prea.net

Gaining console access (i.e. telnet/ssh)

The TS Live comes with an already "open" firmware. As from nas-central.org, the only thing needed to allow telnet/ssh access is to use acp_commander.
Detailed instructions here on nas-central.org.

Adding a bootstrap loader/installer

Instructions on this post on nas-central.org
Basically, after gaining telnet/ssh access, create a directrory on the RAID array to store optware feeds, get and run the bootstrap loader, and you're done!

mkdir /mnt/array1/tmp
cd /mnt/array1/tmp
wget http://ipkg.nslu2-linux.org/feeds/optware/cs05q3armel/cross/stable/teraprov2-bootstrap_1.1-1_arm.xsh
sh teraprov2-bootstrap_1.1-1_arm.xsh

Warning!
Check /etc/init.d/rc.optware and look if /mnt/array1/.optware is mounted. In ny case the rc.optware script was wrong, since defined /mnt/disk1/.optware as volume to mount. That path doesn't exist, and as a result I had the RAM filesystem mounted as /opt, which is a bad thing, since it gets full in a cinch!

Once the bootstrap is installed:

1. /dev/md2 (the first or unique RAID volume) is also mounted as /opt.
2. in /opt several folders are created
3. ipkg is installed in /opt/bin/ipkg and the config file with the selected feeds is in /opt/etc/ipkg.conf
4. PATH is modified into PATH=/opt/bin:/opt/sbin:$PATH so one can use the binaries installed via ipkg as if they were normally installed.
5. /etc/init.d/rcS is modified appending at the end
   

   # Optware setup
   [ -x /etc/init.d/rc.optware ] && /etc/init.d/rc.optware start

   
   

After the installation, reconnect to make sure the new $PATH is working.
Now it is possible to use ipkg the standard way, to both update the packages list and install packages:

ipkg update
ipkg upgrade
ipkg install <appname>

Cannot login via web interface

This link says that this happens either because /etc/melco/userinfo is missing or empty...
That file should at the base minimum contain the following lines:

admin<>Built-in account for administering the system;
guest<>Built-in account for guest access to the system;

Replacing hard disks

In the end, 4x500 GB can be a tight space, espacially if storing backups.
Looking for supported 2TB SATA 3.5" drives, I found:

on rebuilding the RAID array

Buffalo Technology forum
Replacing disks under RAID5, on nas-central.org
Exploiting md recovering and growing capabilities, on nas-central.org.

My recipe

The TS Live has been reconfigured out of the box to use the four 500 GB drives as two RAID1 separate volumes.
That is, the drives and partition situation goes like this:

The partition table for /dev/sdc and /dev/sdd now looks like that:

So far, so good. Last two steps now:
first, grow the md array to the maximum available size:

mdadm --grow /dev/md3 -z max

xfs_growfs /mnt/array2/

Note that, differently from what suggested on the procedure I used as reference on nas-central.org, letting the web interface rebuild (i.e. "rear") the array was not only harmless, but worked as expected, perhaps a tad slower.