How To Ximeta Netdisk on Gentoo 2.6.14

netral · n00b Joined: 03 Dec 2004 Posts: 8 Location: Switzerland

Hi Ximeta Netdisk Users

updated 05.12.2007:

Your new ebuild won't install, because you cannot browse through the Licence text with any keypress?
try this:
# ps -A
# kill <PID of the last/only "more" process>

updated 28.07.2007:

broken links: most of the links here in this how to are broken, cause Ximeta changed their layout. So please use this link here to Ximeta its Codebase: http://code.ximeta.com/trac-ndas/wiki/WikiStart
the nightly ebuild from cdiesch works on my systems (2.6.21-r3), so get it here and try it out:
https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=168295 .
There is also a new ebuild for kernel 2.6.22-ck1, cause the other one won't compile.

For successful use, put that into your /etc/make.conf: PORTAGE_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage".
create this directory if needed and put the ebuild there: /usr/local/portage/net-fs/ndas.
Now build it with 'ebuild ndas-1.0.4_pre38.ebuild compile'. After then replace 'compile' with 'install', then with 'qmerge'.

updated 04.11.2006:

lot of things changed so far and some links too. Feel free to read this article for some background infos 'in the beginning' or go there for ximeta's updated information: http://code.ximeta.com/
version ndas-1.0.3-101: On executing 'make install' an error occured. Because of this I had to copy mknod.sh by hand to /usr/share/ndas/mknod.sh for a working gentoo- driver. Jhpark will change this in a coming version

updated 30.04.2006:

for easy installing, use that manual: http://code.ximeta.com/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/wiki/Gentoo works on kernel 2.6.16
take care, to deactivate distcc before compiling (if you don't know what I' talking about go on with reading). Some really strange errors come up when activated
additional information can be found on http://code.ximeta.com/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/wiki/ or here on this page

updated 18.01.2005:

did some general small changes and additions

updated 28.12.2005:

automatic activating at startup
boot entry in /etc/fstab
Devices- entry 'storing'

My Intention here is to give you a little help for a NDAS- Ximeta Disk. It might be unreadable for linux beginners. You should be able to managed your kernel-sources. Try it, learn it, use it..

I was never able to use the NDAS-Feature with a linux (non-Mandriva,Suse,Redhat) Computer
until Dec. 2005.

Tested Devices:

all ndas-devices from ximeta
FreeCom's NDAS Classic SL Network Drive

Some tools are necessary for compiling the modules. If you did install a gentoo-sources kernel by your own, you probably have everything you need.

If not, install kernel-sources (this must be already installed anyway, if you are using gentoo. I never heard of an rpm oder deb installed kernel), kernel-headers, gcc-compiler.

Technical Specification

NDAS stands for Network Direct Attached Storage and was developed my ximeta.com
Advantages:

no use of tcp/ip, also no ip adresses, no vulnerability against common scan tools
very high network performance (my measure tests proofs, that 10MB/s in an 10MB/s Network are possible)
easy usage
raid- ability

Disavantages:

proprietary drivers

Ximeta provides a very good and fast support for the linux drivers.
Using this on gentoo was a little bit tricky, but now it's very easy.

The main problem was, that those drivers worked only with older linux-kernels say 2.4.x.
For the guys syncing servers every day and using recent kernels, those drivers are not usuable.

Last week, I tried to compile the needed modules myself. After loading it with insmod an error occured
and finally there was no chance to solve it by myself(Cause: Different 'things' between 2.4.x and 2.6.x)
So I opened a ticket on the the ximeta database. 5 Days later (thanks to jhpark), a new driver was
there, which should work with 2.6.14 kernels.

Enough words, try it now.

I did no automation at all, but this could be done very easy.. See file ndas.spec for this

how to get ximeta netdisk working on gentoo
get the package at the end of the page at this link:
http://code.ximeta.com/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/ticket/14
use package: ndas-1.0.0-3.tar.gz

unpack it (

supernerd · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 23 Feb 2003 Posts: 79

This is a good start to a guide, which I am very appreciative of, since I have had this ndas drive for close to a year now, and haven't been able to use it other than usb.

I thought that the driver was a kernel patch and tried to follow the guide before compiling my kernel. It didn't work very well.

The guide requires that you already have a compiled and working kernel. It works similarly to the nvidia-kernel ebuild for those that are familar.

