Adding NAS Synology like a node

[george1421]

@Tom-Elliott Do you need to install FOG as a storage node on this NAS for it to work using the storage management panels? Or will any NFS device work? My concern is some of the synology nas devices have ARM based CPUs, or Atom based CPUs and the bigger units have x64 based CPUs. The concern is that there may not be the required packages available for that arch.

[Edit] A quick check of the specs show that diskstation to use the Annapurna Labs Alpine AL-212 which is a dual core ARM Cortex A15 based processor. If that has any impact on the decision to use this as a storage node [/Edit]

[Quazz]

@george1421 You don’t need the FOG storage node installer to make storage nodes work, but some functionality (like the available size pie chart) won’t be available. If you have NFS and FTP properly setup you can use the device as storage node pretty much, at least in my experience.

[ch3i]

@george1421
@Quazz said:

@george1421 You don’t need the FOG storage node installer to make storage nodes work, but some functionality (like the available size pie chart) won’t be available. If you have NFS and FTP properly setup you can use the device as storage node pretty much, at least in my experience.

And the node can’t be master node of his storage group if you want to multicast (replication too I think).

[george1421]

@ch3i Is there any mandatory add on packages that need to be installed on the synology nas to make it work as a storage node? I use synology nas’ for data backup and I had to add perl and a few other packages to get Veeam to work properly. Is there any scripting that is going on at the storage node, or does the OP just need to enable NFS and FTP, set the user ID so it has access to the volumes and he’s done???

[ch3i]

@george1421 There is no package available for NAS (like Syno, Freenas, …), maybe in the next version (2.0). If you want to use your NAS as slave storage on a storage group, you have to set only NFS/FTP and fog user on it.

[Wayne Workman]

@Tom-Elliott said:

Synology NAS in particular has one setting for NFS (/volume1/images) but another setting for FTP (/images).

I think it’s the other way around.

[Wayne Workman]

@george1421 said:

@Tom-Elliott Do you need to install FOG as a storage node on this NAS for it to work using the storage management panels?

Nope.
Just need a “fog” user, and ftp and nfs configured for a directory. You also need a subdirectory called dev and you need a .mntcheck file in both the shared directory and the dev directory.

The problem with the Synology devices is the NFS path and the FTP path to the same directory are not the same.

[george1421]

@Wayne-Workman said:

@Tom-Elliott said:

Synology NAS in particular has one setting for NFS (/volume1/images) but another setting for FTP (/images).

I think it’s the other way around.

I can say for the NFS side it is /volume(X)/<share path>

[george1421]

@Wayne-Workman said:

Nope.
Just need a “fog” user, and ftp and nfs configured for a directory. You also need a subdirectory called dev and you need a .mntcheck file in both the shared directory and the dev directory.

Do we have a wiki on a kb on setting this up? If not I can look into it tonight. I have our (redundant) backup synology nas just idling right now.

[Wayne Workman]

@george1421 I thought we did but I guess not. I mentioned it in the “Troubleshoot FTP” article here: https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=Troubleshoot_FTP#FTP_Path

It’s come up at least 5 or 8 times though in the forums over the last year.

[george1421]

@Wayne-Workman ok let me see what I can do after supper tonight.

[ch3i]

@george1421 said:

@Wayne-Workman said:

Nope.
Just need a “fog” user, and ftp and nfs configured for a directory. You also need a subdirectory called dev and you need a .mntcheck file in both the shared directory and the dev directory.

Do we have a wiki on a kb on setting this up? If not I can look into it tonight. I have our (redundant) backup synology nas just idling right now.

For Freenas : https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=Use_FOG_with_FreeNAS . It can help you.

[george1421]

Well on the plus side I was able to setup the synology nas last night. I have nfs and ftp configured. This morning my images are on the synology nas. I setup a new storage node in FOG last night to kick off the replication process. This morning I created a new vm that referenced the synology nas and tried to image it. The boot.php page attempted to load with … for about 5 seconds and then it flashed real quick this message: “The storage groups associated storage node is not valid”. I’ve confirmed the nfs path is correct. I don’t think ftp is coming into play here but that path is also correct.

There was a setting for a web root address in the management gui for the storage node. I wonder if something is going on where it needs a specific page. Either way I don’t think you can use a nas without setting up a bit more things. I’ll work on it again in the evening.

[ch3i]

@george1421 Please look at : https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/6857/the-storage-groups-associated-storage-node-is-not-valid/7

[george1421]

@ch3i Thank you for the link, but it doesn’t appear to be my specific issue.

Watching the vm boot, it appears that if I use the synology NAS as a normal storage node, during the booting process the target computer is trying to load something from the synology NAS via http. Possibly the bzImage and inits, because that is the part where its getting hung.

Am I missing the point of the OP? To me I would just nfs mount the nas to a mount point on the FOG server. This would allow me to use the nas for storage but the fog server would have the full environment.

[ch3i]

@george1421 How is configured your storage Node, slave/master ?

[george1421]

@ch3i Slave.

It was my understanding that the OP wanted to use a synology nas as a storage node while still having a master node FOG server.

[Tom Elliott]

@george1421 this is possible, but if the storage node to use doesn’t have the image available on it it will not be able to find the storage node in use by the group the image is associated with.

[george1421]

@Tom-Elliott Hmmmm…

I setup NFS (and ftp) on the NAS. Then I configured the NAS as a storage node as normal. The master node then replicated the images to the storage node. When I look in the filestation on the nas I can see all of the image files in that location. So the images are there.

I’m using the location plugin, so in the main storage group I added this synology nas but in the location of “nothere”. Then I created a vm and registered it in the location “nothere”. When I pxe boot it, the target computer loads boot.php and then many dots and then throws the error. What I’m speculating is that the target computer is trying to load the FOS kernel from the storage node (synology nas). Since of course those files are not on the nas it is failing.

I did a little research and I can enable the apache web server on the NAS, but I can only create a virtual server using a dns name, not an IP address. So I’m stopped right here for now. The though was to setup the web server then copy the fog/service/ipxe files over to the synology nas in the right location to make the client boot. (Understand this is more of a fun project to help the OP than something I want)

[Wayne Workman]

@george1421 said:

What I’m speculating is that the target computer is trying to load the FOS kernel from the storage node (synology nas). Since of course those files are not on the nas it is failing.

I’d probably recommend setting up TFTP on the NAS - and copy all the boot files into it. The file default.ipxe is the file that the boot file will look to for instructions. At the bottom in there, you can just specify the primary FOG server’s IP - and I think that would work.

Also - you know, tell DHCP to use the NAS’ IP address for 066.

I don’t worry too much about you, George.