D-Link Forums
The Graveyard - Products No Longer Supported => D-Link Storage => DNS-323 => Topic started by: int on December 03, 2010, 06:46:21 AM
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Now that DLINK released DNS-320 (http://wiki.dns323.info/dns-320 (http://wiki.dns323.info/dns-320)) is an update of dns-323 with better cpu (500->800Mhz) and more RAM (32->128MB), dlink will not focus in this old nas.
We need an opensource community Firmware
Alt-F provides an alternative firmware for the DLINK DNS323, that can be either run "on top" of the vendor firmware, or flashed into the hardware.
Alt-F has Samba and NFS; supports ext2/3/4, VFAT, NTFS and ISO9660 filesystems; RAID 0, 1, 5 (with external USB disk) and JBD; rsync, ftp, sftp, ftps, ssh, lpd, DNS and DHCP servers, DDNS, fan and leds control, clean power up and down... and more.
Alt-F also has a set of comprehensive administering web pages, you don't need to use the command line to configure it (screenshots).
Besides the builtin software, Alt-F also supports additional packages on disk, including ffp packages, that you can install, update and uninstall using the administering web pages.
It is also easy to install, just copy two files to your disk and reboot; on the second reboot you will be back to the usual vendor software (instructions)
*****Alt-F-0.1B1 has been released*****
*****Alt-F-0.1B2 released*****
What's new:
-NFS setup web page done.
-Native package manager based on ipkg, and administering web page.
-Added a temporary and experimental package feed with some packages available (some of them were not even tested)
-Fixed fun_plug
[b]Alt-F-0.1B3 released[/b]
What's new:
-Kernel, libraries and apps compiled for execution speed instead of
space saving (as a result, and because of lack of flash memory space,
uShare and Transmission are now packages)
-kernel 2.6.33.6
-Filesystem Maintenance web page
-Disk Partition/RAID creation web page
-improved DHCP support
-improved fun_plug for ffp users
-improved Alt-F packages installation and administration
-Available packages:
-end-user packages with web administration page:
-Transmission, Fuppes, MediaTomb, miniDLNA, uShare, Firefly,
cups, hplip, samba-doc,
-command-line tools:
-dev-bundle, file, lsof, make, strace, nano, usbutils, unrar
-mplayer, lame, ffmpeg, sane
-networking:
-avahi, netatalk (both untested)
-filesystems:
-ntfsprogs
-databases:
-sqlite, bdb, gdbm,
-support libraries and tools:
flac, expat, libdaemon, libdlna, libexif, libfuse, libid3tag, libmad,
libogg, libpng, libtheora, libupnp, libusb, libvorbis, libxml2,
readline, taglib, tiff, pcre
Known Issues:
-Rev-A1 and rev-C1 hardware boards not yet supported
-network link auto-negotiation doesn't work. As result Alt-F
only works when the box is connected to Gbit switches/routers
or network cards. 100/10Mbps switch or routers won't work.
-ghostscrip/hplip can fail with an "Unable to get scanline 0/1" error,
and cups does not noticies it, sending the print job to the printer,
which prints a black page, wasting all your cartridge ink.
After configure the printer in cups, DISCONECT THE PRINTER and print
a test page. If in the State column of cups jobs web page, or using
"lpstat -p" you see a "Unable to get scanline 0/1" message,
CANCEL THE PRINT JOB AND DON'T USE THAT PRINT CONFIGURATION.
-big MTU (~>3712 bytes) cause a lot of "page allocation failure" error,
which impairs network performance (NFS at least)
-nfs generates a lot of "received packet spanning multiple descriptors"
errors when MTU is not the same on both hosts!
-partition sizes are not uniformly reported. Sometimes are binary based,
others decimal based.
-component RAID disks hotpluging/ejecting might not do the right thing,
specially for raid0, JBD.
-some web pages go back in browser history when an error is detected,
instead of reloading the previous page. The user must refresh the page
-The Disk Partitioning web page is not able to re-partition disks whose
partitions that are not in increasing partition-start order, as the
vendor's partition table are when configured for "standard disks".
