My Argon EON has been quietly doing it’s thing for some time, which is mainly to be sitting on my network as a Samba server running RAID on a pair of 2TB disks for data and the OS on an SSD attached to the internal onboard USB port.
To be honest I never really got to grips with Open Media Vault and never got it working in a way that suited or made sense to me. Recently CasaOS crossed my radar so a rebuild was triggered.
So I downloaded Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64 bit)* using the Raspberry Pi Imager and blasted my way through the install and setup process I use (I will reproduce it below - bear in mind it personal to me and is more of an Aide-memoire than a script). It’s not all my work and is based on information found on this forum and a RAID tutorial here www.ricmedia.com
- Thanks to @NHHiker and Argon40 for their work on the configuration scripts - they are working fine.
- Thanks to Argon40 for a fine bit of kit.
- A shout-out to @FilipeReis for his post on the fan 20mm stand-off posts, I ordered some last night and they arrived earlier this evening.
My next tasks are to install the stand-offs and get to grips with CasaOS
*Output from commands to identify OS which does not mention Raspberry Pi.
root@PiCasaOS:~# cat /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME=“Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie)”
NAME=“Debian GNU/Linux”
VERSION_ID=“13”
VERSION=“13 (trixie)”
VERSION_CODENAME=trixie
DEBIAN_VERSION_FULL=13.3
ID=debian
root@PiCasaOS:~# cat /etc/issue
Debian GNU/Linux 13 \n \l
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Below is my build script or aide-memoire. It works for me and might be of use to others.
===========================================================================
Argon EON build script
This is my personal reminder of how to build a Raspberry Pi NAS using the Argon EON by Argon40. Every now and then when the mood takes me I rebuild it to try out something different and remembering what I did in the past is not always accurate or productive.
Before overwriting or deleting or destroying or reusing the disks from RAID arrays make sure you have a safe verified copy and/or backup of your data. Rebuilding a device is trivial compared to the loss of your data.
Initial Raspberry Pi setup
On a PC or laptop download the latest Rasperry Pi headless image. If using the USB M.2 SSD drive this can be used as the target in the Pi Imager application, or you can use the application to write to an SD card and then use the dd command to copy the SD card image to another faster drive such as an SSD or M.2 drive.
Either way, create your user and password when prompted by the Pi Imager. Don’t forget to setup SSH.
Even being mounted on a USB M.2 adapter card the SSD is a faster device and will be more performant than an SD card. It’s 240GB so it has adequate storage for many scenarios.
Command to do copy - MAKE SURE you identify the source and target correctly,
sudo dd if=/dev/sde of=/dev/sdc status=progress
With the Aron EON powered off and the image transferred to the SSD insert it in the internal USB slot of the Argon EON.
Check connections and peripherals and then power on.
If the above steps have worked you will see lots of text scrolling by and you will end up with a login prompt, login as your user that was created by the Pi Imager application. At this point login as root so type the command
sudo -i
Followed by
apt update
Then when this has finished type
apt full-upgrade
you will be asked for confirmation so type y
After a few minutes the updates will finish.
If you get messages telling you that firmware updates are available install them.
After all updates are applied it is prudent to reboot to ensure you are using the latest software you have just upgraded.
Use the command reboot or shutdown -r now (they both do the same).
On reboot login as your user and then change to root as described above, then type
curl https://download.argon40.com/argoneon.sh | bash
This script will download and install the software needed to control the push button control on top of the ArgonEon, the automatic fan behaviour* and other items.
* I find the hard disk (HDD) default temperatures too low and adjust them using argon-config or by directly editing /etc/argononed-hdd.conf - both as root.
Setting up RAID array
Login to your devices and be sure to be as root. As you are using root commands, it’s easier to be a root user to start with.
sudo -i
Update your system and install mdam, type the following on one line and press enter. The && allows the different commands to run in turn but only on success of the previous command.
apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade -y && apt-get install mdadm -y
Now check what devices are detected on the USB using the command
blkid
The above steps mean I’m booting from the internal USB header, which always seems to grab /dev/sdb
The EON has four connectors for HDDs, they should report to the system as /dev/sda, /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc & /dev/sdd.
I’m reusing disks so have to remove old redundant RAID disk information from them by using
sudo mdadm --zero-superblock /dev/sdX (replace X to suit your setup, /sdc /sda etc)
I have two 2TB disks and mirror them, to create this raid 1 array use this command.
mdadm --create --verbose /dev/md0 --level=1 --raid-devices=2 /dev/sda /dev/sdc
I answer yes to the bitmap and syncing(?) questions although the defaults are no. The resyncing can take a long time especially if you have multiple large disks. Check progress with the command
mdadm --detail /dev/md0
and look for the line Resync status near the bottom.
I wait for the resync to complete before I reboot again.
The following steps can be done while the resync is ongoing.
Create And Mount File System
A file system is needed to store files, a file system needs to be mounted so a mount point is also needed. The following sorts this maze out.
This command will create a file system on md0
sudo mkfs.ext4 -F /dev/md0
This command will create a mount point
mkdir -p /mnt/md0
This command will mount the file system
mount /dev/md0 /mnt/md0
Check if the RAID array is online and available, -x excludes temporary stuff
df -h -x devtmpfs -x tmpfs
File systems should mount at boot, this adsd it to the mdadm.conf file
mdadm --detail --scan | tee -a /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf
Command to update initramfs so the RAID array is available at boot time
update-initramfs -u
Lastly, save the new file system in the fstab file for automatic booting. backup the current fstab first
cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.bak
Then update fstab
echo ‘/dev/md0 /mnt/md0 ext4 defaults,nofail,discard 0 0’ | tee -a /etc/fstab
The End?
Check progress of syncing with
mdadm --detail /dev/md0
reboot the machine, if the sync is complete. Login and run the command
df -h -x devtmpfs -x tmpfs
which should, hopefully, show md0 as mounted and available.