Installing OpenRemote 2.0 Controller on Synology NAS

This documentation is provided by our user community and is maintained by OpenRemote user community.

If you wish to comment, suggest updates or correct errors, please leave a comment on this page or contact us on the forums.

These instructions have been verified using Synology DS211J. If you've successfully installed OpenRemote Controller on other models, kindly leave a note to let us know.

It is recommended that you install OpenRemote on Synology NAS using the prepackaged version available at PC Loadletter Blog.

The rest of the instructions on this page are no longer necessary, and will eventually be removed.

Disclaimer: The modifications described here may go against terms of use established by Synology. This might impact your software-warranty. In particular, the statement from Synology Wiki is as follows:

However, modifying your NAS will invalidate your software support warranty, although not normally your hardware warranty, as described in General Disclaimer on Modifying the Synology Server. Modifying your Synology Server is also not without considerable risk of making it either temporarily unstable or temporarily unuseable. In virtually all cases the Synology Server can be returned to its former as new condition (in software terms) by fully re-installing the Synology firmware. Re-installing the firmware can (but not normally) result in losing your data, so ensure you have a backup of your data before modifying the NAS.

Step 1: Install Bootstrap Script on Synology

In order to manage third party installation packages, a package manager must be installed. This can be achieved by installing the correct bootstrap script on the Synology NAS which will install a ipkg package manager.

The process is described on Synology Wiki. For the latest information, please check and follow the instructions there. For the sake of web rot (dead links, moving sites) some of the relevant parts are quoted below (as of Oct 13, 2011).

Please follow the instructions with care and download the correct bootstrap script. Synologys use different CPU's and each CPU requires a different bootstrap. The system models and their CPU types can be found on Synology Wiki.

Step 2: Install Java Development Kit on Synology

The instructions for installing Java on Synology was first published on pcloadletter.co.uk blog. We recommend that you follow the instructions there, including the comments section if you have questions.

We've reproduced some of the information here for archiving purposes.

Download Java

First, download Oracle Java VM Embedded. Again, you'll need to choose the correct binary download based on your CPU architecture (ARM or x86). OpenRemote will require Java 6 or higher:

• Choose Java SE for Embedded 6 – ARM5 Linux if your Synology NAS uses Marvell Kirkwood CPU (ARMv5)
• Choose Java SE for Embedded 6 – x86 Linux if your Synology NAS uses Atom CPU

Note that Oracle will ask you to fill in some of your personal information in order to access the download.

Follow the instructions on pcloadletter.co.uk blog. The downloaded Oracle Embedded Java archive should be saved on the public shared folder on your Synology NAS. The installation scripts will attempt to find the Java archive from this location. It has been done this way because the Oracle Embedded Java is not free software and cannot be freely distributed as part of the installation package.

Note that if you're using a multi-bay NAS, you may need to create the public shared folder yourself. You can do so from the Shared Folder control panel – create a shared folder with name public and assign read and write access to this folder for everyone. On single-bay models, the shared public folder is created by default.

Using Other Java VMs

Use of the Oracle Embedded Java SE is cumbersome due to the distribution restrictions. However, for ARM CPU architectures there aren't currently many production-quality options. The closest is OpenJDK VM on ARM (a.k.a Zero VM) but at the time of writing this was still lacking a just-in-time compiler (JIT) which has a large performance impact on the OpenRemote Controller. So while Zero VM is available for ARM architectures, it is not yet recommended until the related Shark JIT has also matured to production quality.

For x86 archictures such as Atom CPU, there are other JVM choices that could be used, including OpenJDK runtime which doesn't have the same distribution restrictions as Oracle Embedded SE. However, we haven't attempted to run OpenJDK on x86 based Synology NAS, nor is there currently an installation package for such.

If you're successful in using other Java VMs with Synology, please let us know either in the comments section of this page or on the forums.

Download Synology DiskStation Manager 3.1 ToolChain

Synology DSM Toolchains are free software and available for download from Sourceforge.

Again, a choice needs to be made based on your Synology NAS CPU architecture:

• Choose Marvell 88F628x Linux 2.6.32 if your Synology NAS has Marvell Kirkwood CPU (ARMv5)
• Choose Intel x86 Linux 2.6.32 if your Synology NAS has Atom CPU

Save the Synology DSM archive to the same public shared folder that was described in the previous step.

Note 1: Make sure your NAS is running DSM 3.1 or later.

Note 2: If you upgrade DSM after the Java packages have been installed, you will need to remove and re-install them. This is due to UTF-8 local support that has been added to the install packages which will get deleted on DSM upgrade.

Install Packages

After completing the above steps of downloading Java VM and DSM Toolchain and saving them into the public shared folder, you can run the package install scripts from Package Center in Synology DiskStation Manager.

• If you downloaded Java 6 for ARM (Marvell Kirkwood ARM v5 CPU) then use java1.6.0_27-88f6281-v3.spk installation package.
• If you downloaded Java 6 for x86 (Atom CPU) then use java1.6.0_27-x86-v3.spk installation package.