From reading the README it appears that you need to make sure that the following are built in your kernel: llc, p802, psnap

I didn't see options for them all, actually only one option for the llc2 module, but my make modules_install process revealed that it built modules for those modules as well.
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supernerd · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 23 Feb 2003 Posts: 79

Thank you so much for this howto, it is working perfectly for me.

BTW if you get this message :

supernerd · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 23 Feb 2003 Posts: 79

Apparently I spoke too soon. I am having troubles after a reboot.

jhpark · n00b Joined: 27 Dec 2005 Posts: 3

Please make sure that the NDAS kernel modules are loaded on every boot.

insmod /usr/lib/ndas/ndas_sal.ko
insmod /usr/lib/ndas/ndas_core.ko
insmod /usr/lib/ndas/ndas_block.ko

/usr/sbin/ndasadmin start

and check if the node are created correctly.

ls -l /dev/nd*

I wish I could test the driver on Gentoo by my self sometime soon.

Regarding the solution to automate the write permission pass over,
I recommend to use GFS.

http://code.ximeta.com/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/wiki/HowToGFS

XIMETA,Inc have a multi-write driver for NTFS in MS Windows,
but XIMETA, Inc has no plan to make a multi-write driver for ext2/3 in linux as GFS is all about it.

Please issue a ticket at http://code.ximeta.com/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/newticket if you think you found a bug.

Please note that any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my employers.

netral · n00b Joined: 03 Dec 2004 Posts: 8 Location: Switzerland

LukeLemmings · n00b Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 25

Hi,

I suppose this should work for FreeCom's NDAS drive too?
Can anyone confirm this?

In the mean time I'll give it a try and let you know.

Lucas.

LukeLemmings · n00b Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 25

netral · n00b Joined: 03 Dec 2004 Posts: 8 Location: Switzerland

Do not use the newest version of the ndas drivers (I tried 1.0.0-66).

They changed insmod to modprobe, which won't work with the manual.
All modules are not copied into /lib/modules/<kernel>, so modprobe won't find them anyway.

What else did change? I found (or it found me) a declaration of a new variable /etc/init.d/ndas (_NDAS_SHARE_..)

There are probably more changes which won't be visible so easy.
As a next thing, the module ndas_sal module won't load.

That was enough of failing and I stopped testing that driver.
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jhpark · n00b Joined: 27 Dec 2005 Posts: 3

Do

jhpark · n00b Joined: 27 Dec 2005 Posts: 3

Here is the update for the recent changes.

you can find the original version of this document at http://code.ximeta.com/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/wiki/Gentoo

Install the build tools.

cdiesch · n00b Joined: 04 Feb 2007 Posts: 5

To support the installation of the NDAS driver in the gentoo environment i just supplied an ebuild and the Ximeta EULA under bug 168295
Have fun!

wrinkols · n00b Joined: 17 Mar 2007 Posts: 1

I'm trying to use this through emerge but I keep getting the prompt for accepting the user agreement. It just infinitely repeats itself and I can't answer "yes". Any idea what I'm missing?

BTW this is my first post in the forums. Till now I've just been a troll reading all the great documentation.

******** EDIT *********

Well, I just used the source which was stored in the /var/tmp/portage dir and it worked fine now. So I guess nevermind on my original question. Thank you for all this support. I've been waiting to be able to use my (until now) wasted netdisk drive in linux. It comes in handy for keeping certain files shared easily over my network.

cdiesch · n00b Joined: 04 Feb 2007 Posts: 5

Getting the question for acceptance of the EULA and interactive answer during install is intended by Ximeta.
On my system, when using my ebuild I just get the question once with the compilation stopped until the answer is typed in.
With this information, it is hard to tell wether something needs to be changed in the ebuild or in your setup.
Are there any other experiences using the ebuilds?

Regards,

Christoph

netral · n00b Joined: 03 Dec 2004 Posts: 8 Location: Switzerland

Me too, I got the same problem here on two different machines.

Typing yes is not possible at all.
First I thought it has something to do with distcc, which could be so.

