Installing Unison on a Synology DS411j NAS
Since my full-tower 10 hdd raid5 server is apparently making too much noise and polluting the air in the room too much (can’t imagine why, just because it has 6 fans?), I bought a NAS as a first step towards replacing the server with something less.. bulky. I got a Synology DS411j NAS, and have spent the last 24h moving data around so that I could use 4 existing WD 1.5 TB drives in it. Seems to be working very well so far and the Synology web gui (DSM) is quite impressive. However, it doesn’t have Unison and if there is one thing I need it’s Unison!
Luckily it is possible to install it:
- Follow the Synology guide for installing ipkg/bootstrapping your NAS. (The DS411j has a Marvel Kirkwood mv6281 ARM processor.)
- Install the required packages with: ipkg install ocaml make gcc
- Now the tricky part, for me Unison didn’t compile initially due to errors in /opt/arm-none-linux-gnueabi/lib/libpthread-2.5.so. Somehow this library is not the correct version, but the correct version IS installed in /lib.
Fix this by deleting the symlink /opt/arm-none-linux-gnueabi/lib/libpthread.so.0, and creating a new one to /lib using: ln -s /lib/libpthread.so.0 /opt/arm-none-linux-gnueabi/lib/libpthread/ - Then download the unison source code somewhere (eg /volume1/@tmp), go there and run: make UISTYLE=text NATIVE=false
- There might be some error messages, but in the end a functional unison binary is created!
- Copy the binary to for example /opt/bin. Set up SSH keys for the root account, and we’re all set!
New Unison binaries, v2.43.16 (linux/osx/cygwin)
I’ve compiled some new text-only Unison binaries, version 2.43.16. Feel feel to grab them if they help you 
- Linux binary (Ubuntu): unison-2.43.16-linux.zip (~750kB)
(compiled with gcc version 4.4.3 (Ubuntu 4.4.3-4ubuntu5)) - Win32/Cygwin binary: unison-2.43.16-cygwin.zip (~600kB)
(compiled under Cygwin 1.7.1/Win2k3 32bit SP2) - OSX (Snow Leopard) binary: unison-2.43.16-osx.zip (~660kB)
(compiled under OSX 10.6.4)
As usual, Unison is pretty easy to compile. Just install OCaml, check out the latest Unison trunk, and build with “make UISTYLE=text”.
WDTV Live review and troubleshooting
Posted by LAV in Media sync on April 13, 2010
I got bored yesterday and bought a Western Digital TV Live network media player, to replace my weird Xbox360 bridged over a Squeeze Box media playing solution in my bedroom. To make it wireless I also had to get a Wifi dongle, namely a TP-Link 300Mbps TL-WN821N.
Problems so far:
- HDMI -> DVI resolution issue (circumvented). My TV has DVI-in, so I used a HDMI to DVI cable to connect the WDTV box. The problem is that when I try to set the resolution (to 720p) the WDTV always fails and defaults back to 480p. So no HD…? This seems to be a known issue, but what’s worse is that WD doesn’t seem to want to fix it. My current solution is to use component output instead, which works fine at 720p.
- The WDTV doesn’t find my Network Share (solved). This took me all night to figure out… My Windows 2003 Server was just not showing up in the Network Share list on the WDTV box. It turned out that “NetBIOS over TCP/IP” was disabled on the Windows machine, so no fault of the WDTV. Enabling this made the server visible to the WDTV, and everything worked. For some reason this setting seems to be disabled by default in Win2k3, not sure why. To enable it, go to Network connection -> Status -> Properties -> TCP/IP Properties -> Advanced -> WINS -> Enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP.
- The WDTV sometimes loose the wifi-signal (ongoing). Sometimes, for no apparent reason, the WDTV drops the wifi connection. To get it working again I have to go to network settings, and reconnect to the wlan network. Not sure how big a problem this is going to be.
So, well, it’s working but I have to use component connection and it sometimes drops the wifi signal. So what’s positive?
- Generally seems to be working well. Completely quiet, very small, but still powerful.
