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Installing Synology DSM on HP Proliant

Microserver running VM ESXi with an RDM
(raw device mapped) drive
The aim: to install the Synology DSM operating system that runs on the
Synology NAS drives onto a vitual machine on VM ESXi, but to have the
drive it stores all use data on accessible from any linux distro instead of
having the data contained in a virtual disk, which would make it more
difficult to recover data from. Using an RDM disk instead means the data
is written directly to the disk, so any operating system that can read an
EXT formatted drive can access the data, using this method means that in
the event of a problem with the OS I can plug in an Ubuntu USB stick and
boot live to recover any data.

The process is to create a .vmdk passthrough file on a disk different to

the one we will be using, point ESXi to that passthrough file and it will
then allow read/writes to the actual physical disk that the .vmdk
passthrough file is pointing to.

The destination for my installation is on my HP Proliant Microserver N36L,

which has 16GB of RAM. Only 1 or 2GB needs to be allocated for the DSM
VM.

Requirements: ESXi needs to have SSH access enabled, and needs at

least two physical drives installed, one for the data files and one will be
the RDM disk.
For this guide, disk1 will be the additional disk that will contain the data
files and disk2 will be the RDM disk.
You also need to download the vmdk Nanoboot loader (the .vmdk and
-flat.vmdk files) and the latest DSM .pat file from
http://www.xpenology.nl/vmware-esxi-installatie/
You can also download the Synology Assistant from
http://www.xpenology.nl/xpenology-software (if needed in step 3).
This guide was using version 5.0-4493 update 3 (updated to 7 in step 4).

Step 1 – Creating the RDM drive (needs SSH enabled on ESXi)

Important: We need to create the .vmdk file on a drive that is not being

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used for the RDM disk otherwise you will get errors when starting the VM
as it will not be able to lock the drive for access.

1) In vSphere, add the drive to the datastore – go to Configuration >

Storage and add the drive, noting the name you give it.

2) PuTTY in to ESXi with root/password.

To list the disks type;
-# ls /dev/disks
Note the full paths for the two disks we will be using, the RDM one and
the data store.

3) Create a folder (eg called RDM) in the datastore disk (ie not the RDM
drive);
-# mkdir /vmfs/volumes/disk1-name/RDM
(*disk-name is the name in vSphere, remember not to use spaces in
name, or to put “” if spaces in paths)

4) Now we need to create the RDM .vmdk passthrough file;

-# vmkfstools -z /vmfs/devices/disks/**datastore-disk2-ID-path-from-
list-disks-above** /vmfs/volumes/disk1-name/RDM/synology.vmdk -a
lsilogic
This will create a file called “synology.vmdk” in the folder RDM on Disk1
which points to Disk2 – check it by going back into vSphere and browse
the datastore to see it now in the folder on Disk1.

5) Alternatievely, check that the .vmdk has been created with this
command;
cd /vmfs/volumes/RDM/
ls -l *.vmdk

Step 2 – Creating the new Synology VM and assigning the RDM drive

1) Now go back to the vSphere client. Check the datastore to make sure
the new synology.vmdk file is showing in the RDM folder on Disk1.

2) Create the new VM for DSM. Use these settings;

– Custom
– Name the machine (eg SynologyDSM)
– Set datastore as the drive you want to use – Disk1 (where the
synology.vmdk passthrough file is)
– Version 8
– Linux, Ubuntu 64 bit
– Sockets = 1, cores per = 2
– 2GB ram (or 1GB if you prefer)
– E1000 adapter (or other if you prefer)
– LSI Logical Parallel
– Select to use an existing disk, then navigate to the location on Disk1 for

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the synology.vmdk file you created in step 1 and select the .vdmdk file >
tick edit before finishing.
– Under resources > Memory tick the “reserve all guest memory”.
Select finish.

