Lightning & the new router

Couple of months ago, there was a gloomy day with a sense of a rain. I was in the middle of some important tasks in my computer & just ignored the environmental change and carried my work . My desktop computer and the laptop had been connected to the ADSL router by Ethernet cables & the router to the internet via out telephone line. Suddenly a big noise appeared near the room window & the power went off. Unplugged all the things & waited for a few minutes to check what had happened.

Well, it was a lightning which came through the telephone line.   The router was dead. Network port of the desktop computer was also dead but the laptop had no issues .  Later I found that the UPS was also dead. I have no idea how the UPS was gone since none of the power units including the power adapter of the router & the power unit of the desktop computer were not affected. As a habit I always unplug the NAS when it is not in use and it was totally fine . For several days, had to use a prepaid data connection for the internet needs.

Later I checked the router, it could be turned on. Nothing more than “DLink” wireless connection. Attempted to log in to the router & it returned no results. It was a DLink 2640B ADSL2+ router which I bought around in 2012. This was actually a good unit, value for money & had no issues at all since the day I bought it. The WiFi range was also pretty much good to cover up to a considerable range in our home with its 2.5dBi antenna.

    

 

Circuit board of the router

 

I believe this should be the burned chip inside the router. Should try to replace this someday

After a few days, purchased another ADSL router. This time thought to go for another brand, but later changed the idea and selected the same brand. It was DLink 2750U. The main reason to go for this model was that this has a USB 2.0 port which enables to connect a printer via USB, storage unit like a portable HDD or a 3G USB modem.  And it has 2x 5dBi antennas which lets me to keep always connected .

Both the DSL & the 3G connection can be added to the internet connectivity. The first priority always searches for the DSL link. This is a screenshot of the internal configurations.

 

The 3G configurations. The router 2750U is compatible with my USB modem Huawei E173U-1 & supports a plenty of Huawei modems, the full list is available at the DLink site

Installing & Configuring NAS4FREE

A couple of years ago I wrote an article about setting up a Network Attached Storage unit using usual computer parts. And I mentioned to show up the way how the software installation for this NAS unit goes on. So this post will show the initial configuration of the entire process. The CIFS/SMB settings & FTP creation will be discussed in the next post.

Before begin, make sure that you have the following hardware & network configurations up and running

• Network attached storage unit [The assembled unit or whatever]
• Network Switch/Router with correct IP addressing
• a working computer or a laptop [need this later]

The following diagram shows how the units should be connected

Next, you need the Operating system to install into the NAS. For that go to nas4free web site & download the compatible operating system for your NAS system (32bit or 64bit)
Download Link | NAS4FREE web site
Prepare the installation media as you like 
(better on a USB device since you do not need to plug a CD/DVD rom drive to your NAS for the installation )

To install the OS, you need a drive to put it in, and better to use a USB flash drive for that since the embedded OS needs not more than 512MB of disk space & no point of wasting a Hard disk for to install the operating system. In my actual NAS unit, I have used a 1GB Kingston USB Flash drive for the OS, and 1TB HDD for the
storage purposes (thinking to add another 1TB soon to couple with RAID )

     

I continue this guide with a virtual machine created in Microsoft Hyper-V and it doesn't make any difference in the installation progress.
Start the NAS unit with the installation media
(set the USB drive as the 1st boot device in the boot order, otherwise something else will appear on the screen )

Lets start it…

These are the first screens of the installation.

Enter the number “9” to install the operating system. Then you’ll get the following screens

According to your requirement, select the installation type. Here I select to install the Embedded OS to CF/USB Flash drive. For a full installation , choose #3, but you’ll need a larger disk to install the OS.



Here, it will show the CD/DVD drive or the USB drive identifiers. Since I’m through the Hyper-V, it shows me a virtual CD/DVD ROM drive.


This is where I wish to install the operating system. For that, as I mentioned earlier. I have setup a disk around 1GB. You can use a 1GB flash drive for that, or a CF card. [Remember!! Do not install the OS into the same drive where you expect to keep your files]


The installation is done. !!


Exit from the setup & reboot the server (#7) from the menu. Remove the installation media. Connect the network cable & make sure the network is up & running, The next steps are the initial network configurations.


Go to the option #2 to configure the network interface.


It asks for the DHCP, but since this is a server, its better to have a static ip for it. So I do not use DHCP here.


According to your network settings, provide a suitable IP address for the NAS unit. Usually the default NAS address ends with x.x.x.250 .


Provide the subnet mask for the address. If it’s a complex network, then contact your network guy to assist with this. Usually if it’s a Class C IP, then the subnet mask is 24.


According to the network settings, the default gateway address should be provided.

If it is required, do it. Otherwise say “No”


If everything is right, a similar screen should be displayed with the mentioned IP address & the subnet mask. If the IP address appears as 127.0.0.1/24, then there may be a fault in the connection or the settings, run the Option #2 again & correct them.


To ensure the end to end connectivity, ping to a known address in the same network.


Open your browser, give the IP address & log into the GUI of the NAS.
The default username is admin & the default password is nas4free.


