Buffalo + Plex Firmware 1.69-3.59 Chris released

By 2015-01-14 Buffalo + Plex

TL;DR:

  • Read the FAQ when upgrading
  • Firmware version 1.69-3.59 “Chris”
  • FlexGet 1.2.249 implemented (Checkbox “FlexGet” on the Transmission admin page)
  • Mac updater works properly now (it will tell you the upgrade was successful)
  • Auto-update works with custom firmwares (System -> Maintenance -> Firmware Installation)
  • Shortcut buttons were introduced on the left side of the admin interface (under System Information)
  • SSH can be enabled for root access on port 2222 (Network -> Settings -> Network Services -> SSH for root on port 2222)
  • if optware was installed the new firmware will keep it in place
  • NFS server is available under Network -> NFS
  • When using transmission, all files went into a folder called ‘transmission’. This is now optional. (Checkbox “Create ‘transmission’ subfolder for files” on the Transmission admin page)
  • When using transmission, files were created that were unmanagable through network shares. This is now fixed.
  • The transmission webui “shift” was updated to the latest version

This firmware is a milestone in the Buffalo + Plex custom firmware project. At last all the features are implemented that I wanted to implement. (Not all that were requested though.)

There will be a few changes about how I release new firmware. First of all as you can see, the minor version was bumped up to 3.59 from the original 3.58. Originally I didn’t want to change the version number to keep things similar to the original, but one of the changes I implemented need proper versioning:

I’ve reworked auto-update to point to a DropBox share where I can put the newer versions. The Linkstation already had this feature enabled but Buffalo didn’t leverage it since version 1.56 of the firmware. This way the upgrade is going to be much smoother, your Linkstation will remind you that a new version exists and what the differences are. (You can disable this reminder and the auto-update altogether on the web interface.) Also the OSX upgrader works with it, now it will tell you that the upgrade is completed.

The second big change is that at last I’ve implemented FlexGet. It’s an extension to Transmission (I know it is capable of more but this time around Transmission was in focus.) (You can turn it on at the Extensions -> Transmission page.) You’ll have your FlexGet config file (config.yml) in transmission’s _config/_flexget folder with some additional files. (The status files indicate if your config was properly executed and if FlexGet still runs.)

I got around to enable the NFS web interface of the Linkstation and I’ve installed a user-mode NFS server that it manages. You can use it as a regular NFS server if you’re into this kind of thing. It is version 3, so if you have any current Linux distribution, you will have to add the “-o nfsvers=3” option to mount. (Set it up at Network -> NFS.) Kernel-mode is not supported on the Buffalo firmware and I’m not going to change the kernel for now. NFS client is not implemented either.

Another important update is the SSH connectivity for root. It seems a lot of people wanted this and I don’t want to maintain a separate developer’s version if it’s not necessary. Both the PC and Mac version has an option under Network -> Settings -> Network Services that enables “SSH for root on port 2222”. Port 22 is already used by the SFTP service for regular users, I didn’t want to change that so we don’t break anything. The port 2222 SSH allows only root to connect, with the default password “password” (PLEASE CHANGE THIS  WHEN YOU FIRST LOG ON!) and SFTP option – also for root.

With SSH comes a lot more problems, so here are a few things to make an SSH user’s life easier: The firmware doesn’t use optware (/opt) but it’s capable of handling it. The good news is that from this firmware on it will understand if optware was installed on the device earlier and reconnect it. It also has the optware-bootstrap directory in /root with some of the more familiar devices’ scripts. Lastly, the “web-timeout” command will allow anyone in SSH to set the timeout value of the web interface from 10 minutes to say… 60 minutes. (You’ll have to restart the Linkstation to activate it.)

As for the cosmetic changes, it was raised to my attention that some Linkstation firmware web interfaces have buttons on the left side of the screen (the left panel). I found that code and modified so it shows additional buttons to quickly navigate to some of the features I’ve implemented.

Some minor feature requests were implemented too, like the Transmission permissions are fixed now, when Transmission downloads a new file you can manage it through your network share. (This wasn’t properly fixed last time.) Also Transmission put everything in a “transmission” folder, now there is a checkbox on the web interface to turn that off, if you want your files exactly where you pointed your folder. The latest version of the Shift skin is also implemented.