This only happens if the user whish to keep some partition in the
middle of the disk unaltered. The solution is to re-partition the whole
disk, loosing all it data.
*****Alt-F-0.1B4 has been released*****
What's new:
-kernel 2.6.35.4
-owners of A1 hardware boards should try this.
-no lzma squashfs backported patch, as it turns the kernel
unstable; as a result there are less 11MB of RAM available :-(
-sftp and ftps support
-ftp administering web page (AWP)
-wget proxy AWP (untested)
-disk wizard AWP
-disk maintenance AWP redesigned, more disk/raid operations supported
-disk partitioning AWP bugs fixed
-remote web administration AWP (untested)
-redesigned side menu and added drop-down menus on AWP
-SMART AWP
-Board revision level detection
-several other fixes and improvements.
Known Issues:
-Rev-A1 (try it an report) and rev-C1 hardware boards not yet supported
-network link auto-negotiation doesn't work. As result Alt-F
only works when the box is connected to Gbit switches/routers
or network cards. 100/10Mbps switch or routers won't work.
-ghostscrip/hplip can fail with an "Unable to get scanline 0/1" error,
and cups does not noticies it, sending the print job to the printer,
which prints a black page, wasting all your cartridge ink.
After configure the printer in cups, DISCONECT THE PRINTER and print
a test page. If in the State column of cups jobs web page, or using
"lpstat -p" you see a "Unable to get scanline 0/1" message,
CANCEL THE PRINT JOB AND DON'T USE THAT PRINT CONFIGURATION.
*****Alt-F-0.1B5 has been released*****
What's new:
-finally works with 100Mbps and 1Gbps switches or routers
-support for rev-C1 boards through backported 2.6.36 patch
-fan support for rev-C1 board, using a post by Benjamin Herrenschmidt
(Thanks to Alexey Boyko for collaboration with all rev-C1 testing)
-squashfs-lzma is back, thanks to openwrt.org forward patch
-kernel 2.6.35.7, nfs-utils 1.2.3, kexec to 2.0.2,
-No job is finished until the paperwork is done:
-descriptive help support with some help pages already written
-tooltip support with demos in some pages
-disaster recovery:
-no password asked when connecting through the serial port
-back button opens telnetd without password on port 26, or clears flash
-DHCP/DNS web page splited and Hosts page created
-simplified samba configuration web page (swat is still there)
-several improvements and bug fixes
*****Alt-F-0.1B6 has been released*****
What's new:
-kernel 2.6.36.2, nfs-utils back to version 1.2.1
-terse report from vaughnd12 confirms that rev-A1 boards are now working.
(tanks to Philster76 and KRH for initial testing)
-partitioning and filesystem web pages spliced and RAID web page created
-Filesystems, RAID, and Partitioner web pages are now simpler
-Disk Partitioner and Wizard now unconditionally aligns partitions on 4K boundaries
-Disk Partitioner now has an advanced mode
-Directory Browser web page with enhanced (but slow) browsing and
with directory copy/cut/move/create/delete capabilities
-Directory Ownership and Access Permissions web page
-backup support and Backup Manager administering web pages (preliminary)
backups local directories and directories mounted by NFS/CIFS
-Remote syslog support and administering web pages (contribution from Augusto Bott)
-Firmware updater web page now enables recovering original vendor's settings from backup
(untested if effective, there are some differences between backup and original)
-Status web page only shows what exists
-Spaces allowed in paths in /etc/fstab and /etc/exports (use\040as\040space)
and processed by smb and nfs web pages. NFS complains but works.
mounts by filesystem labels still replace spaces with underscores.
-Speed improvement in web pages that deals with disk
-Countless improvements and bug fixes.
Opensource project
Website: http://sites.google.com/site/altfirmware/ (http://sites.google.com/site/altfirmware/)
Code and bug page: http://code.google.com/p/alt-f/ (http://code.google.com/p/alt-f/)
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Will this run firefly?
