Problem with my Medion NAS P89660 - 2Tb

[mcmellow]

Dear all,

I have bought an Medion NAS P89660 (MD 86979) with 2Tb at an ALDI store
in The Netherlands. There are some problems with this NAS and I think
they are related to each other. I hope to find some answers.

The NAS is connected to my network via a cisco router. I can reach it
with the browser, also whem I am outside my home network.

I have already find the backdoor and I am able to use Putty to have a
terminal session. Thanks for this tip.

My problems

1) Time sync does not work on none op the servers. The log shows
2014-08-10 18:21:56 - system info - NTP fails to update from europe.pool.ntp.org
2) Package List. I can not retrieve a list from the internet.
3) On the TCP/IP screen. Atest ping say unable to ping host. In a Telnet
session I can ping a root-server anywhere. by IP address.
4) Trying to check for the latest Firmware shows "Connection to the
server hung."
5) It is not possible to Enable Flickr/Youtube and the FTP Uploadr

In combination with point 5 See the following output on a find at a Telnet session
~ # find / -name .conf
find: /etc/zyxel/flickr-ul.conf: Input/output error
find: /etc/zyxel/youtube-ul.conf: Input/output error
find: /etc/zyxel/ftp-ul.conf: Input/output error
find: /zyxel/mnt/sysdisk/zyxel/flickr-ul.conf: Input/output error
find: /zyxel/mnt/sysdisk/zyxel/youtube-ul.conf: Input/output error
find: /zyxel/mnt/sysdisk/zyxel/ftp-ul.conf: Input/output error

I hope somebody can give me a hint

Kind regards
McMelloW

[Mijzelf]

Your first problems could well be related to a bad DNS. Does your NAS have a static IP? Did you configure a DNS?

The Input/Output errors look nasty. The directory /etc/zyxel is on NAND flash on a ZyXEL nas, but on a Medion it's on sda1. That partition is never unmounted cleanly, and can get damaged. I think you'll see inode errors on /dev/sda1 when you run dmesg directly after 'find /etc/zyxel'.

To solve that problem you can try to repair sda1.

Code: Select all

e2fsck.new /dev/sda1

It will warn you the partition is mounted. Unfortunately it's almost impossible to unmount it.

It's a serious bug in the firmware that it's not possible to properly shutdown the nas. You can only switch it off directly, which means the filesystems are never unmounted. To solve that I wrote a plugin for my Tweaks package, which gives you a way to shutdown the box. Well, sort of.

[mcmellow]

Hi Mijzelf,
thanks for your quick response

Your first problems could well be related to a bad DNS. Does your NAS have a static IP? Did you configure a DNS?

(TCP/IP screen) My NAS has a static IP address. The DNS is also tagged as static.
The Primary DNS is my CISCO (Ziggo) routers IP address
The Secondary DNS server is blank.

I can reach the NAS witin and from outside my private LAN

I can not install your tweak. I guess I have to solve the DNS problem first.

McMelloW

[Mijzelf]

And that router runs a DNS, I guess? It's easy to find if you have a DNS problem. Just telnet in and try

Code: Select all

ping google.com

If you have a bad DNS, you will get 'Unknown host'. Try OpenDNS 208.67.222.222. If it pings to an IP address, but there is no answer, it's probably the gateway (which should point to the router).

And no, the fact that you can reach to your NAS from outside doesn't prove the gateway is good. There are NAT routers which hide the outside address. All inbound traffic get the routers IP as sender. Don't know how much routers do so, but I have seen that at least once.

[mcmellow]

Hello Mijzelf

Found the trick for my situation.
The secondary DNS is given the IP address 8.8.8.8. (Google DNS) The problems of point 1 to 4 are solved in one go.

I have installed MetaReposirtry and after that Tweaks.
This all went OK. Good and clear documentation, well done
Thanks very much to Mijzelf. (Sounds odd if you speak Dutch)

Still facing the input/output error.
Tagged both option on the Medion Tweaks. Press the button Poweroff Now. All goes dead except the green network light.
However I am not able to use Putty and connect to the NAS.
Don't know how and where to enter the command e2fsck.new /dev/sda1

McMellow

[Mijzelf]

You can't telnet in? Do you mean while the box is 'fake down'? That is expected behaviour. It is in 'fake-wol', which means you can wake it up (or actually reboot it) by sending a WOL packet with one of the various Wake on LAN tools.

But indeed you could telnet in and repair the partition in that state. A few small preparations have to be made. First, e2fsck.new actually lives on /dev/sda1, so you'll have to copy it elsewhere to be able to use it:

Code: Select all

cp /usr/sbin/e2fsck.new /tmp/

Now you have to edit /tmp/.Tweaks/fakepoweroff.sh, which is the script which is run to put (and keep) the nas in 'fake down'. The script contains a block

Code: Select all

sync 

while [ -f /tmp/.Tweaks/fakepoweroff.flag ] ;
do
        if ! grep STANDBY /proc/d_suspdtime >/dev/null
        then
                echo a >/proc/d_suspdtime
                sleep 5
        fi
        if cat /proc/mounts|grep /dev/sd 

edit that to

Code: Select all

sync 
telnetd -l /bin/sh

while [ -f /tmp/.Tweaks/fakepoweroff.flag ] ;
do
        if cat /proc/mounts|grep /dev/sd 

(BTW, the package RandomTools contains an editor nano, which is easy to use)

Now you can switch off the NAS

Code: Select all

poweroff

Your telnet session will be ended, but after a few seconds you can telnet in again, and repair the partition:

Code: Select all

/tmp/e2fsck.new /dev/sda1

All goes dead except the green network light.

Yeah. I couldn't find a way to switch off that led. It's not software controllable, AFAIK. Even when I unload the NIC driver module it stays on.
But when it's on, you can safely unpower the box. The disk (and external disks) are unmounted.

[mcmellow]

Mijzelf, Well done.

Problems are solved. e2fsck.new repaired some stuff on the harddisk. It is all OK now uploders can be switched on/off with the webinterface as well.

Many thanks for your support.

McMelloW