ma kasi jan asli

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readynas nv+

i have an old netgear readynas nv+, which is a 4 bay NAS. it runs linux 2.6, with a userspace derived from debian. the cpu seems to be a sparcv8 variant, and the kernel needs several proprietary kernel modules to access the drives.

at some point i would like to see if i can get a more modern kernel and userspace running on it.

notes

from what i can see, the front panel leds, 16x2 character LCD and button are controlled via a W83601 GPIO IC accessed over I2C (see the padre_i2c.ko kernel module in the source code release).

the LCD seems to be a regular 16x2 character LCD, with an HD44780 using the 4-bit bus mode.

access to the drives seems to go through the padre_io.ko module, which also implements the proprietary hardware RAID.

debugging interfaces

there seems to be a UART on the back. (this article is about the NV, not the NV+, but I have read elsewhere and found the same on the NV+).

here's the article about the NV+ UART.

from the UART it seems to be possible to tftp boot another kernel, and from there, also a new userspace.

boot log with the iboot menu: ./boot-menu-uart.log

uart pinout

left-to-right (other 6-pin header -> reset button):

links