Debian on my NSLU2: The Revenge of the Swirl

17 May, 2008 

After some playing with Unslung on my Linksys NSLU2, I realize it was a “very limited solution” for our needs. We need to share 4 (sometimes 5) NTFS (or others) volumes, where everyone of them is 500GB: this is too much even for the modified firmware of Unslung, unable to read the full directory trees (and the contained files) of my massive movie’s collection.

The Debian/NSLU2's Reign

So, I came back to the Debian/NSLU2 solution. This time, with all the intention to make it work.
It’s quite pointless to report here all the things I did to make it work in the way I want/need. I’ll just write down the most important bits:

• Memory Optimization:
  • remove unused kernel modules (blacklisting in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist)
  • remove unnecessary services/daemons (like exim4 or nfsd)
• Mount volumes “by-label“, to avoid messes in mounting if the /dev files associated with the particular devices changes (reboot, unplug/replug, etc.) (take a look at this page for more info)
• Use the noatime option in the /etc/fstab file to avoid the system to update the “last-access” field in the i-nodes: this is very important to reduce I/O on Flash memories
• Reduce the swappiness of the kernel (reduce the I/O)
• Install fuse and compile ntfs-3g by hand: on Debian stable it’s not available yet (I could have used stable-backports but no one compiled ntfs-3g for ARM )
• Configure one Samba share for Disk. This avoid the problem of Samba calculating “free-space” when the sub-directory of a share is the mount point of a different disk.
• De-underclock the NSLU2: the CPU (XScale-IXP42x Family rev 1 (v5l)) is soldered to the board with a pin configuration that makes it run half of is speed. I just removed the Resistor that realize that particular configuration. More info here and here.

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Tags: IT • curiosity • personalclock • debian • english • firmware • flash • ftp • hacking • hdd • http • linux • memory • nas • nslu2 • optimization • personal • samba • saving • selinux • sharing • unslung
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11 Comments so far »

1. Lelly wrote on May 19, 2008 @ 15:39

   Ma che stai inciarmando??? Casa tua è diventata una centrale elettrica!!!

2. Another Illegal wrote on May 27, 2008 @ 8:10

   Thanks for these bits of knowledge. I have almost the exact same setup as yours and have been trying to get it to work for a couple of days now. I was about to give up altogether before I read your post.

   I have a couple of questions:

   1. How did you install fuse “by hand”?
   This is what I am getting:
   :~# apt-get install fuse
   Reading package lists… Done
   Building dependency tree… Done
   E: Couldn’t find package fuse

   2. Did you compile ntfs-3g on the Slug itself?

3. Detro wrote on May 27, 2008 @ 8:36

   1) To make “fuse” available as package, you need to activate all the repositories of your Debian. To do that, you need to update your “/etc/apt/sources.list“.

   Configure it to have something like mine:

   deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ etch main contrib non-free
   deb http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib non-free
   

   After that, the “fuse” package should be available. (Don’t forget to give a “apt-get update“)

   2) Yes, I compiled by hand “ntfs-3g“: first, install the packages “build-essentials” and “linux-headers” (same versione of the kernel you are currently using); second, “download->./configure->make->make install” ntfs-3g.

   Hope this helps.

4. Another Illegal wrote on May 29, 2008 @ 14:51

   It is all working now!

   The NSLU2 is now serving files right and left. Very impressive indeed.

   Thanks a million for your help

5. Detro wrote on May 29, 2008 @ 17:47

   Glad to be helpful

6. killinmilk wrote on June 23, 2008 @ 13:13

   come hai risolto il problema dello share samba (su debian) e leopard che si schifano?
   con la 3.0.24 di samba e leopard aggiornato, non c’era verso di aprire su osx lo share perché voleva a forza user/pass

   su tiger ovviamente funziona senza il minimo problema

7. Detro wrote on June 23, 2008 @ 14:25

   ehm… ho configurato samba per usare SOLO username/password: non ti dimenticare cosa ho studiato io
   [SECURITY IS WHEN YOU DON’T TRUST EVEN YOURSELF]

8. killinmilk wrote on June 23, 2008 @ 15:56

   ah ok, quindi il problema per me rimane -.-

9. Detro wrote on June 23, 2008 @ 17:07

   Sia in Win che in Lin che in Mic (non ci stava bene Mac, non suonava ) puoi registrare lo username/pass e… scordartene.
   E continui a mantenere una certa sicurezza.

10. killinmilk wrote on September 22, 2008 @ 17:15

    la discussione è un evergreen…

    ora, dopo aver messo samba con il controllo utenza, ho l’esigenza di mappare un nuovo disco. questa cosa del by-label è meravigliosa (ho visto che si può anche usare by-id)

    (mi sono già scontrato coi problemi che comporta avere due dischi sullo stesso switch usb; ovviamente lo slug voleva partire dal disco sbagliato. mi è toccato metterlo sull’altra porta usb)

11. La lumachina « L’angolo della ricotta (salata) - Lisergico andante wrote on October 17, 2008 @ 10:48

    […] (ma forse è solo un problema mio, mah). Ho poi aggiunto un nuovo disco, e seguendo quello che aveva fatto detro, ho impostato il file fstab per fare il mount del disco “by-label” (impostando la label […]

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