N4200 Mods

[reidmefirst]

Hey All -

I bought an N4200 recently and I'm looking to hack it before I start relying on it. I have a few macs in the house, among other computers, and the AFP support appears to be seriously broken

I'm thinking to do an Ubuntu or Debian install but I wonder if anyone else with one of these NASes wants to pool resources.

I've taken mine apart and noted some oddities that separate it from the N5200. I snapped a photo of the motherboard here:

www.readingfordummies.com/blog/archives/Photos/Hacking/N4200-motherboard.JPG

At the top, there are two headers (one is 10-pin, the other is 8-pin). In the middle of the two it says "VGA". Standard VGA is generally 12-15 pin ribbon cable. I know DVI is 18-pin, so I kind of wonder if this isn't DVI? I don't have a logic analyzer yet and I don't know exactly what a DVI signal would look like, I wonder if anyone knows of a standard pinout for motherboard DVI without a header? I have a spare PCIe x1 video card but it doesn't output anything when I boot the NAS with the card installed.

There is a serial port shown in the bottom left corner of the photo above (just to the left of the "n4200 ver:0.2" silk screen). I managed to remove the Afaya flash disks and changed the boot parameters to give me a serial console on that port. Unfortunately the RX on that port isn't quite right...I can see the serial output (grub bootloader and the kernel boot messages) but I can't type anything into it. I've tried a few different terminal programs and no luck with anything. I have to beep it out and see if it's connected to its RS232 driver in some weird way.

If anyone is interested to put heads together in hacking the N4200 into something more useful, drop a line or send me a PM.

Thanks,
Reid

[reidmefirst]

I'll reply to myself. Hi, self.

I upgraded my NAS to FW 5.00.04 (seems that this firmware doesn't support the N5200). If you are asking yourself whether to do this upgrade, don't do it. AFP is still broken. Also, it disables the use of some N5200 modules, for instance SSHD no longer starts correctly. Also also, this firmware does not allow you to downgrade the firmware (probably a new encryption key).

Luckily I removed my flash disks and made an image of them already, so I should be able to restore it. Still....very annoying, Thecus!

Reid

[reidmefirst]

More talking to myself, someone may find this useful though.

My problem with AFP support was evidently my choice of filesystem. I formatted my array as ZFS, which AFP can't do on a Thecus NAS just yet. Thecus has a list of supported filesystems, features, and services here:

esupport.thecus.com/support/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=136

I got bit by the fact that the newer firmwares cannot enforce folder quotas on any filesystem but ZFS, yet ZFS does not support services like AFP. I wish that Thecus would enable Folder Quotas for XFS and friends again.

[trelevn]

Hello reidmefirst,
I've also got a N4200 and also have soon decided the inbuilt software isn't going to cut it.

Plans are first to get an extender cable that will bring the flash drive outside. Then read the existing system and have a think about it and see if I can copy it into a 4 Gig compact flash use that as a boot disk.

Then I could plug the flash into a Linux box and try to install Ubuntu.

But I'm also intrigued by the "VGA" port. It'd make life so much easier if I could see what's going on in there.

[drumgeek]

Hello,

I am wondering if either of you have made progress with this. I recently inherited two Thecus N4200 devices. The hardware seems pretty great, but the software definitely sucks. I'd like to get a custom Linux install on there....perhaps even a "Linux From Scratch" build.

Specifically, have you any luck finding/building an appropriate adapter for the "VGA" header on the motherboard?

I did find this:
naswebsite.com/wiki/Thecus_N3200PRO_Hardware_Hacking

It would seem to me that the pinout is probably the same as it is on the 4200, but I would prefer not to create a custom cable if there is something I can get.

And also this, but it is no longer available:
www.aliexpress.com/item/OO-Ahome-VGA1-VGA-H-Cable-VGA-header-9pin-convert-cable-for-Mini-ITX-motherboard-Computer/421969667.html

At the very least, I'm happy to see that there at least seems to be a way to get to a serial console. I suppose that's a start...