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fyi: The 323 has Gigabit networking.
I also think the Alt-F web interface could look much better. It's much worse than even D-Link's dated interface.
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If this is anything like DD-WRT or Tomato then I dont see any reason for this not to gain popularity. What features Alt-F would excel against the stock firmware?
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int - are you the guy that is putting this alternative together?
Either that or it seems you have swallowed the blurb on the alt-f site and regurgitated it here.
As the custodian of the software, I ask you the same questions as above:
''Will this run firefly?''
''What are the real advantages over the stock firmware?''
And as posted above, agreed, the alt-f interface looks about as tortuous as the synology one, which i have given up trying to get to grips with.
Yes it would be nice to have usb raid and so on, but mostly I would not be sad without it.
Similarly ext4 - I'm just getting to grips with reformatting a number of very large discs to ext3 - several days each, plus days copying the data back . . .
And others
Genuinely, I would like to hear an assortment of feedback
Biscotte
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int - are you the guy that is putting this alternative together?
I'm nothing to do with this project, I'm only supporting an alternative giving publicity here.
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''What are the real advantages over the stock firmware?''
Probably a community backing, an upgraded Linux kernel and the ability to run additional add-ons. Lots of which you can already do with FFP. Alt-F can run with FFP or as an alternative firmware.
More info on the Alt-F website.
Please note that alternative firmware or modifications may brick your unit and are unsupported by D-Link.
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Can I find the rev of my dns323 on the web page (I can't turn the unit upside down to find out so I was thinking perhaps it's listed somewhere in the UI).
Does anyone have Alt-F installed? I have a usb hub connected to the usb port on my dns323. I have a printer and a battery backup connected to that port. Would I be able to plug in a usb 2.0 external drive and back up the nas directly? If I can get USB 2.0 xfer speed during backup (20-30 Mb/sec), it beats backing up on a gigabit network getting only 6.64 Mb/sec transfer rate. Takes over 24 hrs to back up my nas this way. If I had an external drive connected, I can back up the entire NAS in about 6 hrs instead.
Gary
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I gave a try to the firmware with the temporary install. I couldn't write anything on the disk? I decided to remove it and once it was back to original firmware I had to install FFP to delete the files Alt-F left on my drive with Telnet =|
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easy way to tell what revision I have?
edit: nevermind... was just too lazy to go downstairs and check the bottom. 2nd question... C1 support coming soon? :)
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I have it installed runs great just need some patience and some linux background. Adding a usb drive is as easy as plugging it into the usb port and adding it to the smb page and boom you have external usb support dunno why dlink couldnt do that
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*****Alt-F-0.1B6 has been released*****
What's new:
-kernel 2.6.36.2, nfs-utils back to version 1.2.1
-terse report from vaughnd12 confirms that rev-A1 boards are now working.
(tanks to Philster76 and KRH for initial testing)
-partitioning and filesystem web pages spliced and RAID web page created
-Filesystems, RAID, and Partitioner web pages are now simpler
-Disk Partitioner and Wizard now unconditionally aligns partitions on 4K boundaries
-Disk Partitioner now has an advanced mode
-Directory Browser web page with enhanced (but slow) browsing and
with directory copy/cut/move/create/delete capabilities
-Directory Ownership and Access Permissions web page
-backup support and Backup Manager administering web pages (preliminary)
backups local directories and directories mounted by NFS/CIFS
-Remote syslog support and administering web pages (contribution from Augusto Bott)
-Firmware updater web page now enables recovering original vendor's settings from backup
(untested if effective, there are some differences between backup and original)
-Status web page only shows what exists
-Spaces allowed in paths in /etc/fstab and /etc/exports (use\040as\040space)
and processed by smb and nfs web pages. NFS complains but works.
mounts by filesystem labels still replace spaces with underscores.
-Speed improvement in web pages that deals with disk
-Countless improvements and bug fixes.
