Xtreamer EtrayZ — Custom Debian NAS Firmware

Embedded Linux / ARM

Screenshots

EtrayZ web dashboard — CPU, RAM, disk bars, service cards

EtrayZ dashboard full view with network panel and status indicators

Settings panel with 11 configuration sections

Web file manager with breadcrumb navigation

Complete custom firmware for the Xtreamer EtrayZ NAS — a 2010-era network-attached storage device with an OX810SE ARM926EJ-S CPU at 183 MHz, 128 MB RAM, and kernel 2.6.24.4. The original firmware was minimal and unmaintained; this project replaces it with a fully configured Debian 6 Squeeze system featuring a web dashboard, six web applications, and critical security tools updated to modern versions compiled natively on the device.

Web Dashboard & Applications

Dashboard (port 70) — live CPU%, RAM, dual HDD temperatures, network speed, disk storage bars, service cards with links, reboot/shutdown buttons
Settings panel — 11 configuration sections (fan, USB, SATA bay 2, Samba, Transmission, DLNA, aria2, SSH, web server, development, manuals)
aria2 download manager — XML-RPC web UI with add/pause/remove downloads, progress bars, premium account profiles
Web file manager — browse, upload, download and delete files on /home
Photo gallery — thumbnail grid with lightbox viewer and subfolder support
Web terminal — stateless browser shell with command history and base64 output encoding
Monit dark proxy — dark-themed reverse proxy to the Monit service monitor

Services

Dropbear 2025.89 SSH server — ed25519, ECDSA, ChaCha20; connects from modern clients without legacy flags
Samba — 3 Windows file shares (home, public, downloads) + optional second SATA bay share
Transmission — BitTorrent client with web UI
MiniDLNA — DLNA/UPnP media server
Monit — service watchdog with auto-restart for all daemons
smartd — SMART disk health monitoring
lighttpd — web server on port 70 (dashboard + apps) and port 80 (personal site)

Updated Packages — Compiled Natively on the NAS

Debian Squeeze (2011) ships with TLS 1.0-only tools and an ancient SSH server. All critical packages were compiled natively on the 183 MHz ARM — no cross-compiler needed:

OpenSSL 1.1.1w — TLS 1.2/1.3 support; used as shared library by wget, curl, aria2
Dropbear 2025.89 — modern SSH (ed25519, ECDSA, ChaCha20)
wget 1.20.3 — TLS 1.2+ HTTPS downloads (Squeeze wget fails on modern sites)
curl 7.88.1 — last version compatible with kernel 2.6.24 (curl 8.x requires kernel 2.6.27+)
aria2 1.15.1 — last version buildable with GCC 4.4.5; required an EVP_MD_CTX opaque-type patch for OpenSSL 1.1.x

Technical Details

Hardware: OX810SE ARM926EJ-S 183 MHz, 128 MB RAM, kernel 2.6.24.4
OS: Debian 6 Squeeze (armel) — only distro with glibc compatible with kernel 2.6.24
Disk layout: GPT, boot files at raw sector offsets, md0 (ext3 rootfs), md1 (swap), XFS /home
Compiler: GCC 4.4.5 natively on the device — no Docker toolchain for user-space builds
Build scripts: packages/build-*.sh — reproducible native builds for all updated packages
Restore: restore-from-image.sh — writes complete disk image (GPT + boot + rootfs + swap) and creates fresh /home partition
Second SATA bay: auto-detects, auto-formats as XFS, mounts, and adds Samba share

Disk Image Restore

The project ships a complete disk image (etrayz-system.img.xz, ~838 MB) that restores the entire system in one command — GPT partition table, boot files at correct raw sector offsets, md0 rootfs, and md1 swap. The /home XFS partition is created fresh to fill the rest of the disk.

sudo bash restore-from-image.sh etrayz-system.img.xz /dev/sdX

Check out the project on GitHub: etrayz-debian on GitHub

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