This version is named Chris after my son who is not even two months old yet. All the time I spend on this project is time taken away from him. Thanks Chris for giving some of your time to these people.

I’ll have a new blog entry about the future of the project, a lot of features are still not implemented.

80 Comments

  • Pedro says:

    I can’t ssh login:

    ssh -p 2222 root@myhost
    (password=password)
    Permission denied, please try again.

    • garyt says:

      Hi Pedro,

      What firmware were you upgrading from? I think the root password doesn’t get reset if you’ve set it to something already.
      Is it a production NAS? If you have the chance, can you reset the settings on the web interface? That would reset the password, however you lose other settings too, so only do it if you’re not using it for anything else now.

      Also, if you can restart the NAS, that might worth a try too.
      – GaryT

      • nuwonda says:

        same issue, although there is no root user on my NAS and if I use the “admin” user account, the password doesn’t work either. This is on LS-XHL (i had official 1.69 installed before).

        • nuwonda says:

          nvmd. i did a reset and it worked!

          • Moriarty says:

            Reset the NAS and still can’t ssh in. I don’t even get a prompt – just automatic connection refused.

          • garyt says:

            Connection refused means that there’s no SSH server on the port. (I guess you used 2222.) Go to the SSH server page on the web interface and restart the service.

      • Pedro says:

        I solved with acp_commander to reset sshd_config file and restart sshd daemon.
        Tonight I will copy&paste the cmd line sequence.

  • Moriarty says:

    Does this support the utorrent WebUI RSS downloader? I see that 3.5.8 has an RSS downloader button, but it doesn’t really work.

    • garyt says:

      Hi Moriarty,

      Current testing shows that RSS works, however only with HTTP feed and maybe with some older HTTPS feed. “Newer” feeds use TLS which isn’t really well supported on the Linkstation.
      The old SSLv3 protocol was disabled in a lot of HTTPS sites because of the OpenSSL Heartbleed and other bugs, but the old version of OpenSSL in the Linkstation doesn’t support it well.

      • Moriarty says:

        Hey Garyt,

        http feeds? Like the ones provided by http://showrss.info ? Cause I couldn’t get these to work. Then again, I may just be stupid. 🙂

        • Moriarty says:

          I see. showrss gives me an XML feed. Any way to convert XML to HTTP feeds on the fly?

          • garyt says:

            Hi Moriarty,

            Apologies for the ambiguous description. The RSS feed provides you an XML file when downloaded, but the transport method (how you download it) can be different. If you look at the link I provided above, it starts with “http://” which means, the XML is downloaded through the HTTP protocol.
            Your link however starts with https:// which means that the XML file is downloaded using the HTTPS protocol. The Linkstation has an old version of OpenSSL which doesn’t support the new modifications in the HTTPS protocol. (Look up the poodle bug from a few months ago, it was in the news.)

            So, all in all, either you have to switch to a provider that gives you links that start with http:// (which is not really secure) or you need to find a different method to download your RSS feed. (flexget might be one.)

            If I get the chance, I’ll look into it but the whole bittorrent binary is proprietary so I might not get lucky…

            – GaryT

          • Moriarty says:

            Hi garyt,

            My link is an http:// one. Specifically http://showrss.info/feeds/82.rss

          • garyt says:

            That feed killed my BitTorrent and it had to be restarted… 🙁 I think the version of BitTorrent that the Linkstation uses is old and not without bug. (We could start strace-ing it tofind the error, but instead…) I’ll try it with Transmission to see what happens. I’m afraid eventually I’ll have to tell you to move over to Transmission…

            BTW, can I use this feed in the next version of the firmware as an example? This way people would have a working config that they can use and reuse.

            – GaryT

          • garyt says:

            Moriarty,

            I’ve found another BitTorrent binary in the newer CloudStation firmwares, I might be able to port it to the Linkstation. My testing shows that it will properly download the link you gave. (No HTTPS support though.)

            Look out for it in the next version.

      • Visa says:

        Could you point us to the feed you were using for testing? I tried a lot of feeds and doesn’t work at all. Thanks

  • Visa says:

    Keep it up! can’t wait for your next release.

