Category:NSA-212

Information
The Medion Life P89626/P89630/P89635/P89636 is a one bay NAS device with digital media functionality. Looking ate the firmware it's obvious that it's actually a ZyXEL NAS. The GPL sources, (as provided by Medion) contains a file called Readme_212.txt, which contains build instructions for the NSA-212.

Firmware
The firmware is versions 1.00(UZD.2) or 1.01(UZD.2)

USB disks and fun_plug
NSA-212 will mount and run FFP from USB-disks, but only if they are VFAT-formatted.

/zyxel/mnt/sysdisk/sysdisk.img
On the NSA-212 (tested on firmware 1.01) it is possible to edit /zyxel/mnt/sysdisk/sysdisk.img. Other NAS firmware will detect that the checksum has changed and overwrite sysdisk.img with a fresh copy from firmware on reboot. But the NSA-212 only checks if sysdisk.img has disappeared.

The firmware (in /etc/init.d/rcS) loop-mounts sysdisk.img as /ram-bin and bind /ram-bin/usr/ to /usr /etc/init.d/rcS then calls programs in /usr/sbin

This means that it possible to change the software of the NSA-212 without relying on booting FFP from a USB-drive. We just need to put a hook into something /usr that is called once during boot.

For example:


 * copy /zyxel/mnt/sysdisk/sysdisk.img to a linux computer (copy to /i-data/md0/admin/ and FTP from there)
 * loopmounted sysdisk.img on Linux computer: mkdir ns; mount -o loop sysdisk.img ns; cd ns
 * in sbin/chUrlPrefix.sh add the line /zyxel/mnt/sysdisk/fun_plug
 * unmount ns, copy sysdisk.img back to the nas in /zyxel/mnt/sysdisk/
 * install ffp in /zyxel/mnt/sysdisk/

Links
http://www.mikrocontroller.net/articles/P89626 (German Wiki)

Other boxes with the same housing
Lately (2014) Medion sells boxes with the same housing, which are totally different. They have a Kirkwood SoC, and run HipServ OS. A list of those boxes: Further there are boxes which look like a 2 bay NSA212, which also have a Kirkwood SoC and HipServ OS. Source: Dual bay Single bay