- Nice looking and fast GUI, though the remote is a bit plastic.
- Can play anything I’ve tried, even Full HD high bitrate MKV files over a wireless connection! (My DLink DIR-655 router reports the connection speed is about 200 MBit/s, the TP-Link dongle is doing its job.)
- YouTube playback works well.
Missing features:
- Spotify interface (guess I’m one of the few Spotify Premium subscribers…)
- I’d like some better way to quickly skip ahead while playing videos… “FF” button followed by “Next” skips ahead 10 minutes, but it’s not very intuiative.
- Shuffle playback mode for videos, anyone? (Works for music, but not for videos, why??)
Bottom line… Unless the dropped wifi becomes a more serious problem, I’m generally very satisfied with my purchase. I also considered the Xtreamer, and according to most accounts they seems to be very similar. What finally made me decide on the WDTV was the fact that it, unlike the Xtreamer, can use HFS+ formatted drives (though I haven’t tried yet). And also that it was slightly cheaper and available at my local retailer (I would have had to order the Xtreamer online).
Subscribable calendar/ical generator
Posted by LAV in Calendar sync on April 10, 2010
There are lots of subscribable calenders out there, but somehow they always seem to be missing some more obscure but still important days. For example, you wouldn’t want to miss the start of Daylight saving time, or valentines day.
So I’ve made my own calender generator (admittedly inspired by ical.oops.se)! For now it will be most accurate for Swedish and Swiss holidays, but more will be added later. Try the subscribable calendar/ical generator here!
Native Unison Unicode support
As has been already mentioned in the comments to my last Unison Unicode post, native Unicode support is now available in the development version av Unison. Up until now however, I had been sticking with my home brewed version, in the spirit of “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it”. But as problems with AppleDouble files started to surface, a bug has been fixed in later versions, it was time for to update.
Step 1, OSX binary: Couldn’t find precompiled ones, but as I already had OCaml installed I just checked out the latest trunk and compiled with “make UISTYLE=text”. If you want to avoid this hassle you can just get my binary here: unison-2.39.0-osx.zip (compiled under MacOSX 10.5.3, 568 kb).
Step 2, Win32 binary: Actually there are two options here. Initially I tried the precompiled binaries provided by Jérôme Vouillon, but the problem with the native win32-version is that it doesn’t support symbolic links! Turns out I had lots of those, so that wasn’t really an option. The other alternative is to run Unison from Cygwin (which I need for sshd on the Windows side anyway). That way symbolic links are supported (cygwin creates Windows style “.lnk” files, but Unison doesn’t know this and assumes they are real symbolic links).
That means I have to compile Unison myself under Cygwin. Luckily this was surprisingly simple, just install Cygwin with packages “make” and “ocaml”, check out the Unison trunk, and run “make UISTYLE=text” again! As before, if you want to avoid this hassle you can just get my binary here: unison-2.39.0-cygwin.zip (compiled under Cygwin 1.7.1/Win2k3 32bit SP2, 564 kb).
Step 3, update scripts and synchronize: Once this was done, I just modified my scripts to use the new binaries (note that I’m no longer using the unicode-hack for cygwin) and everything worked! Unicode support is completely automatic!
My thanks go out to all the developers of Unison!
Windows Media Player 11 and Windows Server 2003
Ever wondered how to install WMP11 on Windows Server 2003? Or just how to get media sharing (for example to an XBOX360) to work from said server? Microsoft has in all their wisdom decided that Win2k3 should not be used to share media, but thanks to this excellent workaround I can now watch Simpsons in my bedroom again 
.
known_hosts for SSHKeychain
SSHKeychain is, if you’re not familiar with it, a very convenient OSX app that sits in the menu bar and can create and maintain multiple automatic SSH tunnels, something I use a lot. I recently reinstalled my home server which caused its ssh fingerprint to be changed, so (because I’m lazy) I just deleted all my .ssh/known_hosts-files to stop SSH from complaining about it.