  • oxygen8 says:

    PLEASE set “umask”: 0, and not “umask”: 18,
    in the settings.json

  • oxygen8 says:

    In this Mod it is done.
    Thanks.

    • garyt says:

      Yeah, it was supposed to be fixed in the previous version but I only got around to do it now.

  • detour23 says:

    hey Gary,

    i just upgraded to Chris from Junwei and the upgrader went into a reboot loop. after 4-5 reboots, it just hung and eventually i had to force quit the app. now it NasNavigator can’t find the NAS, and the info/error light is flashing. i’ve tried unplugging the NAS but no good. also tried re-installing Junwei but that updater can’t see the NAS either. any ideas? i have the Linkstation Pro Duo LS-WVL/E. thanks for all your work on this

    • garyt says:

      Hi detour23,

      This is worrying I’ve seen this before but I thought all traces of it were eliminated in the firmware. Can you count the flashes of the light? It should be several long flashes followed by a few short flashes. (Here’s the chart if you want to troubleshoot it yourself: https://josephlo.wordpress.com/2011/07/17/what-do-the-errorinformation-codes-indicate-ls-wvl-ls-wxl-series/

      If the red light blinks, look at the Exx table, if it’s the yellow light, check out the Ixx table.

      Did you try rebooting the NAS? In my experience that should start the upgrade process from where it left off. (Most probably it copied the firmware but wasn’t able to install it.) If that’s the case, I25 should be blinking yellow. (2 long and 5 short blinks.)

      – GaryT

      • detour23 says:

        hi Garyt,

        sorry for the delayed response. after 10-15 minutes and a few reboots of the NAS, everything is now working fine. thanks!

  • nuwonda says:

    great stuff! what kind of plugins are supported for flexget? clean_transmission?

    • garyt says:

      Hi nuwonda,

      The standard set of plugins for FlexGet are included in the install but – shame on me – I didn’t test them. I didn’t use FlexGet for much before so you’ll have to try it. (I’m always happy for feedback.)

      I’ll have to start using FlexGet soon, if I find something peculiar, you’ll see a blog entry about it.

      – GaryT

      • nuwonda says:

        cool beans. two things I noticed:
        1) flexget scheduler tries to find a timezone but cannot and defaults to UTC time hence, although timezone is set on the buff-nas.

        2) flexget + transmission could benefit from clean_transmission plugin, I tried to easy_install it on ssh but neither easy_install nor easy_install-2.7 in /usr/local/flexget# can be executed and when being called via python from /usr/local/flexget/lib/python2.7/ there are a few dependency issues popping up with doing python setup.py install from tar.gz archives you download
        2a) transmissionrpc0.11 is required with dependency on six (also missing). with neither easy_install nor pip working on shh shell level. I could only install six via local tar.gz six-1.9.0 that way (python setup.py install from the six directory). transmissionrpc011 says setuptools is missing and refuses to install

        So, if you want to “tidy up” your torrents, clean_transmission seems to be the plugin (removewhendone and movedone dont work with transmission). For clean_transmission (http://flexget.com/wiki/Plugins/clean_transmission) you need
        * transmissionrpc 0.11+
        * six (dependency from transmission rpc)
        * a working version of easy_install or pip (could not find any via ssh) if you want to diy.

        Finally, caveat, since I am a noob on the whole subject, I might be wrong and it all works flawlessly for others! I am just trying flexget for the first time myself and my config.yml is not doing what I want it to do! Suprise! 😉

        • garyt says:

          Hi nuwonda,

          Noobs are always welcome, they have the most baffling questions and the greatest weird ideas. 🙂

          For #1:
          Even though you can set the timezone on the Buffalo web interface, it doesn’t get set at /etc/timezone. The startup script I created for Transmission and FlexGet is supposed to set the timezone for you in /etc/timezone if you set something up on the web interface. Can you please check what’s in that file after a FlexGet restart? (Also, set something on the web interface if you hadn’t yet.)

          For #2:
          Here’s how to install transmissionrpc:
          /usr/local/flexget/bin/pip install transmissionrpc
          When I wanted to install six with a similar command, it told me that it’s already there. After installing transmissionrpc the transmission plugin worked for me perfectly. (I should’ve included it in my firmware…) I didn’t try clean_transmission but I expect it to work the same way.
          I’ll include transmissionrpc in the next release.

