Debian Linux on the My Cloud PR4100 / PR2100

My Cloud OS 5 Personal & Network Attached Storage My Cloud Pro Series
72

Debian Buster with UEFI boot

This guide applies to WD My Cloud PR2100, PR4100, DL2100, DL4100.
I’m running Ubuntu 18.

Debian Installation in VM

Get the buster amd64 netinst iso from the official sources.
Get KVM

apt install qemu-kvm ovmf

Prepare work dir

mkdir isos && cd isos

Setup bios binary for UEFI support. See here for some more info.

cp /usr/share/ovmf/OVMF.fd bios.bin

Find your USB device, usually /dev/sdb or /dev/sdc. I’ll use /dev/sdX here.

lsblk
blkid

Now start a virtual machine with the buster ISO and your usb drive and 2GB of ram.

kvm -bios ./bios.bin -cdrom <buster.iso> -hda /dev/sdX -boot once=d -m 2G

It should boot with an image with “TianoCore”.

If you didn't see it, try this instead 
kvm -L . -cdrom <buster.iso> -hda /dev/sdX -boot once=d -m 2G

Install Debian with the graphical installer.
My recommendation:

  • setup your location for closer mirrors
  • accept defaults for most of the other settings
  • deselect the Debian desktop environment
  • select SSH server and standard system utils

The virtual machine will boot from disk after the installation.

Prepare to run on WD NAS

Your drive now has Debian installed and it’s running as a virtual machine on your PC, but you need a few more fixes before plugging it in your NAS.

Some optional SSH tricks

To ssh into your qemu session, start the VM with these additional parameters

-net nic -net user,hostfwd=tcp::10022-:22

Source
Add this to your local ~/.ssh/config

Host qemu
    Hostname localhost
    User debian   # adapt this to the user you created during install
    Port 10022

Now simply setup your keys and then connect

ssh-copy-id qemu
ssh qemu
Root access (required for rest of the guide) 
su

Alternatively, install the sudo package and add your user to the sudo group.

Setup Networking

Automatic

In the VM, create /etc/systemd/eth0.network

[Match]
Name=eth0

[Network]
DHCP=v4
Static IP

Create /etc/systemd/eth0.network

[Match]
Name=eth0

[Network]
Address=192.168.0.10/24
Gateway=192.168.0.1
DNS=8.8.8.8   # use a DNS server of your choice

Create a similar file for eth1.

Now create udev rules to pin ethernet interfaces to eth0 and eth1. Note the PCI addresses of your NICs first.

lspci -D | grep Ethernet
0000:01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)
0000:02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)

Now create a udev rule to set the interface names. Create /etc/udev/rules.d/60-persistent-net.rules

# add eth0
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", KERNELS=="0000:01:00.0", NAME:="eth0"
# add eth1
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", KERNELS=="0000:02:00.0", NAME:="eth1"

Source

Update network driver

Add the non-free repo to /etc/apt/sources.list (simply append non-free to the first line)

apt update
apt install firmware-realtek

Setup bootloader

You need to help the PRx100 bootloader to pick up this disk.
Add this to /etc/default/grub.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="acpi_enforce_resources=lax console=ttyS0,115200n8 net.ifnames=0"

If you did create the udev rules for the ethernet interfaces, you may drop net.ifnames.
Run

grub-install --removable
update-grub

Shutdown the virtual machine and eject the USB drive.
Boot the NAS with the USB drive and ssh into your box.

Now install the kernel module for fan/lcd control.
Rename this attachment to 8250_lpss.ko and move it to /lib/modules/4.19.0.6-amd64/extra
8250_lpss.txt (420.2 KB)

depmod
modprobe 8250_lpss
dmesg | tail
Building the kernel module

First read this and you may need these extra steps.

Extra required packages to build kernel modules:

apt install bison flex libelf-dev libssl-dev

Also copy the System.map to your kbuild directory before using modules_install

cp /boot/System.map-$(uname -r) System.map

Enjoy.

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