But for some reason SSHKeychain still refused to set up a tunnel to that server, with the unhelpful error message: “The tunnel has unexpectedly terminated repeatedly. It will not be restarted.” From the terminal I had no problem connecting to said server with SSH, so I couldn’t understand what was wrong.
But as it turns out, SSHKeychain uses the root account’s known_hosts, located at /var/root/.ssh/known_hosts on OSX. And since my server had the wrong fingerprint it refused to connect. Deleting said known_hosts file of course fixed the problem!
GMail adds holiday (and sports) calendars
Posted by LAV in Calendar sync on September 4, 2009
GMail recently added a feature that makes it easy to subscribe to official holiday calendars for a variety of countries. Also included are sports schedules, star dates, and (maybe more interestingly) an automatic birthday calender based on your contacts.
I can’t say I really care so much about the Swedish holiday calendar though, it doesn’t even include Midsummer Eve or Christmas Eve, arguably the two most important days in Sweden. Sure they are only de facto holidays, but still. I’ll stick to the nice iCal holiday generator over at oops.se for the time being.
Staying in sync with SpanningSync
Posted by LAV in Calendar sync, Contact sync on May 5, 2009
Two weeks ago I decided that I really needed a way to enable over-the-air sync of calendar and contact data to my iPhone (after having missed a couple of meetings because I had forgotten to sync manually 
). I basically had three options:
- Subscribe to Apple’s MobileMe service (99 USD / 795 SEK per year).
- Put all my calendar and contact data on Google/GMail and sync with their Exchange interface.
- Start syncing using my company’s Exchange server.
Well, I’m not about to put all my private data on my employer’s Exchange server, so number 3 is out. I was seriously considering MobileMe, but the price tag really puts me off.. They do offer more services than just calendar and contact sync, but I already have working solutions in place for most of those things. Also Apple seems to be doing evil things to customers who cancel their MobileMe accounts.
So, I’m left with option number 2. So how do I get all my data to Google, and how do I keep it synced with iCal and Address Book? Well, Address Book actually has built in Google sync (at least if you have an iPhone), and the Google Calendars can be accessed via Webdav. But there also seemed to be many potential issues… How to trigger the Address Book if you never actually sync your iPhone? Will the webdav-calendars remain editable? Honestly I’d had enough with all “semi working” calender sync solutions, and was prepared to pay to get something that “just works”. Plaxo had been doing a good job of keeping my different Macs in sync, but could not help me with my iPhone, so it was time to find some other solution.
So I found SpanningSync. SpanningSync does exactly what I wanted, i.e. sync OSX calendars and contacts with Google/Gmail. After some initial problems, where repeating events seemed to get infinitely duplicated, most things seem to be running smoothly now. Basically I only have two issues: 1) reminders don’t get synced, but instead get the default value for the given calendar (woke me up at 2am once!), 2) you can’t choose the color of the calendars on the iPhone (issue with iPhone, not Google or SpanningSync). But besides this, my data stays in sync across 3 different Macs and one iPhone (but don’t enable PUSH on the iPhone, it will drain your battery in less than a day!).
Today my 15 day free trial was (almost) over, so I went ahead and coughed up $20 (after the $5 discount) to get a one year subscription. I am, however, quietly hoping that Exchange will be naively supported in the next OSX version, so I won’t have to continue paying for this…
PS: If anyone reading this is planning to buy SpanningSync, feel free to use my referral code VHKESR and we’ll both earn $5.
Be mindful what you tweet…
So I recently decided to buy, or at least try out, some new sync software (Spanning Sync). It seems they were giving a $5 discount if you could get a referral from someone who has already bought it, so I went ahead and posted on Twitter asking if anyone else was using it. Only one minute later the reply arrives…
Creepy! Oh well. Happy with my choice I once again went ahead and posted:
A little bit later I visited their site again to download the app to another computer, guess what I found on their frontpage?
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised companies like this monitor what is said about them on Twitter. But I’m still amazed how fast they react, I mean I assume there had to be some kind of review process before my comment ended up on their frontpage?
Anyway, I’ll get back to what I think about Spanning Sync in later posts.