          One note if you run FlexGet manually: FlexGet is a bit conscious about its environment. The startup script has the necessary setup so FlexGet doesn’t complain about ascii encoding and stuff. If you want to reload FlexGet from SSH, use the following command:
          /etc/init.d/transmission.sh flexgetreload
          This will send a “reload config” command to FlexGet. If you messed up your config, it stops FlexGet, but if you fix it, this same command will also restart FlexGet. (Check the FlexGet log for details.)

          If you absolutely have to go to the core flexget application, you’ll have to set up a few things to make it run properly. At least run the following commands if you want to run an execute command on flexget:
          export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8
          export LANG=”en_US.UTF-8″
          export LANGUAGE=”en_US.UTF-8″
          /usr/local/flexget/bin/flexget -c /mnt/array1/whatever/_config/_flexget/config.yml execute

          The export commands need to run once every SSH session. Note that the config file of flexget was manually pointed to the right file.

          Regards,
          – GaryT

          • nuwonda says:

            Thanks a lot for the pip tip! installed, now on to config.yml test galore… btw, if I wanted to get rid of all the stuff i did so far, installing setuptools and transmissionrpc to “somewhere” else before I just need to apply the firmware again? Also, there’s python 2.7 on there but python -V says Python 2.6.2. – hummm, we could have the latest 2.7 version on it, no? Or do we need to run 2.6.2? And if so, why put 2.7 on there as well (/usr/local/flexget/include/python2.7) ^^:)

            1# timezone file contains 1 line: “Brussels”
            Maybe not the right info flexget is looking for?
            Timezone was set via webinterface to UTC +1 so Brussels is kinda right, on the webinterface it reads: “(UTC+01:00) Brussels, Copenhagen, Madrid, Paris”

            2# worked! thanks a ton. as I said in the beginning, any ssh stuff I did under /usr/local will be gone after another firmware update?

            3# flexget is really cool, I just need to figure out the right “yml”, one last thing, there is a “first_task-localhost.html” in the _flexget/received folder on the NAS. What does it do or what can I/should I do with it? I ignored it for now :O

            thanks for your work on this!

          • garyt says:

            Yes, reinstalling the firmware will get rid of your modifications in /usr/local/flexget. (Which is good for the possibly broken installs but bad after you set up everything properly.) The only folders that stay are /etc/melco (web config) and /opt (your custom packages and applications).
            If you run “which python” you’ll see that the default python is in /usr/local/bin/python and that’s the Buffalo default. I had a blog entry about the different versions of python before (I think I was ranting about package managers) look it up. The Buffalo firmware already contains Python 2.5 and 2.6 although in a quite broken state, good enough for their own use-case. (Site-package is almost empty.) FlexGet is compatible with Python 2.7 so I had to install that. It’s fully functional, provided that
            A) you add /usr/local/flexget/bin to your PATH environment variable or
            B) you always call the apps in there with full path. /usr/local/flexget/bin/python -V will tell you it’s 2.7
            I can’t override the default python of the firmware without massive testing so FlexGet uses 2.7 all the rest use what they used before.

            Your specific questions:
            1. Let me try to recreate your error, is there a specific error message you see, or it’s only the scheduler not running properly?
            2. Yes, /usr/local is firmware specific. Use /opt for your own changes, that will stay. You can even install your own Python version and not worry about later updates to the firmware. (Look up optware.)
            3. That’s kind of an error on my part. I had to set up an example config.yml so FlexGet starts on first run and I put “http://localhost” as the RSS feed. I forgot, that it actually has a web server there and it will try to download a feed from there. You can remove the whole folder and I’ll change the example config in the next version of the firmware so it doesn’t create these dumb folders. (Well, it won’t affect you any more if you’ll already have your config.)

            Regards,
            – GaryT

  • Moriarty says:

    Hi garyt,

    Some missing things I’ve noticed:
    1. How to change admin password now?
    2. How to back up the linkstation setup?

    • Moriarty says:

      Ignore first question, I’m dumb.

