This repo contains code snippets and notes around setting up an Odroid HC1 as a NAS running Ubuntu Server 18.04. We loosely follow instructions.
Keep in mind that this guide is more for my LAN at home and might not contain the right steps for your setup. I just wanted to be able to reproduce my setup quickly in case I need a fresh installation at some point. Also I want to document a few learnings and resources that might help out a few beginners just like me.
The HC1 does not have HDMI or any other display connector. So you will need another computer the ssh into the HC1 after initial setup
- Odroid HC1
- 5V 5A PSU with 2.5mm x 5.1mm barrel plug. You should use more amps if you want to attach another HDD via USB for example
- 128GB SanDisk MicroSD card
- Crucial MX100 with 500GB
- Network cable
Download latest Ubuntu image from the Odroid website. Insert SD card (128GB) into a reader and flash the image using Edger. Make sure to use Edger, have tried with other software but that didn't work. Also, be aware that the HC1 can only boot from microSD and not your HDD.
You can then insert the HDD into its slot and fix with the screw that comes with the HC1. Connect router and HC1 one with the network cable. Insert SD card. Connect to power and wait for the device to boot. The power light should be lit up red constantly. The green HDD light should blink a few times initially. The blue light for the microSD card should be blinking like a heartbeat. After the initial first boot, the HC1 will shut down again. Wait for it, then unplug the power and plug it in again. Now the HC1 should boot again and be up and running after maybe a minute or so.
With the HC1 up and running, we can ssh into the device. First, we need to find it's address on our network. Angry IP Scanner scans your network and works across all platforms whether you are on Linux or Mac or Windows. On Linux, you can also use nmap or arp-scan. Once you have located the HC1 just ssh into it. Credentials are user: root and password odroid. Assume the device address is 192.168.0.123 enter shh root@192.168.0.123 into your terminal, enter odroid when prompted for the password. Now you should be in a shell on the odroid. Congratulations: Your HC1 is up and running!
For the remainder of the guide, we will assume to be working in the shell. If not, we will say so explictly. Also, until we have set up new users, we assume that you are logged in as root.
As root, run
apt update && apt full-upgrade -y
to generate a fresh package index. While running that you will get prompted that the old boot.ini has been saved to /media/boot/boot.ini.old. If it shows a different location adjust next step accordingly. Also, you will be asked whether services should be restarted automatically. Hit yes.
Remove old boot.ini:
rm /media/boot/boot.ini.old
Let's update our timezone and locale:
dpkg-reconfigure tzdata
and answer as appropriate. Then, we set our locale using
locale-gen "en_US.UTF-8"
update-locale LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
dpkg-reconfigure locales
You can basically confirm through that without changes unless you need different locales.
Initial setup is done, so let's reboot. Congratulations: You have a clean image!
We want a static IP address if to use the HC1 as a NAS. Ubuntu 18.04 uses netplan for configuring networks. We will use NetworkManager.
It should be installed but let's check:
dpkg -l | grep network-manager
Also let's check for if there is a config already:
ll /etc/netplan
If not, we create a new one and open it:
touch /etc/netplan/netconf.yaml
nano /etc/netplan/netconf.yaml
Check for name of your ethernet connection:
ip a
Copy/paste the netconf.yaml from this repo which is veeeerrrry simple. We have opted to use Cloudflare's public DNS and n. Make adjustments as needed. In particular, update config if it is not eth0. Save config and try to apply.
netplan try
If it works, this should kill you ssh connection. Wait a bit and try to connect to new address:
ssh root@192.168.0.2
or whatever static address you have assigned. Congratulations: You have a static IP address!
This guide helps you to change your hostname.
hostnamectl set-hostname yourname
nano /etc/hosts
Here, you change odroid to yourname. Then:
reboot
Congratulations: You have a personalized host name!
We will do that later. This guide might help.
First, let's change the root password from odroid to a different one.
passwd
Then, we create a sudo user, so that we can remove ssh access for root. Add the user and add it to the sudo group:
adduser your-user-name
usermod -G sudo your-user-name
Exit the shell with Ctrl+D and try to shh in with your new user. Perfect. Log out again and ssh in as root.
Now, we can disable ssh access for the root user:
nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config
Change "PermitRootLogin" to no, save and restart the ssh daemon:
service sshd restart
Log out of the shell and log in as sudo user from now on. Congratulations: You have a new user!
Let's check our partitions:
sudo parted -l
Then, we create a new file system on the HDD, in our case the device is /dev/sda. THIS WILL DELETE ALL DATA ON THE DISK! Only create a new filesystem if needed and all data that you want to keep has been backed up.
sudo mkfs -t ext4 /dev/sda
Run sudo parted -l again to check if all okay. Then run mount. In our case the microSD card is mounted on root /. We will mount the HDD on /media as nas and include in the filesystem table under /etc/fstab:
sudo mkdir -p /media/nas/
sudo mount -t ext4 /dev/sda /media/nas
mount
The HDD should be mounted now. Next run blkid to get the UUID to use in the filesystem table:
sudo nano /etc/fstab
Put in following line below the root partition:
UUID=insert-your-uuid-here /media/nas ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 2
This will mount the device with UUID insert-your-uuid-here on /media/nas during boot. It further provides the filesystem type and options. The second to last digit provides information for backup. Default to zero if you don't know what you are doing. The last digit determines integrity test order of fsck. This should always be 2 for additional HDDs. The root system gets 1. And all of higher order get checked after the root system in parallel.
Reboot if you want to check if everything looks good. Congratulations: Your filesystem is set up!
In case that we want to attach an external HDD, we also install autofs that will mount drives automatically during the boot process even if not configured in /etc/fstab.
sudo apt install autofs
This guide.
The host needs following:
sudo apt install nfs-kernel-server
Then we create a public and a private directory under /media/nas. The public and and private will have read-only and read-write permissions respectively:
sudo mkdir /media/nas/public
sudo mkdir /media/nas/private/ols -p
sudo chmod 755 /media/nas/public
sudo chmod 777 /media/nas/private -R
With this structure in place, we can add additonal users to /media/nas/private as needed
Next, we need to export the directories via NFS:
sudo nano /etc/exports
Paste in the following to share public with everyone on the network and private/* only with individual IP addresses:
/media/nas/public 192.168.0.0/24(ro,sync,no_subtree_check)
/media/nas/private/ols 192.168.0.15(rw,sync,no_subtree_check)
Insert the directory you want to share followed by the client(s) that you want to share with. Wild cards are allowed and options can be passed in via parenthesis. Details here.
Now share:
sudo exportfs -arvf
sudo systemctl start nfs-kernel-server
Check if all okay using:
sudo systemctl status nfs-kernel-server
My laptop is running MacOS. The NFS host wants to share our private/ols directory on IP address 192.168.0.20. So we want to configure the network on Mac so that it gets a static IP address on WiFi at home but not outside, e.g. at work. Here is a good guide. Go to System Preferences -> Network, add a new location Home. Open the Advanced... dialogue, go to TCP/IP, select Using DHCP with manual address and enter 192.168.0.15 as IPv4 address. Done.
Now, we can mount the directories on the client. This is done by modifying the /etc/fstab file on the client as per guide here. We cannot modify the file directly but have to do it via a tool called vifs. Type:
sudo vifs
This opens /etc/fstab file in vim and you can insert:
192.168.0.2:/media/nas/public /files/public nfs resvport,ro
192.168.0.2:/media/nas/private/ols /files/private nfs resvport,rw
Hit esc and enter :wq to save.
The resvport option might help if you experience issues. get an Operation not permitted error.