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I have a Hardware rev. C and for me it doesn't work. I tried several times, but when the Box restarts it is not reachable for me. Maybe there is an issue with the C Hardware ? Does anybody know ?
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I have a Hardware rev. C and for me it doesn't work. I tried several times, but when the Box restarts it is not reachable for me. Maybe there is an issue with the C Hardware ? Does anybody know ?
The information that I have is that the alf-f support rev-C if the only custom firmware that supports that.
See: http://forum.dsmg600.info/viewtopic.php?id=5460
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Hi to everybody, thanks a lot for support our device, d-link should not stop to support our device.
Just a question, if I install this alternative firmware, I'll lost all my data ? I read that it support an USB hard drive, but I may only make a back-up, no incremental or other ?
Sorry for my english
Regards
Gianni
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I currently have a 2x2tb RAID1 setup. If I were to install a 2tb usb drive with this alternative firmware, could I do a mix of RAID1 and JBOD? What I mean is, can I keep my current RAID1 setup with the two existing drives and just add an additional usb drive and have it show as a second drive for more space as opposed to being in the RAID setup?
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You can achieve that without changing your firmware. Lookup Fonz Fun Plug.
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I have ffp installed...
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What do I need to do to enable the use of an external usb drive? And will it perform as I described in my previous post?
On a side note, I'm worried that I may have bricked my dns-323. I followed the instructions for trying alt-f firmware and when i went to execute alt-f.sh (remotely from work) the telnet session froze and then booted me and I haven't been able to access the web interface or the ftp server for about 20 minutes now.
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What do I need to do to enable the use of an external usb drive? And will it perform as I described in my previous post?
On a side note, I'm worried that I may have bricked my dns-323. I followed the instructions for trying alt-f firmware and when i went to execute alt-f.sh (remotely from work) the telnet session froze and then booted me and I haven't been able to access the web interface or the ftp server for about 20 minutes now.
It might be doing a fsck if you see a heartbeat blue power light flashing its doing a fsck if you can ping it but cant access the box just wait
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Ok so I've got it back working again. So how can I use the external drive with FFP?
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Just plug the thing in and make a samba share done
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Will using the Alt-F, increase the SAMBA, and FTP transfer speed, I'm currently getting 8 Kbits with SAMBA, and 15 Kbits with FTP on a GBit network.
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Hi to everybody, thanks a lot for support our device, d-link should not stop to support our device.
Just a question, if I install this alternative firmware, I'll lost all my data ? I read that it support an USB hard drive, but I may only make a back-up, no incremental or other ?
Sorry for my english
Regards
Gianni
...nobody can help me ?
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I did not loose any data but remember any data that isnt backed up is considered data that you dont want<<<<<there are always risks to installing other firmwares read the faq's and understand the risks
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I did not loose any data but remember any data that isnt backed up is considered data that you dont want<<<<<there are always risks to installing other firmwares read the faq's and understand the risks
Thanks a lot Krenkey, obviusly I already backupped my data in 2 different drive (PC + external USB)+NAS in mirroring means enogh security (...never said never...); my question was only because restore 1 tera of data need lot of time, so my second question is do you suggest to move to this custom firmware (improving transfer speed, direct back-up to drive USB, anything else ) ?
Thanks again
Gianni
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Just plug the thing in and make a samba share done
How do I do that? I don't see anything about samba in the web interface and I don't just intuitively know how to do it through telnet
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Ok I have found a link on the dns-323 wiki page on how to do this. Although its not nearly as simple as you made it sound, I think I should be able to manage. My question is, how will this show up on a win 7 pc? In other words how will I access it? I'm not familiar with samba. Is there a special client? Or will it just be a separate volume under my current mapped drive?
Also, my intent is to probably get a 3tb usb drive and use it for storage of bd ISO files so I can rip my collection to a network storage and play it back over something like the netgear neotv 550. Will the neo tv be able to see this drive as well? Thanks in advance
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For further details on using the USB port of the NAS to attach a hard drive, see the link below. The article assumes you are running Fonz Fun Plug (ffp).
