able to do useful things with it, assuming it's powered 24/7. To make its command line usable for myself in a long-term, I decided to spend some time on proper configuration. Unfortunately my NAS model isn't permitted to use Synology's Docker package, so the whole activity included:

• ipkg installation: this will give you basic commands such as vim or bash

• Debian chroot: this will let you run a Debian userland, which gives you apt-get and the possibility of running all sorts of stuff on your Synology box. I found it useful when experimenting with command-line backup solutions such as zbackup, which don't exist in ipkg repository.

I stole some ideas from:

http://www.hang321.net/en/2015/06/09/debian-chroot-on-dsm-5-2/

How to use

1. Enable SSH on your Synology http://forum.synology.com/wiki/index.php/Enabling_the_Command_Line_Interface
2. Go to https://synocommunity.com/ and add the Community Packages to Synology software sources.
3. From the community packages tab, install Python.
4. From the community packages tab, install Debian chroot.
5. Upon installing, start Debian chroot.

SSH to your NAS:

ssh root@nas_ip

Get the simple Python script which imitates wget, but unlike Synology's wget(1) has HTTPS support (http://www.koszek.com/blog/2015/10/04/wget-in-9-lines-of-python-for-hostile-environments/):

wget -O - 'http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=PcbNtyh9' | tr '\r' ' ' > wget2
chmod 755 wget2
./wget2 https://github.com/wkoszek/synology/archive/0.1.1.tar.gz
gunzip 0.1.1.tar.gz
tar xf 0.1.1.tar
cd synology-0.1.1
./bootstrap.sh

(you may want to pick the latest synology-x.x.x release).

This should initiate the bootstrap procedure.

What bootstrap does for you

Upon running bootstrap.sh following things will happen:

1. ipkg will be fetched and installed.
2. ASH config will be updated to add ipkg to PATH
3. .profile will be updated with some usable aliases and mandatory settings
4. SSH keys will be generated.
5. SSH configuration will be installed for GitHub.com in case you want to push from your NAS
6. Updated start script for Debian chroot will be installed. It basically mounts home directories in the chroot directory, and also adds USB-mounted volumes there.
7. Debian's chroot environment will be started and updated.
8. Informational message will be printed.

Author

• Wojciech Adam Koszek, wojciech@koszek.com
• http://www.koszek.com