      • garyt says:

        Hi Moriarty,

        1. Or maybe, just happy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoySSBwQVso
        2. I don’t think the Linkstation gives you that option. Most (maybe all, I never checked) of the web config is stored in /etc/melco, you might want to save that folder. During a regular upgrade you don’t lose your settings at all, only if you check to rebuild partitions in the debug menu of the updater or if you go to System -> Restore/Erase -> Restore Factory Defaults.

        – GaryT

  • Gavin says:

    Hi All

    I’m having trouble on this release around Plex server not starting when the LinkStation starts up and just wondering if anyone else does too.
    My LS is set to sleep/powersave every night and when it wakes the Plex server must be manually restarted in order for it to be seen by any network devices.
    Anyone else having the same issue? And more importantly any ideas on how to solve?

    Cheers

    Gavin

    • garyt says:

      Hi Gavin,

      The startup of Plex is quite a slow process and the sleep will kill the running Plex server and start a new one when the NAS is awaken. Because of that it took me a few minutes to be able to connect to Plex first time after a wake. (3 minutes to be exact after the process started which might mean even 4-5 minutes from the wake command).

      There’s not much we can do about it, the NAS was not created for such an application, this is going to be slow.

      – GaryT

      • Gavin says:

        Cheers Gary

        It’s not a slowness thing to be honest, it’s that the Plex server just doesn’t start (after hours of up time). A reboot through the admin interface sorts it out so it’s not a big issue – for me anyway the non techies in the house are another story 🙂
        Really I was just wondering if anyone else had seen it that’s all.

        Keep up the great work

        Gavin

        • garyt says:

          Hi Gavin,

          I was wondering if Plex might not have enough resources starting up while everything else is trying to restore during wakeup. Can you add the line “sleep 5” in /etc/init.d/plex.sh at line 179, right before the one that starts like “/usr/sbin/chroot…”?

          It would give another 5 seconds to Plex before it tries to start, which might be enough for the other services to start up.

          – GaryT

  • Pedro says:

    Hi. I started Plex and parsed all my video but the client side do not play anything. I run iOS client and web client and both report error about unplayable video (transcoding not supported). Any ideas ? All the video play smoothly if I enable the wonky DLNA server on my ATV 1st gen + XBMC , iOS Video app…

    • garyt says:

      Hi Pedro,

      This came up in a lot of discussions, please read question #3 in the FAQ, I just updated it with some useful information. In short: your iOS and web client will only support MP4 files with H.264 encoding and AAC (maybe some other formats too, but definitely not the usual MKV and AVI container formats). If your files are in a different format(x.264, XVid, DivX, etc), you’ll have to use a client player that supports them, like the Plex for Home Theather application on the PC/Mac or a Samsung TV. If you have Plex for the ATV 1st gen, that might work too.

      – GaryT

  • Jeff says:

    Hi,
    i have a LS-WXL (LS Duo) With a Raid 0 Array.
    If i install your latest FW. How ist the Raid Level setup.
    I dont want to loose my Data stored.

    Jeff

    • garyt says:

      Hi Jeff,

      The firmware doesn’t set the RAID level it keeps it where it was with your data intact. A standard upgrade of the firmware is not going to touch your data. I’ve done firmware upgrades using RAID0, RAID1 and separated disk also without issues. (You CAN clear your data with the firmware update if you explicitly tell the updater to repartition your data drives. Obviously, that’s turned off by default.)

      Although the firmware upgrade is not touching your data, RAID0 is a risky way of storing data that you actually want to hold onto. Any errors on any of the two disks is going to corrupt all your data and it’s not easy to recover from it. RAID0 or in other name “striping” puts some parts of your file to disk1 while other parts to disk2. If a disk gets corrupted, your instantly losing the files that were involved in the corruption no matter that parts of them are oQn another disk. If one whole disk gets corrupted (overheating, broken head, etc), you lose all the files.

      So if you want to hold on to your data, you don’t have to worry about the firmware upgrade, but you should create a backup of your NAS whether you do the upgrade or not. Or change to RAID1 at least. (These are actually complement solutions, you should do both if your data is important.)

      Sorry for the lecture, I wasn’t sure how tech savvy you are and if you know what your caveats are.