For archiving purposes (and if you want to investigate what the package installation scripts do), they've been attached below.

#!/bin/sh

#--------JAVA prerequisite checker script
#--------maintained at pcloadletter.co.uk

#find path of public share (it might not be on /volume1)
JAVA_PICKUP=`cat /usr/syno/etc/smb.conf | sed -r '/\/public$/!d;s/^.*path=(\/volume[0-9]{1,3}\/public).*$/\1/'`

if [ ! -f ${JAVA_PICKUP}/ejre-7-fcs-b147-linux-arm-sflt-headless-27_jun_2011.tar.gz ]; then
        echo "Java binary bundle not found. " > $SYNOPKG_TEMP_LOGFILE
        echo "I was expecting the file ${JAVA_PICKUP}/ejre-7-fcs-b147-linux-arm-sflt-headless-27_jun_2011.tar.gz. " >> $SYNOPKG_TEMP_LOGFILE
        echo "Please register with Oracle, download it from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/embedded/downloads/javase/index.html, " >> $SYNOPKG_TEMP_$
        echo "and place it in the public shared folder on your NAS." >> $SYNOPKG_TEMP_LOGFILE
        exit 1
fi

if [ ! -f ${JAVA_PICKUP}/gcc421_glibc25_88f628x.tgz ]; then
        echo "Synology toolchain bundle not found. This is needed for Java locale support. " > $SYNOPKG_TEMP_LOGFILE
        echo "I was expecting the file ${JAVA_PICKUP}/gcc421_glibc25_88f628x.tgz. " >> $SYNOPKG_TEMP_LOGFILE
        echo "Please download it from http://sourceforge.net/projects/dsgpl/files/DSM%203.1%20Tool%20Chains/ " >> $SYNOPKG_TEMP_LOGFILE
        echo "and place it in the public shared folder on your NAS." >> $SYNOPKG_TEMP_LOGFILE
        exit 1
fi

exit 0

#!/bin/sh

#--------JAVA installer script
#--------maintained at pcloadletter.co.uk

WORKING_DIR=`pwd`

#find path of public share (it might not be on /volume1)
JAVA_PICKUP=`cat /usr/syno/etc/smb.conf | sed -r '/\/public$/!d;s/^.*path=(\/volume[0-9]{1,3}\/public).*$/\1/'`

#the JAVA_HOME folder is kept separate from the package destination folder to allow a more descriptive package name
#the spaces would cause problems for the JAVA_HOME env var
#let's find the top level of the @appstore folder to create the java folder (again, might not be on /volume1)
JAVA_HOME_DIR=`echo ${SYNOPKG_PKGDEST} | sed -r 's/(.*\@appstore).*$/\1\/java/'`

#extract toolchain and build missing locale with UTF-8 support (don't think it matters which language)
cd ${JAVA_PICKUP}
tar xvzf gcc421_glibc25_88f628x.tgz
cp arm-none-linux-gnueabi/arm-none-linux-gnueabi/libc/usr/bin/locale /bin
cp arm-none-linux-gnueabi/arm-none-linux-gnueabi/libc/usr/bin/localedef /bin
cp -R arm-none-linux-gnueabi/arm-none-linux-gnueabi/libc/usr/share/i18n /usr/share
rm -r ${JAVA_PICKUP}/arm-none-linux-gnueabi
if [ ! -d /usr/lib/locale ]; then
        mkdir /usr/lib/locale
fi
localedef -c -f UTF-8 -i en_US en_US.utf8

#extract and install Java
tar xvzf ejre-7-fcs-b147-linux-arm-sflt-headless-27_jun_2011.tar.gz
mv ejre1.7.0 ${JAVA_HOME_DIR}

#modify environment variables
echo "PATH=\$PATH:${JAVA_HOME_DIR}/bin" >> /etc/profile
echo "JAVA_HOME=${JAVA_HOME_DIR}" >> /etc/profile
echo "LANG=en_US.utf8" >> /etc/profile
echo "export JAVA_HOME LANG PATH" >> /etc/profile
if [ -f /opt/etc/profile ]; then
        echo "PATH=\$PATH:${JAVA_HOME_DIR}/bin" >> /opt/etc/profile
        echo "JAVA_HOME=${JAVA_HOME_DIR}" >> /opt/etc/profile
        echo "LANG=en_US.utf8" >> /opt/etc/profile
        echo "export JAVA_HOME LANG PATH" >> /opt/etc/profile
fi

cd ${WORKING_DIR}
source /etc/profile
source ~/.profile

exit 0

#!/bin/sh

#--------JAVA uninstaller script
#--------maintained at pcloadletter.co.uk

#find package installation folder (again, might not be on /volume1)
JAVA_HOME_DIR=`echo ${SYNOPKG_PKGDEST} | sed -r 's/(.*\@appstore).*$/\1\/java/'`

#delete java files
#sanity check first (rm -r with a variable as an argument is dangerous!)
if [ "$JAVA_HOME_DIR" != "${JAVA_HOME_DIR/java/}" ]; then
        #only delete if path name contains "java"
        rm -r ${JAVA_HOME_DIR}
fi

