Downgrading Synology DSM

We use Synology Diskstations at work, and recently (September 2017) we bought an extra one for an upcoming project. I figured I’d give DSM 6.2 beta a look while it wasn’t doing anything important, and then the world fell in on our heads (one of the other units started failing disks at random) and what had been a spare play unit became the main SR for our XenServer infrastructure.

As part of the recovery from that, we’ve just managed to downgrade DSM 6.2 back to DSM 6.1. It’s not something all that difficult to do, but it’s not all that well documented otherwise, so I thought I’d leave the procedure here for reference. Some understanding of Linux is necessary to do this.

Shout out to Darren D on YouTube: his one-and-only video (and doobly-doo) gave me the procedure. I’ve updated with DSM 6.1 versions of the files mentioned, but given he was talking about the DSM 6.0 beta on the video, I would expect this to work into the future. Watch the video before doing this, it’ll all make a lot more sense that way.

  1. Download the two latest DSM 6.1 firmware PAT files for your unit from the Synology website: 15217.pat and 15254.pat at the time of writing.
  2. Turn on the Synology and backup if needed; the array contents should survive this, but if your configuration is important, make a note of it all now, you’re about to nuke it.
  3. Create a shared folder (“test” on “volume1” is used in this guide).
  4. Using 7-Zip, extract four files from DSM 15217.pat (checksum.syno, grub_cksum.syno, rd.gz and zImage). Place these four files onto the shared folder.
  5. Enable SSH or Telnet in the DSM control panel.
  6. Using PuTTY, or another SSH/Telnet client, access the diskstation.
  7. Log in as an administrative user (“admin”).
  8. Type “sudo su”. The password it asks for is the same one as 7. above.
  9. Type “cd /dev” to change to the devices directory.
  10. Type “ls” to view the devices list. Scroll through the list an make sure synoboot2 is listed.
  11. Type “mkdir-p /mnt/synoboot” to make a directory to mount to.
  12. Type “mount synoboot2 /mnt/synoboot” to mount the boot files to the directory you just created.
  13. Type “cd /mnt/synoboot” to change into that directory.
  14. Type “ls” to list the files in the directory. Note that the names of the four files we put in the shared folder are listed, but these are the DSM Beta versions.
  15. Type “cp /volume1/test/checksum.syno /mnt/synoboot” to overwrite the beta file with the stable file from the “test” shared folder.
  16. Type “cp /volume1/test/grub_cksum.syno /mnt/synoboot” to overwrite the beta file with the stable file from the “test” shared folder.
  17. Type “cp /volume1/test/rd.gz /mnt/synoboot” to overwrite the beta file with the stable file from the “test” shared folder.
  18. Type “cp /volume1/test/zImage /mnt/synoboot” to overwrite the beta file with the stable file from the “test” shared folder.
  19. Go back into the DSM interface and shutdown the unit. Once the device is shut down, eject all disks. This step is important: if you do not eject all the disks, the next power up will detect an issue and recover the beta boot image.
  20. Power the device on and find it (use Synology Assistant to help with this). It should complain that the unit has no disks inserted. Put the disks back in now and wait for all drives to spin up (the HDD leds light up).
  21. Once all disks are in and powered/spun up, click on “connect again”. A couple screens later, you will be asked to reinstall DSM. Choose the manual install root and choose the DSM 15254.pat file so that the boot image is overwritten correctly.
  22. Once it all completes you’re good to go. Data on the array(s) will still be intact (shared folder data), you’ll just need the re-apply the configuration and packages.

 

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Founders Home World Permit Issued

I have access to Shinrarta Dezra/Jameson Memorial, finally. Having gotten my Exploration rank to Pioneer (20% ish), mostly through the Quince passenger mission exploit (if I’m honest), I was struggling to get it to go much further in what I consider to be a timely way. So I did the only sensible thing… hit up the Elite: Dangerous Exploration Reddit. I’ve long wanted to do “The Big One” – Sag A*, but I haven’t done anything to prep for it, so I went looking for an Exploration Primer and hit what turned out (for me) to be gold dust – the Road to Riches. It’s a bit like an exploration self-test; a series of over 200 systems (557 planets, to be exact) that are all within easy distance of the bubble, all count as unexplored if you’ve not yet scanned them, and all (for the most part) within 40LY of each other, so you can get away with an exploration ship that doesn’t have great jump range (I’d recommend you have no less than 20LY jump range, but if you don’t mind the odd very circuitous jump, you could probably do it with less). It’s a nice way to practice your exploration skills (scan the A star, refuel and honk all at the same time…) in relative safety since populated star systems are reasonably close, and it gets you a huge payday when you finish, in both credits and exploration rank. I gained over 300M credits (which given I’ve been under 100M for a few months now is most welcome), and Elite Explorer.