      – GaryT

  • kidzz says:

    Hi. I have a ls-chl v2 and just installed the Chris version of this firmware from shonk’s 1.68mod1. i have a few problems below;
    1. I cannot not access through telnet or ssh using win81 telnet or Putty (network error:connection refused). I have enabled ssh on port 2222. Reset the server to factory default. Disable and enable the ssh for root option through webui.
    2. I cannot access my nas through Plex and is only displaying empty folder nas->video, music and photo.
    Please me. need to change the root password.
    Thank you

    • garyt says:

      Hi kidzz,

      There’s no telnet access in this custom firmware, only SSH. I looked up the LS-CHL and I think it doesn’t support SSH out of the box. My script checks if SSH is supported out of the box and only enables port 2222 if it does. I can disable this check in the next release which should solve the problem, but I don’t have an LS-CHL to test it.

      As for Plex, please check if the language dropdown is populated when you add a section. The FAQ has more details about this issue, look at question number 2.

      – GaryT

  • Daniel Kilburn says:

    Hi,

    Thanks for this, installed the 1.69-Chris package. Unfortunately, there does not seem option to enable FlexGet in the Web Interface? I see that it should be at the bottom of the Transmission BitTorrent section.

    Any ideas?

    Thanks

    Daniel

    • Daniel Kilburn says:

      Hi Again,

      The FlexGet option now appears in the Interface. (Yay!) But now it won’t let me enable it. Every time I click ‘enable’ and then ‘save’, it defaults back to ‘disabled’. Would appreciate your help 🙂

      Thanks

      Daniel

      • garyt says:

        Hi Daniel,

        Most probably your browser cache was the problem. (Look at FAQ question #1.)

        FlexGet will disable itself if the config you’re trying to use has errors. Try to double-check your configuration and look at the logs in the _flexget directory.

        – GaryT

  • Shadowmeister says:

    Hey thanks for the firmware – its great!

    Now i am trying to add a couple additions to my Linkstation – SABnzbd, Sickbeard etc – however i cant seem to have much success in the installation of these programs.

    Can you clarify if your firmware comes with “optware”? And from your experiences will i need “optware” to succeed in installing the aforementioned programs?

    If your upgrade does not come with “optware” what is the easiest method of installing it? To clarify i have a Linkstation Quad – LS-QL

    • garyt says:

      You can install optware fine. Either use some tutorials on the net of if you’re advanced, go to /root/optware-setup and install your xsh. Optware is not pre-installed on the NAS, you have to search for a tutorial for the Quad.

  • Roland says:

    Hey
    i have LS-WXL loaded with movies i want to install the new firmware but my question do i loose my data on this firmware upgrade or not ??

  • Adam says:

    Does this work with a LS441DE enclosure?

  • cthog says:

    Hey there. I just installed Chris, and it seems to work pretty well. I dig the enhanced Buffalo menu, in particular. However, my LS-WXL keeps eventually going to sleep on me–despite the fact that the switch is in the “On” (as opposed to “Auto”) position, and (as far as I can tell) sleep functions in the dashboard are disabled. Any idea what this could be?

    • garyt says:

      Hi cthog,

      Interesting issue. Can you play around with the settings a bit? Turn on the “network keep-alive” setting and the “transmission” client. The two together is supposed to keep your NAS alive even if it’s on the “auto” position. (It would only go to sleep if there’s no network ports open, but transmission will always keep a port open.) See if that keeps it on.

      – GaryT

  • cthog says:

    Thanks for the reply, I’ll do that the next time it goes to sleep. Right now I’m experimenting to see if it’s the fact that I’m creating a lot of network traffic (i.e. loading things onto the NAS over the network). I had rebooted the WXL and it stayed on for quite some time with no activity. Now that I’m back home I’m trying to see if this is some data-related issue. Will keep you posted.

  • Is the LS-WX2 OTL/R1-US supported?
    Thanks

    • garyt says:

      Hi David,

      Apologies for the late answer. As far as I know the LS-WX2 is too old, it’s not supported with this firmware.

      – GaryT

  • Potato says:

    Thanks Gary. Been using this for months and love it. Any idea when the next update would be? I couldn’t get Flexget to fetch due to missing Transmissionrpc, which you did mentioned above that it will be included in the next release. Sadly I have no idea how to install that ( not IT trained) :P.