3) Upload the two Synology .vmdk files to the Disk1 datastore (the files
are currently titled NB_x64_5032_DSM_50-4493_Xpenology_nl.vmdk &
-flat.vmdk) in the folder that has now been created for the new VM
(SynologyDSM in my example). Do the one I have listed here first and
the flat one second. Once copied over you will only see one file in there.
Close the windows back to the main screen.

4) Right click on the virtual machine and select Edit.

Under Hardware select Add > Hard disk > Use existing disk, then
navigate to the location for the .vdmk file you just uploaded, ie
“NB_x64_5032_DSM_50-4493_Xpenology_nl.vmdk”, then select Finish.

5) Open up the console (right click on teh VM and open console) and
power on the VM; you should see nanoboot in the console. Quickly click
the mouse into the window and select the second option, install/upgrade,
and don’t do anything else in that, wait until it shows the login option.

Step 3 – Configure Synology DSM In Chrome

1 ) In Chrome, type “find.synology/#” into the URL bar. This should find it
on the LAN. Set an admin password and go through the installation
options, selecting a new installtion. If you cannot find it, download the
Synology Assistant to find it and connect.

2) When you get to the screen that asks to download or install from a
local file, select the local file, and browse to where the .pat file you
downloaded with the .vmdk and flat.vmdk files, untick RAID (unless you
want RAID), and let it install.

3) Once installed you’ll be asked to enter an email address for remote

access – skip this as it only works on official Synology NAS drives (it’s
linked to the serial).
You should then get the log in page. Log in with your admin/password
and move on to step 4.

Step 4 – update DSM to the latest version

1) Once in the DSM web console, need to run update to get the latest
version. Go to Control Panel and tick enable SSH.
Go to updates and select download. Wait until the download finishes.

2) When the download has completed, go to PuTTY and log in to the

DSM’s IP address as root (not admin) and enter the following two

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commands;
sed ‘s/flashupdateDeb/flashupdateDeb1/’ /autoupd@te.info >
/autoupd@te.info1
mv /autoupd@te.info1 /autoupd@te.info
Then go back to the web UI and hit the update now button. The update
should now run. It should take around 10 minutes to complete the
update, after which you can log back in and check that there are no
updates available.
You should now be fully up and running with DSM.

NB: can use this step for running updates of minor updates (ie update 7,
8, 9) but not for major version updates – you need to wait for a nanoboot
update for that.

Step 5 – testing that the RDM drive is set up correctly

You may want to check that the RDM disk is accessible from any
operating system and not contained in a virtual disk.

Create a bootable Linux disk (Ubuntu, LXLE, etc) and boot into it on the
server. Just access the drives to make sure they are visisble and the files
can be seen and accessed. If they can, the RDM drive is setup correctly
and data from it can easily be recovered in the event of system failure by
connecting it to any Linux distro (or Windows with the appropriate EXT
reading software).

Additional notes

Once installed, it’s best to set a static IP address, either in the network
settings in DSM or via your router.
Also, to access additional apps such as SABNZDB+ and Sickbeard you
need to add the SynoCommunity repository to the package manager. To
do this go to Main Menu > Package Center > Settings > Package Sources.
Click “Add” and add the title SycoCommunity and the location as
http://packages.synocommunity.com
Refresh, and you will now see the additional packages available.

This guide was created using the following guides and links and is
accurate as of October 2014;
http://www.xpenology.nl/vmware-esxi-installatie/
http://www.xpenology.nl/xpenology-software/
http://cyanlabs.net/Thread-Install-Synology-DSM-5-0-4493-ESXi-Non-
ESXI
http://cyanlabs.net/Thread-Install-ESXi-on-N54L-XPEnology-on-ESXi
http://cyanlabs.net/Thread-Installing-ESXi-On-the-N54L-or-similar-
hardware
blog.davidwarburton.net/2010/10/25/rdm-mapping-of-local-sata-storage-
for-esxi (RDM disks)

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https://synocommunity.com/

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