I know I can (mostly) do a long exploration trip without dying now. Yes, I had my fair share of “too close” drops, and I had to loop of shame far too often (after 4+ hours of exploring, I get tired), but my Exploraconda did its job admirably, and I didn’t run out of AFMU charges; it was somewhat close, but not too close. Now I can start planning to go to Sag A*.

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Quince only mostly dead

Hey there Commanders,

Thought I’d pass on my own findings from Quince. As of late, I’m kinda, sorta simultaneously working on powerplay (for Aisling Duval, don’t judge me) and engineers. When I made my 750 merits this week for powerplay, I thought I’d head back up to Quince as someone had said it was out of lockdown now. Turns out to be sort of true.

While there are no in-systems passenger missions at Jeffries or Millarport (and if I’m honest, I am more than happy with that “fix”), there are still some scan missions available at Millarport, and for me (one rank off Elite in Explorer), they are all paying pretty good… But… I only find missions at Millarport in Open Play (and rarely sometimes in Solo). I get no missions at all in Private Group. Oh, and for me Millarport is still in lockdown.

So, the Quince money tree has been cut down, but there’s still some money to be made there.

Catch you in the black.

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ALL THE THINGS!

Welp, the weekend saw me finally make it to Rear Admiral in Elite: Dangerous, so I’m the proud owner of all the largest playable ships in E:D now: the Anaconda, the Federal Corvette, and the Imperial Cutter. With the exception of the ‘Conda (currently my “go to” for combat), these are stock ships as they came from the shipyard.

First job after is for me to get no less than a billion credits, that way I can afford to set up the ‘Vette and Cutter (‘Vette will be my new combat ship, and the Cutter will be set up for mining). So, it’s back to Quince and I’m ferrying passengers to the tourist satellite and back, which gets me Explorer rank and cash. Yes, planetary scan missions can get you more cash, but you don’t get any Explorer rank for doing that, and I need to get one of the three major ranks to Elite so I can get access to Shinrata Dezra.

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Rank Grind; That’s Duke PantsManUK to you…

Long time coming, but thanks to the Quince passenger mission loophole I was able to rank grind myself up to Duke for the Empire. I have a shiny new Cutter to go along with it (and a Beluga for the passenger missions).

I’ve also been (somewhat in parallel) grinding Federation rank. Made it to Warrant Officer so far, but I’m not buying the Fed ships until I can get a Corvette.

It’s a real shame there’s nowhere to grind Fed (anymore) that’s quite as good as Quince has been for Empire. I’m plodding backward and forward in a combat-rigged ‘Conda between Sothis and Ceos doing anything I can (mostly data transport and eliminating pirate lords), but there’s only one local power that’s Fed aligned, and even now that I’m allied with them I’m lucky to get more than a couple of missions off of them. Board logging gets me a few more, but once round the board log only takes a couple minutes (open, a couple of private, and solo), then you’re stuck waiting for the board to naturally refresh.

Oh well. Once I get my computer running again – Windows Update borked it overnight, so tonight will be a fresh install of 1607 to try to fix some other problems I’ve been having of late – I’ll continue plodding Fed rank, really need the credits…

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WARNING – Politics…

Right, I’m getting pretty sick of the stupidity that appears to have infested UK politics (and let’s not get started on what’s happening in the US right now). Prior notice: I’m a card-carrying member of the Liberal Democrats: I will have things to say about them shortly.

The Tories have lurched so far to the right in the shadow of the EU referendum that UKIP have no place to stand anymore, and I genuinely wonder when the cabinet will don their black shirts. I’m trying very hard to not invoke Godwin’s Law here, but seriously? Nationalistic jingoism aside, the current cabinet is making hay while the referendum sun is shining, and that could oh-so-easily be their downfall; they have such a narrow mandate from the referendum, but they think it’s a license to print law.

