Tag Archives: firmware

QNAP – TR-004 Firmware Issue Workaround

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I’ve been a user of QNAP products for over 10 years now. I have a couple of home systems running at the moment, including a TS-831X with a TR-004 enclosure attached to it. Last week I was prompted to update the external enclosure firmware to 1.1.0. After I did that, I had an issue where, once the unit spun down its disks, the volume would be marked as “Not active” by the system and I’d lose access to the data. Recovery was simple enough – I could either reboot the box or manually recover the enclosure via the QTS interface. I raised a job with QNAP web support, and we went back and forth with troubleshooting over the course of a week. The ticket was eventually escalated, and it was acknowledged that the current fix was to rollback to version 1.0.4 of the enclosure firmware.

The box is only used for media storage for Plex, but I figured it was worth backing up the contents of the external enclosure to another location in case something went wrong with the rollback. In any case, I’ve not done a downgrade on a QNAP device before, so I thought it was worth documenting the procedure here.

For some reason I needed to use Chrome over Safari in this example. I don’t know why that is. But whatever. In QTS, click on Storage & Snapshots, then Storage. Click on External RAID Management and then click on Check for Update.

You’ll see in this example, the installed TR-004 version is 1.1.0. Click on Browse to get the firmware file you want to roll back to.

You’ll get a stern warning that this kind of thing might cause problems.

Take a backup. Then tick the box.

The update will progress. It doesn’t take too long.

You then need to power off the enclosure and power it back on.

And, hopefully, your data will still be there. One side effect I noted was that the shared folder on that particular volume no longer had the correct permissions associated with the share. Fortunately, this is a home environment, and I’m using one user account to provide access to the share. I don’t know what you’d do if you had a complicated permissions situation in place.

And there you go. Like most things with QNAP, it’s a fairly simple process. This is the first time I’ve had to use QNAP support, and I found them responsive and helpful. I’ll report back if I get any other issues with the enclosure.

QNAP – Upgrading Firmware via the CLI

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For some reason, I keep persisting with my QNAP TS-639 II, despite the fact that every time something goes wrong with it I spend hours trying to revive it. In any case, I recently had an issue with a disk showing SMART warnings. I figured it would be a good idea to replace it before it became a big problem. I had some disks on the shelf from the last upgrade. When I popped one in, however, it sent me this e-mail.

Server Name: qnap639
IP Address: 192.168.0.110
Date/Time: 28/05/2015 06:27:00
Level: Warning
The firmware versions of the system built-in flash (4.1.3 Build 20150408) and the hard drive (4.1.2 Build 20150126) are not consistent. It is recommended to update the firmware again for higher system stability.

Not such a great result. I ignored the warning and manually rebuilt the /dev/md0 device. When I rebooted, however, I still had the warning. And a missing disk from the md0 device (but that’s a story for later). To get around this problem, it is recommended that you reinstall the array firmware via the shell. I took my instructions from here. In short, you copy the image file to a share, copy that to an update directory, run a script, and reboot. It fixed my problem as it relates to that warning, but I’m still having issues getting a drive to join the RAID device. I’m currently clearing the array again and will put in a new drive next week. Here’s what it looks like when you upgrade the firmware this way.