    • garyt says:

      Hi Potato,

      Apologies for not getting back to you earlier, I was busy with life. The new release was just announced.
      You can download the “Andimaginary” release from the project page. Here‘s a blog entry with all the changes.

      To be honest the TransmissionRPC issue was so long ago that I can’t even remember what I did with it. Looking at the source now it’s there, so give it a go, I think it’s working. (My work notes only had a cross-out for transmissionrpc which probably means I did it some time ago.)

      – GaryT

  • shannon says:

    Hi . i have been using your awesome firmware that makes everything so simplified . but now i have encountered a weird problem . i cant seem to access my ftp server and i also ssh into the linkstation and found out that vsftpd is nowhere to be found . can i get any help as to how to get this ftp up? thanks alot in advance.

    regards
    shannon

    • garyt says:

      Hi shannon,

      Apologies for getting back to you so late, I was busy. The original firmware uses ProFTPd, not VSFTPd. If you need VSFTPd, you have to install it through optware. ProFTPD is at /usr/local/sbin/proftpd.

      – GaryT

  • chris says:

    Hi,

    I thought I noticed on this site that the firmware was compatible with the ls-ql, which I uploaded last night and it seems to have bricked it, have you got any advise on recovery.

    Many thanks
    Chris

    • garyt says:

      Hi Chris,

      I’m awfully sorry, I didn’t get back to you earlier, I was busy with life and I didn’t read your post. I hope you fixed your QL since then. The exact model that is compatible with this firmware is the LS-QVL which I think is a different design. The QL is an older product with lower specifications.

      – GaryT

  • Qin says:

    When I use my Blueray Player access NFS folder, ask me User Name and Password. What is User Name and Password? Thanks

    • garyt says:

      Hi Qin,

      Apologies for getting back to you so late, I was busy. Also, unfortunately I’m not familiar with NFS that much, I think you’ll have to set it up for yourself. If it asks you for a username/password, I think you have to set up one in the NFS config. I didn’t add any usernames/passwords into the config at all.

      – GaryT

  • Neo says:

    Hi garyt,
    Thanks for your effort for this customized firmware.
    I have a question for Plex server. I know this Plex server integrated in the NAS can’t do the transcoding. Actually I just don’t need the transcoding with my WD TV live. But when I link my wdtv to NAS through PLEX (not by SMB), I can find the movies which I add in the plex Library, but I can’t play it . I test the movie file in SMB , it work pretty well.
    So is there any options I need to adjust ?
    Thanks

    • garyt says:

      Hi Neo,

      Apologies for getting back to you so late, I was busy with life. 🙂
      I’m not exactly sure how you set up Plex. I’m not aware of a WDTV Live Plex client. What you can do is enable the “DLNA” feature of Plex on your NAS and see if you can play the files through DLNA on your WDTV Live. It’s not exactly the same experience as Plex but at least you get a part of it.

      – GaryT

  • Leo Ngo says:

    Hi !
    Would you mind helping me to update Plex Media server ? Plex server just notified there is a new update available. I’m a noob and need step by step instructions to update Plex manually on my Buffalo NAS Linkstation Duo Pro LS-WVL ! Thank you so much !

    • garyt says:

      Hi Leo,

      You can download the “Andimaginary” release from the project page. Here‘s a blog entry with all the changes.
      This includes the changes that Plex announced. Download it and install it as a regular firmware upgrade. (Use LSUpdater.exe) Make sure you clear your browser cache after the upgrade.

      – GaryT

  • Koen says:

    Thanks for your work.

    Though i have a few issues :
    * SSH is not working (main reason to install this mod) : network connection refused (using putty)
    Also, on the overview it says port 2222, but on the settings itself it says port 222.
    Issue is not resolved with reboots nor with doing “factory reset”.

    * Cannot change admin password (upgrade from configured box), solved after “factory reset”.

    * [buffalo bug] system > energy management : i can’t set awake at 10h and sleep at 2h “can’t awake before going to sleep”. Actually, i would already be glad with a daily reboot, as part off the system (like webinterface) become unresponsive after some days. (Obviously, i could do a reboot via cron through SSH, but ssh isn’t working.)

    Also, any chance recent buffalo patches would get backported to your version ?