The Labour party appears to have imploded over on the left (@SteveReedMP amiright?). Collectively get your shit together, support your leader, and start attacking the Tories head-on (@Kier_Starmer has the right idea). The EU referendum was “won” by the narrowest of margins by the Leave campaign on the back of what can only be described as a mountain of lies (not that the Project Fear peddled by the Remain campaign was any better) – but the Tories seem intent to use that narrowly specified result (lest we forget the referendum question was basically “Should Britain remain in the EU?”) to push through any and all policy they wish to. Grow some balls, FFS!

As for my own party, the Liberal Democrats, Tim Farron has seemingly unified huge support behind the idea that the EU referendum was won by the people who now totally regret the choice they made. So what? David Cameron almost certainly was attempting to use the referendum to bolster his flagging support in the Tory party, but almost certainly many people used it to protest against the Tory party that was then ruling, and the lack of a decent opposition to said ruling party. Well, you folks have gotten the ruling party you deserve; totally unelected and with no manifesto. Whatever laws this bunch of jackals manage to push through in the remaining years of this parliament will have your fingerprints all over them.

It’s disgusting that the LibDems think that ignoring more than 50% of the population is a way to campaign. Please, get off that horse soon. The enemy is the unelected cabinet, focus on them. Their mandate to exist is singular – remove the UK from the EU. Force the Tories into a swift and hard exit, and then you can campaign on the back of the destruction of the British economy that will bring.

Finally, my op. ed. The population has made it’s opinion known, and the Leavers “won”. If we want the population to understand the vast mistake they have made, the exit needs to be swift and hard, and the lessons learned need to be tough ones. I very much hope that a future Labour (or better yet LibDem) government will have the opportunity to have a new referendum asking the British people if we should re-join the EU, and I very much hope that they will resoundingly say “yes!”. As for the humble pie that will then have to be eaten? Bring me a spoon, and plenty of custard…

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Huzzah!!!

I’m out of the Type-9 Heavy! Good riddance and good luck to anyone else grinding trade rank/credits. I now own an Anaconda in Trade configuration, and I also bought an Asp Explorer in Rank Grind configuration. This is what I’ll be doing until I get to Duke (minimum) to relieve the boredom that was last week and the insufferable Type-9 Heavy.

Sure, I carry 50 tonnes less cargo now, but the ability to manoeuvre outweighs that a whole lot, plus 20Ly jumps again are heavenly. Oh, and naming-wise, they are Castle Bravo and Shrimp respectively.

My INARA Commander signature

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Progress, of a kind

Well, I’m out of the Python and onto the space brick – I can see why Masark hates the Type-9.

A weekend of trading in the Python got me close enough to the quoted 110 million credits (I made it to 105 million) that he advises for purchasing the Type-9, so I figured I’d make the change for the purposes of the much greater profits that the Type-9 let you grind, but the massive downside is that it’s like a container ship and has close to zero maneuverability. I had to stop playing early yesterday as it was beginning to get to me…

… but I’ll knuckle down and see if I can’t get back out of it by the end of the week – the ‘conda is a goal worth fighting the negative feelings for (and then the Imperial Cutter beyond that, but that will mean returning to Imperial Rank grind for a while). I also triggered Imperial Ally (100% too) this weekend, what with the endless trading in Imperial Space.

I’m going to try to trade to a half billion (500 million) in “liquid” cash, then see about getting Federation Ranks and ships (might as well). Then I suppose I will be in a position to do pretty much anything with a fair degree of safety. Might throw some mining (in the ‘conda) in between the rank hunts, it seems like the kind of dull “busy work” that you should try once…

On a side issue/note, I’ve been watching a fair few of CMDR Rusty Dog’s videos recently. He’s using a thing called “Voice Attack” to give voice control in E:DH. Seems interesting, so I’ve downloaded the trial and think I’ll give it a go. While I don’t need fast switching of power at present (2/4/0 is my go-to while trade grinding), I’m going to be in a position to stop the trade grind reasonably soon, and then I can do more adventurous stuff…

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