[/etc/config] # cd /
[/] # mkdir /mnt/HDA_ROOT/update
mkdir: Cannot create directory `/mnt/HDA_ROOT/update': File exists
[/] # cd /mnt/HDA_ROOT/update
[/mnt/HDA_ROOT/update] # ls
[/mnt/HDA_ROOT/update] # cd /
[/] # cp /share/Public/TS-639_20150408-4.1.3.img /mnt/HDA_ROOT/update/
[/] # ln -sf /mnt/HDA_ROOT/update /mnt/update
[/] # /etc/init.d/update.sh /mnt/HDA_ROOT/update/TS-639_20150408-4.1.3.img 
cksum=238546404
Check RAM space available for FW update: OK.
Using 120-bit encryption - (QNAPNASVERSION4)
len=1048576
model name = TS-639
version = 4.1.3
boot/
bzImage
bzImage.cksum
config/
fw_info
initrd.boot
initrd.boot.cksum
libcrypto.so.1.0.0
libssl.so.1.0.0
qpkg.tar
qpkg.tar.cksum
rootfs2.bz
rootfs2.bz.cksum
rootfs_ext.tgz
rootfs_ext.tgz.cksum
update/
update_img.sh
4.1.3 20150408 
OLD MODEL NAME = TS-639
Allow upgrade
Allow upgrade
/mnt/HDA_ROOT/update
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
tune2fs 1.41.4 (27-Jan-2009)
Setting maximal mount count to -1
Setting interval between checks to 0 seconds
Update image using HDD ...
bzImage cksum ... Pass
initrd.boot cksum ... Pass
rootfs2.bz cksum ... Pass
rootfs_ext.tgz cksum ... Pass
rootfs_ext.tgz cksum ... Pass
qpkg.tar cksum ... Pass
Update RFS1...
mke2fs 1.41.4 (27-Jan-2009)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=1024 (log=0)
Fragment size=1024 (log=0)
13832 inodes, 55296 blocks
0 blocks (0.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=1
Maximum filesystem blocks=56623104
7 block groups
8192 blocks per group, 8192 fragments per group
1976 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks: 
8193, 24577, 40961
Writing inode tables: done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done
This filesystem will be automatically checked every 21 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first.  Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.
Checking bzImage ... ok
Checking initrd.boot ... ok
Checking rootfs2.bz ... ok
Checking rootfs_ext.tgz ... ok
Update RFS2...
mke2fs 1.41.4 (27-Jan-2009)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=1024 (log=0)
Fragment size=1024 (log=0)
13832 inodes, 55296 blocks
0 blocks (0.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=1
Maximum filesystem blocks=56623104
7 block groups
8192 blocks per group, 8192 fragments per group
1976 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks: 
8193, 24577, 40961
Writing inode tables: done                            
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done
This filesystem will be automatically checked every 31 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first.  Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
Update Finished.
Make a Backup
/share/MD0_DATA
qpkg.tar cksum ... Pass
set cksum [238546404]
[/] # reboot
[/] #

Updated Articles Page

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I’ve added another article to my articles page. This one covers the basics of initial configuration of various FC switches. It’s a little dated in places, but I found it a handy reference when I was deploying a lot of different vendors’ solutions in the field. You may find useful as well.

Cisco 9124(e) firmware downgrade

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Sometimes, for any number of reasons, you’ll find yourself wanting to downgrade the firmware on your Cisco edge devices to match what you have running in the core. Fortunately, at least for the 9100-series switches, this is basically the same as upgrading the firmware. I’ve included the commands to run here, and also the full output of the process. For the director-class switches, there are a few more things to do, such as clearing out the space on the standby supervisor as well as the active sup card. I’ll try and post something 9500-series specific in the next few weeks.

In short, do this (assuming you’re loading version 3.3(4a) of the code):

copy running-config startup-config

copy startup-config tftp://192.168.101.9/startup-config_FOSLAB5A08_28072010

show module

copy tftp://192.168.101.9/m9100-s2ek9-mz.3.3.4a.bin bootflash:m9100-s2ek9-mz.3.3.4a.bin

copy tftp://192.168.101.9/m9100-s2ek9-kickstart-mz.3.3.4a.bin bootflash:m9100-s2ek9-kickstart-mz.3.3.4a.bin

dir bootflash:

show version image bootflash:m9100-s2ek9-mz.3.3.4a.bin

show incompatibility system m9100-s2ek9-mz.3.3.4a.bin

install all system bootflash:m9100-s2ek9-mz.3.3.4a.bin kickstart bootflash:m9100-s2ek9-kickstart-mz.3.3.4a.bin

y

show module

show version

You can also see the full output here. Note that this process works equally well for HP’s 9124e switches (the type you find in the back of c7000 blade chassis for instance), although you should be downloading the firmware from HP’s site, not Cisco’s.

New Article added to the Articles page

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I have added a new article to the articles page. It is imaginatively titled “qnap ts639 pro turbo nas firmware update procedure“. It covers the update process required to update the QNAP TS639 Pro Turbo NAS firmware. I promise I’ll actually write something of substance in the near future …