    • garyt says:

      Hi Koen,

      The good news is that the newest Buffalo v1.71 firmware was backported in the new “Andimaginary” release of the firmware.
      You can download the “Andimaginary” release from the project page. Here‘s a blog entry with all the changes.

      The bad news is I have no idea what’s happening to your SSH connection. For a little background, the original SSH port (22) is still used by the firmware for SFTP connections (just as Buffalo originally intended). The new port 2222 (two thousand twenty two) is supposed to give you the SSH root access you require. Did you turn on the feature? You can do that on the web interface of the Linkstation under Network Settings -> Settings -> Network Services. I’ll check it too when I can, it’s supposed to say “SSH root access on port 2222” or similar. (Currently I was testing the rollback firmware so I have a stock firmware installed. :))

      – GaryT

  • Andy says:

    Hi,

    I can’t access the Plex server from my IOS device since the update of the client on my Iphone and Ipad, how do I upgrade the plex server on the nAS?

    • garyt says:

      Hi Andy,

      You can download the “Andimaginary” release from the project page. Here‘s a blog entry with all the changes, including a new version of Plex which is compatible with the iOS version. This should fix your issue.

      – GaryT

  • Stephen says:

    I am currently using using 1.69-Chris (DTCP-IP:1.65-20130731). Love the extra features! Having some difficulties with authentication when file mapping on my OSX. I am opening the new firmware will fix this problem; however, I don’t want to loose all the added features. Will you be incorporating the 1.71 firmware in the future?

    Thank you for your consideration,
    Stephen

    • garyt says:

      Hi Stephen,

      I’ve just updated the firmware to use Buffalo’s v1.71 firmware as the base.
      You can download the “Andimaginary” release from the project page. Here‘s a blog entry with all the changes.

      As far as I know they’ve only put in security updates so I’m not sure how well it’s going to work with your OSX, although I didn’t hear complaints yet about any of the firmwares. I know that OSX is not very good with SMB nowadays.
      – GaryT

  • Jud says:

    GaryT,

    This is a fabulous program. Easy install and seems to work as advertised so far (just installed last night). As I fiddle with it again tonight, it says on the settings >> server page:

    Version 0.9.11.7 An update is available. Please install manually. What’s New:

    Clicking the what’s new button yields:
    —————–
    Version 0.9.12.11.1406
    Fixes

    Fix the local media agent not starting correctly.
    Fix a possible crash when updating premium music libraries.
    Fix an issue that caused remuxing and audio conversion on some ARMv7 and PPC platforms to fail.
    ————————

    Clicking the install manually button takes me to the plex page where I must choose from computer or nas. I choose NAS, but there is no linkstation option listed (obviously, since you had to write this software). My question is should I update using one of those that are available (and if so, how)? Seems like a brick will result if done wrong.

    Also, the plex app on iphone identifies the server, but can’t connect and says “needs update”…which further compels me to want to update the plex server on my Linkstattion LS-WXL.

    Any upgrade support you can provide is greatly appreciated…

    • garyt says:

      Hi Jud,

      I’m glad the firmware works for you. I’ve just upgraded it to the new “Andimaginary” release which contains the Plex 0.9.12 version you were looking for. Unfortunately this is a home-grown project so Plex doesn’t officially support it. Neither a download from the Plex site nor the in-app upgrade button works at this time. You have to upgrade the firmware for each new release.
      However this is not as bad as it sounds, the upgrade is painless and it keeps your settings intact. I’ve also implemented an internal upgrade procedure on the Linkstation administrative site. This had a glitch in the last version so you should be able to use it with any new versions after “Andimaginary”. You can download the “Andimaginary” release from the project page. Here‘s a blog entry with all the changes.

      – GaryT

  • Chris Whyte says:

    Hi Gary,

    I’m fairly new to most of this, but I have managed to get the firmware up and running smoothly. I decided to use an old LS-CHL that we had lying around and weren’t using anymore. I formatted the drive so it was completely clean before installing the new firmware.

    I’m running into the Plex language dropdown issue, and I’ve read the FAQ, but for me the language option never populates. I’ve tried following the other suggestions as well (resetting the plex server), with no luck. I attempted to access the server through SSH with PUTTY but I’m also running into the “no connection” error every time. Any other ideas which might get the Plex server going?

    Thank you,

    -Chris