You can also format your attached drives as EXT2 or 3 if you want (i.e. not just FAT32/NTFS).
http://www.horto.ca/?p=27 (http://www.horto.ca/?p=27)
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Dunno it took me literally 30 seconds to plug in drive use the alt-f webpage and create a samba share and then open my network places and there is the samba share ready to go couldnt get easier than that.
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My experience is Alt-F has breathed new life into a box I was about to retire.. After some initial concerns - I'd recommend it. My DNS-323 is more responsive than it was before.
I have a DNS323 Rev C1 - with JBOD - I use it to stream HD to my media player (NMT) and also to download (nzbget).
I previously used ffp+optware - especially for unfsd which was more stable than Dlinks nfs offering, the latter of which kept crashing my unit. I need NFS as I stream via homeplugs, which SAMBA/CIFS doesn't see to like.
This worked OK for nearly 2 years but Lately nzbget IO started to really kill responsiveness, despite no changes to configuration or speed.
It was not due to nzbget CPU, or threads etc., I think it was something to do with the file system and IO.
Anyway, I thought I could spend hours investigating or just take the plunge, install an alternate firmware and hope the problem goes away.
I googled around and decided to flash my Rev C1 nas directly with the Alt-F RC2.
After flashing it spends a long time checking the disks, so be patient. It then mounts them as read only - so that requires a quick change in the GUI.
Data is preserved after flashing, but make sure you back up anything precious beforehand.
I did have some issues re-installing nzbget from Alt-F package management because I had backed up the existing /ffp folder but kept the original in place. I should have just renamed it, out of the way.
Also at one point I lost network access after a reboot - but I did the 20 second reset , and was up and running again.
After a bit of tweaking I find it is a great improvement over the Dlink firmware.
For nzbgetweb you need to enable the php session,xml and I think json modules for lighttpd (this can all be done via the gui)
Now both SMB and NFS seem more responsive (I didn't do any benchmarks)
Then I used the control panel to convert the file systems from ext3 to ext4.
This greatly reduced the time to delete large files.
It also has web pages for SMART monitoring with email alerts, etc.
Its a shame Alt-F ipkg is not compatible with optware as there are a lot more optware packages.
However I still grab the occasional package from optware if it doesnt have too many dependencies (eg gawk)
I think the GUI could do with a few more confirmation dialogs, as its easy to click something by accident , and off it goes...
(the visibility of the inetd service on/off button is a bit worrying - but I suspect a 20second reset will rectify if I do accidentally click on it)
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Hi... does anyone try this firmware on a 320L ?
I'm tired of the 320L and the fact D-Link is not releasing any new firmware... not only for new functionality but for corrections of the existing problems ! So before going to get rid of my 2 320L boxes... who knows ? The problem comes from the software...not the hardware.
Regards.
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Hi... does anyone try this firmware on a 320L ?
I'm tired of the 320L and the fact D-Link is not releasing any new firmware... not only for new functionality but for corrections of the existing problems ! So before going to get rid of my 2 320L boxes... who knows ? The problem comes from the software...not the hardware.
Regards.
Just installed this today on my 320L rev A3 board. It does work, however there are a couple of things I want you to realize. I did not and scared the tar out of me. The drive light LEDs do not work for me. So that alone had me very worried. Still going through the firmware, there is another place in the settings where it does not detect the board itself, I think in the Power Management section. All in all, I like it and it makes using the cloud aspect of the device useable as apposed to the MyDLink app which only worked 2 times for me.
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Running this on a 323 Rev b1 box and I am loving it. I have a pair of WD Red 3TB drives in it formatted and running at 3TB.
About the only things that need to get done are to set the fan to run higher speed than default and to read up on the lights. Scared me the first morning to see red lights flashing but it was my fault for not reading up on their function on the wiki.
Tested all last week to make sure it was stable and am now transfering data to the NAS for good.
For those who want to add up to 4 tb drives to their 323 Alt-F makes a good option.