It may be also important for you to know, that this happened with a new ximeta tarball somewhen last year and another (older one) worked fine.

yours,
netral
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mighty goblin · n00b Joined: 10 Jun 2007 Posts: 1 Location: Denver

Since there is not much out there in the net on this topic, and it could use some updating, I'll add a few notes from my experience just getting this to work on a AMD64 with a 2.6.21-gentoo-r2 kernel:

information used :
this page - https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-413143.html
http://code.ximeta.com/trac-ndas/wiki/Gentoo
also:
http://code.ximeta.com/trac-ndas
http://code.ximeta.com/trac-ndas/wiki/Usage
http://code.ximeta.com/trac-ndas/wiki/HowToBuildManual

Installation source:
http://code.ximeta.com/dev/current/linux64/ driver version 1.1-2 as of 2007.06.10
for reference, though i didn't use it: http://code.ximeta.com/dev/current/linux/

The info on this original forum how-to and on ximeta's has lots of broken links, which caused me a few problems.

first off I had compile errors, stuff about format %d expects type 'int' but argument 2 has type 'long unsigned int'. a few google turned up nothing relevant, then i realized after a more careful reading of the code.ximeta.com site, that i need 64-bit source (duh) which i eventually found under installation source link above. The driver listed on the http://code.ximeta.com/trac-ndas/wiki/Gentoo is not the most current(1.0.3-101), and is 32-bit.

Once I obtained the proper source, compiling when smoothly. I still received error message about
. ERROR: Kernel configuration is invalid.
. include/linux/autoconf.h or include/config/auto.conf are missing.
. Run 'make oldconfig && make prepare' on kernel src to fix it.
but i just ignored it, autoconf.h is indeed there.

then following the USAGE instructions on http://code.ximeta.com/trac-ndas/wiki/Usage i could not get the device to register, response to
$ /usr/sbin/ndasadmin register <NDAS ID>-<NDAS key> --name <NetDisk Name to be>
was
. Failed to open /dev/ndas
. Check NDAS device file exists, driver module is loaded and started by administration tool

so I try enable, and the cat /proc commands, noting.
modprobe ndas_sal.ko, modprobe ndas_core.ko, nothing.

Finally I see in /usr/share/ndas/ some promising scripts, I try
$ /usr/share/ndas/ndas start
and ...
. Starting NDAS: modules inserted node created started

Easy sailing from there, "enabled" device per the usage instructions, created mount points, set up fstab, mounted partitions.

We have some NTFS partitions on the netdisk, which is nice under windows multiple users can have read and write access. With the linux sources, as expected it doesnt share nice, one user is rw, other machines read-only. Maybe we can find a way around this.

thanks to all those who have worked on this and those who make the forums so helpful....

KGust

I can't seem to enable my Ximeta in write mode. It works just fine in read mode.

I'm running 2.6.17-gentoo-r8 and have installed ndas-1.0.3-101. I had an error at the end of the install, so I had to manually create the /etc/init.d/ndas link. Otherwise it seems to work fine.

Whenever I try to enable the driver in write mode...

netral · n00b Joined: 03 Dec 2004 Posts: 8 Location: Switzerland

netral · n00b Joined: 03 Dec 2004 Posts: 8 Location: Switzerland

very short ebuild install instruction:

add this line to /etc/make.conf/ if you didn't do that already:
PORTAGE_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"
get ebuild from https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=168295
put it here: /usr/local/portage/net-fs/ndas/
you must create missing directories if needed

build the package now:

ebuild ndas-1.1-r8.ebuild digest
ebuild ndas-1.1-r8.ebuild compile
ebuild ndas-1.1-r8.ebuild install
ebuild ndas-1.1-r8.ebuild qmerge

you could use qmerge instead of compile install qmerge. Would be enough too.

cheers,
netral
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Atha · Apprentice Joined: 22 Sep 2004 Posts: 229

Hello everyone!

Just bought a "SUNGOO Externel Hard Disk Drive LAN" 320 GB and it sure is nice. I found the sources and the link on http://code.ximeta.com/cgi-bin/tracX.cgi/wiki/Gentoo directed me streight here - thanks :-)

The recent source at http://code.ximeta.com/dev/current/linux/ is

ndas-1.1-15.tar.gz (2007-11-30)
It works to just use the ndas-1.1-r8.ebuild from https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=168295 and rename it to ndas-1.1-r15.ebuild.

I have the ebuild located in /usr/local/portage/, and the PORTDIR_OVERLAY variable in /etc/make.conf is set accordingly.

Works like a charm, only when the EULA is displayed I cannot get past it. Every key that is pressed is echoed with no effect at all. So I went into a second console and killed the more process.