This is the system overview of the NAS.

Home Security Camera Project

කාලයක් තිස්සෙ හිතාගෙන හිටියෙ ගෙදරට කැමරා ටිකක් සවි කරල හැඩ බලන්න. :D . අහල පහල හොරු නැතත් මේ වගේ එකක් හදල තියාගත්ත නම් අඩුම ගානෙ ගෙදරට එන ලියුම් මහත්තය ලියුම් පෙට්ටියටම ලියුම දැම්මද කියල බලාගන්න පුළුවන්නෙ. අනික ඉතින් කොයිවෙලාවෙ හොරා එයිද දන්නෙ නැනෙ. හරි ඉතින් අනම් මනම් වැල් බයිල නැතුව මම කෙලින්ම කතාවට එන්නම්.

බොහොමයක් ආරක්ෂිත කැමරා මෘදුකාංග සහය දක්වන්නෙ IP Camera වලට. නමුත් මෙහිදි මම පාවිච්චි කරපු මෘදුකාංගය IP Camera ව‍ගේම සාමාන්‍ය Web Camera පවා සහය දක්වනව ගැටලුවකින් තොරව. මේ මෘදුකාංගය iSpy v4.1.8.0 . මේක නොමිලේ ලබා දෙන විවෘත කේත මෘදුකාංග පද්ධතියක්. මේ සමගම iSpyServer මෘදුකාංගයද නොමිලේ ලැබෙනව. http://www.ispyconnect.com/ වෙබ් අඩවියට පිවිසීමෙන් මෙම මෘදුකාංගය බා ගැනීමට පුළුවන්.


iSpy  මගින් මොනවද කල හැක්කේ

• Motion track and count moving objects
• Automatic license plate recognition (ALPR, CPR, LPR or LAPI)
• HSL (Colour filtering) on Motion Detection - for fire/smoke/thermal imaging and tree/ shadow removal
• Access and control iSpy remotely
• Password protect iSpy and hide it in the System Tray
• Schedule sound and video capturing to start and stop automatically
• Connect multiple computers in a group and manage over the web
• Connect and monitor as many security cameras and microphones as you like
• Access and control your cameras and microphones using your mobile device (iPhone, Android and Windows Phone 7)

(iSpy දුවවන්න Microsoft .NET Framework 4 අවශ්‍ය වෙනව. ඒක නැත්නම් මෙතනින් ගන්න http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=17718 )

හරි අපි බලමු අපිට අවශ්‍ය මොනවද කියල

‍සාමානය (නමක් ගමක් ජන්මයක් නැති) වෙබ් කැමරාවක් - රු 1200/-  ගත්තෙ Unity Plaza එකේ Barclays එකෙන්

අනිත් කැමරාව(දකුණු) මම ලග තිබුන එකක්

USB Extension Cable 5M - රු 500. මේකත් Barclays වලින්


සවිකරන්න බලාපොරොත්තු වෙන කැමරා ගණනට cable ගන්න වෙනව. මම දැනට පාවිච්චි කරන්නෙ එක කැමරාවක් විතරයි

වැඩකරන පරිගණකයක්  :D

කැමරා තුන හතරක් දාල පැය 24ම දුවන්න පරිගණකය හදනවනම් Intel Atom සහිත පරිගණකයක් තිබුණම ඇති. විදුලිය පාවිච්චියත් හොදයි නේ

මම පාවිච්චි කරන්නෙ මගෙ NAS එකම තමා. Intel Pentium 4  1.8GHz,  1GB DDR RAM සවිකලා












කැමරාවක් මෙන්න මෙහෙම සවිකලා

 

ලයිට් වැල් ගැන වැඩිය හිතන්න එපා. මේ වෙසක් කාලෙ නේ .   :D

කැමරාව හදපු අය ඒකත් එක්කම microphone එකකුත් සවිකරල. ඒක ඉතින් ගලවන්න විදියක් නැත (කැතයි කියල හිතෙනවනම් ගලවන්න ) . මේ කැමරවෙ තියෙන flexible cord එක නිසා කැමරාව අවශ්‍ය පැත්තට ලේසියෙන්ම හරවගන්න පුළුවන්.

දැන් කැමරාව USB cable මගින් පරිගණකයට සම්බන්ධ කරන්න. Drivers තියෙනවනම් දාන්න. කැමරාව AutoFocus නැත්තම් අවශ්‍ය ගණනට focus කරගන්න. නැත්තම් බොද වෙලා පෙනෙයි හොරාව :D

iSpyConnect මෘදුකාංගය run කරන්න

Add කියල තියෙන තැනින් අවශ්‍ය කැමරාව තෝරල පද්ධතියට එක් කරගන්න පුළුවන්

කැමරාව හරියට add උනා නම් පහල පින්තූරෙ අළුපාට කොටුවල කැමරා වල දර්ශනය පේන්න ඕනෙ

Recording settings ටික හදල ගත්තම ඉතින් කුරුල්ලෙකුට වත් හොරෙන් ගමන් බැ