How to install IPKG on a Synology NAS

Sometimes you want to install “community” or third party packages on your Synology NAS and they require IPKG (Itsy Package Management System) to be present. Instruction about how to go about this seem to vary and are often specific for the CPU inside your NAS. The easiest method that I’ve found for getting IPKG installed is as follows…

First job is to open an SSH session to the NAS and confirm what type of processor it has. This can be done using the following command:

[text]cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep model[/text]

For my DS1513+ it returns:

[text]model: 54
model name: Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU D2701   @ 2.13GHz
model: 54
model name: Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU D2701   @ 2.13GHz
model: 54
model name: Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU D2701   @ 2.13GHz
model: 54
model name: Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU D2701   @ 2.13GHz[/text]

Next you need to dig around the site http://ipkg.nslu2-linux.org/feeds/optware/ to find the correct bootstrap for your architecture. In my case it’s at http://ipkg.nslu2-linux.org/feeds/optware/syno-i686/cross/unstable/syno-i686-bootstrap_1.2-7_i686.xsh.

To install it, there are a couple of steps…

1. Within your SSH session, change to a temporary location (note that you will probably need to be logged in as root to do all this)

[text]cd /tmp[/text]

2. Download the bootstrap script

[text]wget http://ipkg.nslu2-linux.org/feeds/optware/syno-i686/cross/unstable/syno-i686-bootstrap_1.2-7_i686.xsh[/text]

3. Make the file executable

[text] chmod +x syno-i686-bootstrap_1.2-7_i686.xsh[/text]

4. Run the script

[text]sh syno-i686-bootstrap_1.2-7_i686.xsh[/text]

5. If it all went well, remove the script

[text]rm syno-i686-bootstrap_1.2-7_i686.xsh[/text]

6. Update the package list

[text]ipkg update[/text]

Well done, you’re now ready to install custom packages via ipkg.