This got me past the lock and I got the message: "Do you agree to the above license terms? [yes or no]", typing "yes <enter>" then works.

The device works fine afterwards. I then started the init-script and registered the device:

This got me a lot of error messages about illegal path settings or something like that, but the status was "started" anyways.

The init-script is added to the default runlevel by the above mentioned ebuild.

No error message, everything okay with that.

12345678-0

The warning is normal I guess, since there is still the original FAT32 file system on the disk.

I'm using gentoo-sources-2.6.23-r2 (~x86 at the time of writing).

By the way, does anyone of you know:

Is shared-write mode possible with FAT32?
If yes, can I use it with Windows and Linux simultaniously?
Do I have to disable a device before shutdown?

I have to state, that this is absolutly new to me -- that a device, that is not supported by the linux kernel or by the distribution (Gentoo) out-of-the-box, works at the first day I switch it on. Okay, this technology and the (closed-source

) kernel modules have been out there for a while now, but for me it is a great experience that it worked on the first day, with only little work to do (by the gentoo standards).
The only setback is that the shared-write mode is only available for GFS and with Windows (NTFS?). I would really like to share (read/write) this drive with Linux and Windows -- at the same time, without reformating the drive - which makes no sense anyway.

Besides that, thanks for the help in this thread! Great work!
Andreas.

netral · n00b Joined: 03 Dec 2004 Posts: 8 Location: Switzerland

Hi There

Good to hear about your ndas success. It was not so easy in the beginning, but JHPARK was very helpful and did a lot of work.

Thanks for that ps -A |kill <PID of more>
Often I had the same problem and no clue how to solve that.

Perhaps we should send a ticket to ximeta.

# Is shared-write mode possible with FAT32?
as far as i know, that only works as you already know with gfs.

# Do I have to disable a device before shutdown?
no, but please unmount it (i had some corruptions in the past because of that)

yours,
netral
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Atha · Apprentice Joined: 22 Sep 2004 Posts: 229

Hi netral (aus der schönen deutschsprachigen? Schweiz)!

First of all, thanks for your work on the ebuild and this topic, this way a lot of people - but at least myself - got it easy to get the NDAS network drive running quickly.

About the ticket - I didn't get into it that much, and I'd probably get to it in a few months earliest, so if you have the time I'd be glad if you file the ticket at ximeta.

netral · n00b Joined: 03 Dec 2004 Posts: 8 Location: Switzerland

[quote="Atha"]Hi netral (aus der schönen deutschsprachigen? Schweiz)!

yes, you're right, I'm from there, quite near to the German Border, surely we could speak german, but i tried to hold that thread international for everyone (and to build english sentences, which is not so easy at it seems).

I filled out a ticket about this more phenomenon. But I must also check, if portage could be the reason for that. When I disrupt the 'Licence Agreement Showing' this shows up:
File "/usr/lib/portage/pym/portage_exec.py
so this could be something with python or portage.

You're right with automatic unmounting. The ndas service does everything and at least gentoo unmount everything anyway.

But..
In the past, I did started up a wireless connection to my disc. Somehow I lost that connection when I was only hearing a song from that disc. After the restart the disc table of the netdisk was corrupted.

That was bad luck.. naja.

yours,
netral
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manji_ · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 13 Apr 2007 Posts: 120

I just bought an external hdd case which uses the NDAS ptotocol over the lan connection. I wasn't aware at all with this protocol, and I think I made a silly choise. Although I have managed to install successfuly the driver on both my computers, and the drive is mounted fire with autofs, I can't make them have access at the same time, or something like that. After installing the driver on the second computer :

jedilady · n00b Joined: 28 Aug 2008 Posts: 1

Hi Ximeta Netdisk Users.

I have just successfully compiled and installed the gentoo version of the linux ndas drivers.

I have registered the device OK but when I run a cat /proc/ndas/devs, I get the error below.

ndas-3 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX***** Yes 16823128 2 Login Error

I am running a wireles network card which is an Atheros. The NDAS stuff works perfectly with that card in XP.

If I connect to the NDAS drive via wired ethernet and I run the above cat /proc/ndas/devs I get

ndas-3 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX***** Yes 16823128 2 Connected

I can also get my slot number and everything works perfectly.

Any suggestions as to why the wireless network doesn't appear to be passing all the MAC packets???

Jedilady.