DNS-323 how to upgrade from clean Debian 8 to ALT-F?

[Eugene Goryachkin]

Good day!

There was necessary to install custom firmware on my D-Link DNS-323 (to use 3Tb HDD in RAID0)
My mistake was install clean Debian 8 (netinstall.img) so there is a some problems with back to factory firmware, because there isn`t COM port on the NAS, so any manual howto write factory firmware in the flash-memory is useless.

Is there any chance to upgrade my DNS-323 from clean Debian 8 to this ALT-F project (with webUi) ?

[João Cardoso]

Yes, using the command line as the 'root' user. Make nomistake!

You have to split the Alt-F firmware file into its kernel and rootfs components and flash them. If anything fails you are doomed.

To split the fw you need  a program called dns323-fw, which is the attached binary file (compiled by me from the dns323-fw.c source file from the source repository: https://sourceforge.net/p/alt-f/code/HEAD/tree/trunk/alt-f/package/alt-f-utils/alt-f-utils-0.1.7/dns323-fw.c).

There are other fw splitters for the DNS-323 flying around.

Download it to the box and be sure that it executes by typing

cd /path/in/the/box/where/you/saved/it
./dns323-fw

that should give you a usage message such as

-Split a vendor firmware file into its components:

        dns323-fw -s [-q (quiet)]

        [-k kernel_file] [-i initramfs_file] [-a sqimage_file] [-d defaults_file] firmware_file

-Merge a kernel and initramfs into a firmware compatible vendor firmware file:

        dns323-fw -m [-q (quiet)]

        -k kernel_file -i initramfs_file [-a sqimage_file] [-d defaults_file]

        [-p product_id]  [-c custom_id] [-l model_id ] [-u sub_id] [-v new_version]

        [-t type (0-FrodoII, 1-Chopper, 2-Gandolf, 3-DNS-325-A1A2, 4-DNS-320-A1A2, 5-DNS-320-B 6-DNS-320L, 7-DNS-327L] firmware_file

-Print information from a firmware file:

        dns323-fw -f firmware_file

To split the firmware file, download it to the box using:

wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/alt-f/Releases/0.1RC4.1/Alt-F-0.1RC4.1-DNS-323-rev-A1B1C1.bin

then extract the kernel and rootfs from it:

./dns323-fw -s Alt-F-0.1RC4.1-DNS-323-rev-A1B1C1.bin

which must produce the following output:

product_id=7;

custom_id=1;

model_id=1;

sub_id=1;

NewVersion=4;

signature="FrodoII";

sig_num=0 header=64 Next_offset=0

ko=64           kl=1549248      kr=0    kc=989857709    next=1549312

io=1549312      il=6455360      ir=0    ic=681526713    next=8004672

do=8004672      dl=0            dr=0    dc=0    next=8004672

filesz=8004672 compsz=8004672

signature is "FrodoII"

kernel saved, checksum is OK.

initramfs saved, checksum is OK.

defaults saved, checksum is OK.

and produce the kernel and rootfs files, which you can check by using

ls -l kernel initramfs

which outputs

-rwx------    1 root     root       6455360 Jan 12 17:54 initramfs

-rwx------    1 root     root       1549248 Jan 12 17:54 kernel

now you have to flash them using the commands:

# these commands produces no output. Don't stop them! Don't CTRL-C! Don't power off the box!
cat kernel > /dev/mtdblock2 # this produces no output and takes same 20/30 seconds
cat initramfs > /dev/mtdblock3 # this takes some 2/3 minutes

And that's it.

If ALL the commands produced the expected output and *nothing* else, no errors or warning, you can reboot the box and it will be running Alt-F.

[Eugene Goryachkin]

Hello, João Cardoso!

 Big Thanks for Your reply, i already find this manual on https://www.cyrius.com/debian/orion/d-link/dns-323/deinstall/

Job is done and ALT-F is installed well. 

There are few questions about writing configuration, but i hope to solve them by myself.

Thanks again! :)