Logitech Media Server upgrade on the NSA325v2

Frik

I bought my NSA325v2 about 8 years ago and am still using the original version of Logitech Media Server (v7.7.1) that came with the NAS. I would really like to upgrade it to run the latest version (v8 or later), also because I would like to run the Spotty plugin for Spotify. The version currently installed does not seem to support Spotty.

Does anyone know how I could go about upgrading? My Linux skills are quite basic, so I will have to figure it out as I go along. But some pointers in the right direction would really be helpful.

Mijzelf

That won't be easy. AFAIK it's not open source, so you are dependent on the downloads from www.mysqueezebox.com. As far as I can see they only offer a Debian/Ubuntu package. While you can extract that to your NAS, I doubt that it will run, as the libraries+kernel on the NAS is just too old. So you'll have to install newer libraries+kernel, basically you have to install another OS.

That can be done, Doozan.com provides Debian for the 325. That means you'll loose your webinterface, and get an up-to-date headless Debian server in return, on which the Debian ARM package should run.

Mijzelf

NAS software? NAS is 'network attached storage', so any box with storage running some network file system daemon is a NAS. In your case you probably need to install samba server, that's it.

About raid, ZyXEL uses default Linux software raid, so installing mdadm + some config should be enough to assemble the array. The volume is ext3, which also is pretty default.

There is some problem with keeping your current volume. Don't know if it is possible to install Debian inside the raid array. (In theory it can be done, when the used initramfs is capable to assemble the array in order to get the rootfs. But I don't know if the Doozan way supports this). If you can't do this, Debian has to be installed somewhere else. Both disks have a system partition of 500MB each, which is too small for Debian, I think. So if you don't repartition your disks, Debian will have to be installed on an extern disk (thumbdrive). That should be possible, but maybe unwanted.

/Edit: You are aware the new Logitech server will be unlicensed? Only the stock server on stock firmware has a license.

Mijzelf

That won't be easy. AFAIK it's not open source, so you are dependent on the downloads from www.mysqueezebox.com. As far as I can see they only offer a Debian/Ubuntu package. While you can extract that to your NAS, I doubt that it will run, as the libraries+kernel on the NAS is just too old. So you'll have to install newer libraries+kernel, basically you have to install another OS.

That can be done, Doozan.com provides Debian for the 325. That means you'll loose your webinterface, and get an up-to-date headless Debian server in return, on which the Debian ARM package should run.

Frik

Hi Mijzelf, thanks a lot for the tips. As far as losing the web interface is concerned, I don't think that will be a big problem, as I have not really used it much anyways. As long as I can access the files themselves remotely, and run a media server, I should be ok. I will have a look at Doozan's page, hopefully I will be able to manage. I did use Debian a long long time ago, so hopefully some things will be familiar...

Frik

Just another (perhaps dumb?) question... afaik, if I install another OS on the NAS, I will also have to install some NAS software to take care of storage, RAID etc. Basically all the software that was installed when I bought the NAS will have to be replaced, right? So for the media server I will use Logitech, but I guess I also need some NAS management software take care of file sharing, redundancy etc. Do you have any tips on what I can install? I have RAID 1 (mirroring) set up, will I have to create a new RAID set if I replace the software on the NAS?

Mijzelf

NAS software? NAS is 'network attached storage', so any box with storage running some network file system daemon is a NAS. In your case you probably need to install samba server, that's it.

About raid, ZyXEL uses default Linux software raid, so installing mdadm + some config should be enough to assemble the array. The volume is ext3, which also is pretty default.

There is some problem with keeping your current volume. Don't know if it is possible to install Debian inside the raid array. (In theory it can be done, when the used initramfs is capable to assemble the array in order to get the rootfs. But I don't know if the Doozan way supports this). If you can't do this, Debian has to be installed somewhere else. Both disks have a system partition of 500MB each, which is too small for Debian, I think. So if you don't repartition your disks, Debian will have to be installed on an extern disk (thumbdrive). That should be possible, but maybe unwanted.

/Edit: You are aware the new Logitech server will be unlicensed? Only the stock server on stock firmware has a license.

Frik

Hi Mijzelf, thanks again for the info. I will think about recreating the RAID array then, it doesn't sound too hard. Perhaps I will backup everything first to another place, just in case. The problem with the license, I will look into that. Right now I'm running the media server on my PC, afaik it's also without a license. The reason I want to use Logitech is because I have a Squeezebox that connects to it, and I also want to access Spotify alongside my current music library. I probably could try and look into other media servers as well. Thanks again for the tips.