Lg-nas n4b1

[bnborg]

Lg-NAS N4B1 with 4 x 2TB drives

I have been trying some things with my LG-NAS but I seem to have made things worse.

I takes hours to boot, spending most of the time on "Checking quotas", as reported on the front panel display. Not only that, I can no longer access the web interface. IE just sits at "waiting for http://lg-nas...".

I had decided to start fresh so I reinstalled using the original CD and only one two TB drive. Then I upgraded to the latest "firmware". It's not really firmware since it resides on and boots from the hard disk(s). I then took the NAS offline and mounted the drive on Windows using Ext2fsd. This was so I could edit rcS and enable telnetd and root access, which I did.

Following that, I reinstalled the drive and booted the NAS, and finished configuring it. I inserted three more 2 TB drives and configured the user space for one RAID5 array, which ends up being 5.36 TB, as reported by Windows. It took more than a day to build and synchronize the RAID. After that, the problems showed up, yet I can access the RAID remotely using smb, nfs, or ftp.

net use
New connections will be remembered.

Status Local Remote Network

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
L: \\LG-NAS\Borg Microsoft Windows Network
N: \\lg-nas\mnt\fs\Vol1 NFS Network
The command completed successfully.

I can also telnet to the box:

[root@LG-NAS:~ ] $ uname -a
Linux LG-NAS 2.6.22.7 #3 Tue Nov 3 09:14:31 KST 2009 armv5tejl unknown
[root@LG-NAS:~ ] $ mount
rootfs on / type rootfs (rw)
/dev/root on / type ext3 (rw,data=ordered)
none on /sys type sysfs (rw)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
none on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw)
tmp on /usr/local/samba/var type tmpfs (rw)
/dev/md2 on /mnt/fs/Vol1 type ext3 (rw,noatime,data=writeback,usrquota,grpquota)
nfsd on /proc/fs/nfsd type nfsd (rw)
/dev/sr0 on /mnt/cdrom type iso9660 (ro)
[root@LG-NAS:~ ] $ exportfs
/mnt/fs/Vol1 <world>
[root@LG-NAS:~ ] $

I tried restarting apache using the commands I found in rcS, but it didn't help. Rebooting doesn't help either.

Does anyone have any ideas? Is 4 x 2TB drives just too much for this processor? Or does telnetd add too much overhead? It's been almost twenty years since I used much unix.

Later, I am copying around 100 GB to the array. Network utilization is around 10% on the gigabit NIC, or 12 MB/s = 100 Mb/s. This seems reasonable since my previous copies were much slower. After a couple hours, the LG-NAS finally presented its login web page. I filled in the blanks and hit the button. It sat blank waiting for the web menu from the nas. When it finally responded, it was the timeout logout message.

 

[bnborg]

This is beginning to suck. I still have no web access.

I just wish I remembered more Unix. I'm relearning it all over again.

I'm also learning the specifics of BusyBox, also Windows Subsystem for Unix Applications although neither one is Unix nor Linux.

At least I can telnet to it. So I telneted to it while I had connected a one TB eSata drive, which had been formatted ext2 by my Dish Network 722k. It has 3 partitions, 1 GB, 500 GB and the remaining 450 GB. The NAS automounted the first partition on /mnt/Removable_ESATA_Vol1.

I mounted partitions 2 and 3 on unused existing directories, /mnt/fs/Vol2 and /mnt/fs/Vol3. Now I am using cp to copy the contents of 2 and 3 to the RAID 5 array, /mnt/fs/Vol1. I guess I don't get to see the progress because it seems hung. But I see the free space decreasing in Windows so it must be working. It sure seems slow, but it is almost a TeraByte since the drive is full.

I welcome any suggestions anyone has.

 

[bnborg]

Ok I decided to start over, not the whole initialize but just the user RAID.

I shut it down from a telnet prompt, since the web still times out before it can display the page.

Now I have pulled three of the drives and re-started. It booted a lot quicker. I'll see how the web interface works.

No good. The web page is still not loading.

 

[thiggins]

Have you contacted LG support?

 

[bnborg]

Have you contacted LG support?

I did once, when I first had the box. They were about useless. I have seen that the poor U.S. support has been noted in the reviews.

Maybe they are better now. Somehow I doubt it. They still do not have any user forums. SmallNetBuilder was the closest I found.

The last "firmware" release was July 2010, but a lot of the executables were compiled in 2007 or earlier, some as old as 2000.

 

[thiggins]

I did once, when I first had the box. They were about useless. I have seen that the poor U.S. support has been noted in the reviews.

Yeah. I figured they haven't improved much. But it was worth a shot.

 

[bnborg]

I just thought I'd post an update.

I went ahead and re-initialized it by booting the setup disk that came with it. I updated the "firmware", rebooted, and then shut it down and removed one drive. I edited rcS to enable su and telnetd. I started up the lg-nas with just that drive and then added the other three, one at a time.

After that, I told it to build a RAID5 out of all four drives. Again, it came up with 5.36 TB and said resyncing. After a day and a half it was done. And all the files I had copied to it were back!

It is now reasonably responsive and the web interface works fine. There must have been something corrupt before.

 

[thiggins]

Thanks for finishing the story.

 

[debriscreator]

I just thought I'd post an update.

I went ahead and re-initialized it by booting the setup disk that came with it. I updated the "firmware", rebooted, and then shut it down and removed one drive. I edited rcS to enable su and telnetd. I started up the lg-nas with just that drive and then added the other three, one at a time.

After that, I told it to build a RAID5 out of all four drives. Again, it came up with 5.36 TB and said resyncing. After a day and a half it was done. And all the files I had copied to it were back!

It is now reasonably responsive and the web interface works fine. There must have been something corrupt before.

hey i know its been several years but do you still have that cd? i am looking for one and can paypal.