NASsie, Raspberry Pi home Network Attached Storage, Software

Introduction

This is the second project about the NASsie home NAS. The first project is on the NASsie hardware. This project covers installing the software and getting it running.

The main reason for using Open Media Vault (OMV) is that it provides a nice full-featured NAS system that is controlled using a web interface. The SSH terminal interface is needed for some of the setup but is not needed after that.

Install Pi OS

The Raspberry Pi operating system needs to be installed. If the CM4 module is "lite", and does not have embedded memory then install Pi OS onto an SDHC card. If the CM4 has embedded memory then connect the USB cable and follow the instructions from the Raspberry Pi website.

OMV6 requires the 64-bit Bulleye (Legacy) Lite version of Pi OS. Follow the instructions on the Raspberry Pi website. SSH needs to be enabled. WiFi can be enabled however OMV will clear the WiFi configuration when installed so an Ethernet cable connection will at least be required after that.

When the installation is complete put the memory card in the CM4 IO board and boot the Raspberry Pi. It will take several minutes for the Raspberry Pi to boot and configure itself.

After it has booted connect to it using SSH (typically using Putty on Windows) with the username and password defined when the image was created.

Update the software packages:

sudo apt-get update

Upgrade the software packages:

sudo apt-get full-upgrade

The configuration file is used to enable features that are required for the NASsie. The following lines need to be added at the end of the /boot/config.txt file to enable the power button, power LCD, CM4 CPU fan, SPI for the LCD and to turn on the case fan.

Use nano to edit the file:

sudo nano /boot/config.txt

Add the following lines to the end of the file and save it:

# Enable studown button  
# must be pressed for 1.5 seconds  
dtoverlay=gpio-shutdown,gpio_pin=3,active_low=1,debounce=1500

# Enable CM4 fan  
dtoverlay=i2c-fan,emc2301,i2c_csi_dsi

# Turn on power LED  
gpio=12=op,dh

# Enable SPI for LCD  
dtparam=spi=on

# Turn case fan on during boot
gpio=4=op,dl

Reboot the system so the changes in config.txt take effect.

sudo reboot 0

Install LCD software

The software to drive the Waveshare LCD needs to be installed. It seems that the Python modules are needed even if only the C routines are used, so install it first.

#python3
sudo apt-get install python3-pip -y
sudo apt-get install python3-pil -y
sudo apt-get install python3-numpy -y
sudo pip3 install RPi.GPIO
sudo pip3 install spidev

The lgpio library needs to be installed.

wget https://github.com/joan2937/lg/archive/master.zip 
unzip master.zip 
cd lg-master 
sudo make install
cd

The LCD libraries and example code need to be installed.

sudo apt-get install unzip -y
sudo wget https://files.waveshare.com/upload/8/8d/LCD_Module_RPI_code.zip
sudo unzip ./LCD_Module_RPI_code.zip 
cd LCD_Module_RPI_code/RaspberryPi/

The LCD library code and examples need to be built.

cd c
sudo make clean
sudo make -j 8

Run the test code to make sure the display is working.

sudo ./main 2.4

The test text and an image should be displayed on the screen. They will be upside down that is expected.

Install NASsie software

Copy the code from the NASsie GitHub repository into a "/NASsie" directory in the pi user home directory "/home/pi". On Windows winscp can be used to copy files to the NASsie. Then build the NASsie application.

cd /NASsie
make

Install OMV6

Install the OMV 6 NAS software.

wget -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/OpenMediaVault-Plugin-Developers/installScript/master/install | sudo bash

This will take about 20 minutes and the system will re-boot when done. When it has re-boot login the web GUI with the username: "admin" and password: "openmediavault". Be sure to change the default password.

Setup OMV General

Widgets can be added to the home screen dashboard by selecting the person in the top right corner and then the dashboard.

It is good to work through each of the menu items on the sidebar. If you want email notifications, add details in the Notifications/Settings. This will cause an email to be sent on events.

OMV intercepts the shutdown button, so in the Power Management / Setting both actions need to be set to power off.

A really powerful feature of OMV is the plug-ins that allow the system to be extended with new features. Some interesting and useful plug-ins are highlighted.

• apttool: Needed for NASsie to load the hddtemp application that it uses.
• borgbackup: Powerful versioning backup tool.
• clamav: Antivirus, careful it seems to use a lot of CPU memory.
• compose: Used to install Docker applications, like Plex.
• filebrowser: Web interface to the shared file system.
• flashmemory: Installed by default on Raspberry Pi, moves some files to RAM.
• lvm2: Linux Volume Manager 2, required for filesystem setup.
• mergerfs: Merger File System, required for filesystem setup.
• omvextrasorg: Installed by default for extra packages.
• photoprism: Photo management package.
• resetperms: Useful to see which applications are using shared folders.
• symlinks: Useful for creating shortcuts to commonly used directories.

Setup OMV Storage

To use the NASsie features where a second SSD & HDD can be added and have a common windows shared directory, a configuration as show below is needed. This configuration is needed if the NASsie GUI program is used.

In order to implement this you start from the bottom and work up. Start with LVM by defining the Physical Volume with the drives in them, then add the Volume Groups and finally the Logical Volume.

When this is done install the file system and then create the mergerfs to combine the 2 filesystems. Create a shared folder for the combined file system and then define an SMB window share using the Services menu.

Setup OMV NASsie

The hddtemp application needs to be loaded using apt-get because the NASsie program uses it to get the temperature of the drivers.

The NASsie application that drives the display needs to be scheduled to run every time the system reboots.

Only the left button is currently used with the user interface display screens. Press the left button to cycle through the screens (splash screen, status screen and temperature screen). The screen will turn off after 5 minutes, just press any button to turn is back on.

Conclusion

Enjoy expanding and using your NASsie file service. It seems to be a nice fast reliable system and I found it a good upgrade for my old QNAP servers.