#clean up profile mods
sed -i '/^PATH=\$PATH:\/.*\/@appstore\/java\/bin$/d' /etc/profile
sed -i '/^JAVA_HOME=\/.*\/java$/d' /etc/profile
sed -i '/^LANG=/d' /etc/profile
sed -i '/^export JAVA_HOME LANG PATH/d' /etc/profile

if [ -f /opt/etc/profile ]; then
        sed -i '/^PATH=\$PATH:\/.*\/@appstore\/java\/bin$/d' /opt/etc/profile
        sed -i '/^JAVA_HOME=\/.*\/java$/d' /opt/etc/profile
        sed -i '/^LANG=/d' /opt/etc/profile
        sed -i '/^export JAVA_HOME LANG PATH/d' /opt/etc/profile
fi

#remove locale stuff
rm /bin/locale
rm /bin/localedef
rm -r /usr/lib/locale
rm -r /usr/share/i18n

exit 0

Step 3: Install OpenRemote Controller on Synology

First, download OpenRemote Controller.

Extract the zip archive on your Synology NAS. You can create a new directory for this, for example under /usr/local directory.

Change Controller Default Port

OpenRemote Controller attempts to listen on port 8080 by default. This is already taken by other Synology services. You'll need to configure OpenRemote Controller to run on a different port (for example, 8081).

To do so, locate the server.xml file in [/usr/local/OpenRemote]/config directory. It contains the following section:

    <!-- Documentation at :
         Java HTTP Connector: /docs/config/http.html (blocking & non-blocking)
         Java AJP  Connector: /docs/config/ajp.html
         APR (HTTP/AJP) Connector: /docs/apr.html
    -->
    <Connector executor="HTTP-ThreadPool"
               port="8080" protocol="HTTP/1.1" 
               connectionTimeout="20000" 
               redirectPort="8443" />

Change the port value to 8081 (or any other unused port number) so you will have:

    <Connector executor="HTTP-ThreadPool"
               port="8081" protocol="HTTP/1.1" 
               connectionTimeout="20000" 
               redirectPort="8443" />

Save the file.

Next login to your account at http://designer.openremote.org – switch to the 'Building Modeler' view and on the left-hand side selection choose 'Configuration'. From configuration select 'Discovery' and then change the port number to 8081, as shown below:

Save your configuration.

Test Your Controller Setup

After finishing the above, you can give your controller a quick test drive.

First, change to the controller's bin directory (the default scripts assume you execute them from within OpenRemote/bin). Then start the controller:

> cd /usr/local/OpenRemote/bin
> ./openremote.sh run

Step 4: Start OpenRemote Controller Automatically at Boot

These next steps explain how to make sure the OpenRemote Controller is started automatically when/if the Synology NAS is restarted. There are more than one way to accomplish this – the steps below have been adapted from the pcloadletter.co.uk blog.

Create OpenRemote User

Go to Synology DSM User Control Panel and create a new user with name 'openremote' and give this user a password. Also, grant that user read and write access to the directory where you installed OpenRemote controller (if you used /volume1/software/openremote as described in previous steps, then this directory should grant user 'openremote' read and write access). Click the User Home button and enable the User Home Service.

Go back to your shell session (PuTTY, ssh, etc.) and modify the /etc/passwd file:

> nano /etc/passwd

Locate the line for user 'openremote' and at the end of the line, change /sbin/nologin to /bin/sh.

Now change the owner of all files under /usr/local/OpenRemote to 'openremote' user using the following command:

> chown -R openremote /usr/local/OpenRemote

Create Startup Scripts

In /etc/init.d directory create the following file (copy and paste from below). Also make sure it's 'execute' bit has been set :

> nano /etc/init.d/openremote.sh
> chmod +x /etc/init.d/openremote.sh

#!/bin/sh

User=openremote

cd /usr/local/OpenRemote/bin

case "$1" in

stop)
        echo "Stopping OpenRemote Controller..."
        su -l $User -c "/usr/local/OpenRemote/bin/openremote.sh stop" > /dev/null 2>&1 &
        ;;

start)
        # start OpenRemote in background mode
        su -l $User -c "/usr/local/Openremote/bin/openremote.sh start" > /dev/null 2>&1 &
        echo "OpenRemote Controller started..."
        ;;

restart)
        $0 stop
        sleep 5
        $0 start
        ;;
*)
        echo "usage: $0 { start | stop | restart}" >&2
        exit 1
        ;;

esac

Restart Synology and the script in /etc/init.d should be executed at the next boot up.

Startup Scripts

There's more than one way to skin the cat when it comes to boot scripts. If you've alternative scripts you've used or would like to offer enhancement to the existing bash scripts or the Synology SPK package / scripts themselves, please leave a note here on the comments section of this page or contact us on the forums.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to all of the community members who contributed to this content: daendekerk, Stein oy, davy lowet

See Also

• Success with installing Controller on Synology NAS thread on OpenRemote User Forum.
• Synology wiki
• PC Load Letter blog
  • Java Package for Synology
  • Serviio on Synology NAS