Thursday 25 July 2013

Adding custom apps to Iomega IX2-200 (CE, non-CE and possibly ix2 and ix2-dl)

After getting some apps from http://lifelineapps.com and checking out how they work I decided to create my own.
This will be useful to launch some custom scripts and some custom apps I installed with ipkg (in my case Transmission).

To install ipkg I followed the instruction in this link: http://techmonks.net/installing-transmission-and-dnsmasq-on-a-nas/

The method to install transmission on that page is somewhat tricky since it implies altering the firmware. My method works without the need to alter the /boot/images/apps file.

You simply install the application which consists of a start_init_scripts.sh file (based on the information from this link: http://chrispont.co.uk.boardwalkit.com/?p=619) that allows you to start any script whose name starts with an S in the /opt/etc/init.d directory.

I also include the app source code so you can modify it to your liking.
To generate an app package just run the mkpackage.sh script on any debian (ubuntu) system.

Link to app (startscripts_1.0_armel.tgz) and source code (ix2_custom_app.tgz):

Google Drive Folder

The startscripts file is the application you install on the ix2, the ix2_custom_app is a "template" to help you create other custom apps.

The start scripts simplifies the process of starting apps that are not part of the original firmware since a reboot to the NAS implied I had to connect through SSH and startup the Transmission daemon manually. This was not very easy when I wasn't at home...
Also this enables you to make full use of the optware packages since you can write your on custom app to enable some command to run in the background (like transcoding files).

After installing the app, whenever you want to run the scripts just press the start app button in the ix2 web interface.

2 comments:

  1. Olá Marcos

    Sei que já faz tempo que você escreveu este artigo, mas gostaria de saber se você obteve sucesso em fazer o nosso velho IX2-200 sincronizar com o google drive.

    Obrigado
    Reginaldo Duarte

    ReplyDelete
  2. Olá,
    lamento mas não fiz nada do género. Como tenho muitos dados e no NAS não quis estar a arriscar alterar o firmware.

    ReplyDelete