HTTP Server

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Synology NAS Web Server

Posted by Ripdubski on 2014.04.18
Posted in: NAS. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

This post has been a draft for a long time, it’s time to publish it!  It explains how to setup a Synology DiskStation NAS running DSM (Disk Station Manager) to serve web pages (including PHP) and provide SQL services (via MySQL).  Your NAS can still sleep properly with this setup while giving you the benefit of running a LAMP stack.  The average user won’t need this. If you know what PHP, SQL, and LAMP are then you might be interested.

I needed this to host an application I wrote in PHP that uses MySQL on the backend to store data.  When I maintained an externally hosted web site it was running there.  I rely on the application but no longer wanted to maintain the external web site, so this solution came about. Purely for reference, my application is for vehicle service history.

  • First you need to login to the DSM interface as the root/admin user.
  • Next enable PHP by navigating to Control Panel / Web Services / PHP Settings.  You’ll want to enable the PHP cache and safe mode options.  Click “Apply” to turn it on:

Synology PHP Enable

  • Next click “Select PHP extension”.  You will need to turn on at least the “mysql”, “mysqli”, “pdo_mysql”, and “dba” extensions.  I used a few others; “get text” and “mcrypt”.  Click OK when done:

Synology PHP Extensions

  • Next enable the web server and MySQL server by navigating to Control Panel / Web Services / Web Applications.  Unless you closed the window, you should be able to just select the “Web Applications” tab.  Check the “Enable Web Station” and “Enable MySQL” options, then click “Apply” to turn them on:

Synology Web MySQL Enable

  • Before closing the window click on the “Virtual Host” button under “Enable Web Station”.  This is where you will define a URL name and sub-folder to store the application.  In my case I stored it in a folder called “servicehistory” and gave it a URL name of “servicehistory.home”.  The name given must be resolvable on your network.  If you are using DD-WRT router firmware, you can enable local DNS as I described in this post.  Click OK when done:

Synology Virtual Host

  • Now the web and database service is available.  You need to install the database management package (phpMyAdmin).  Open Package Center from the Application Panel:

SynoAppPanel

  • Click “Utilities”, find “phpMyAdmin”, click the “Install” button.  You may also need to install “Perl” if your application needs it:

Synology Package Install Perl phpMyAdmin

  • Next you need to make sure the packages are running.  Click “Installed”, find the package, click “Run”.  Close the Package Manager when done.
  • Next you need to login to phpMyAdmin and set the root password.  From the Application Panel, select “phpMyAdmin”.  Login as “root”.  There is no password initially.
  • Click “Change Password”.  Enter a new password, re-enter the new password, and click “OK”.
  • Now you can create databases and tables as you see fit.  Close phpMyAdmin when you are done:

Synology phpMyAdmin

  • All that is left is to populate your application into the web server directory as specified in the Virtual Host definition (in my case “servicehistory”).  You can use SCP if you have SSH enabled, or the Synology File Manager.  Include any and all folders and files your application needs:

Synology File Manager

  • Now you should be able to access your application from the Synology NAS web server by entering the URL you set in the Virtual Host setting into your browser (in my case “servicehistory.home”):

Synology Web Server via browser

That’s it!  You can also serve multiple applications by creating multiple virtual hosts and placing those applications in the proper directories.

 

DD-WRT Web Server for Viewing All Network IPs

Posted by Ripdubski on 2014.04.14
Posted in: DD-WRT. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

dd-wrtNOTE: I no longer use DD-WRT and am unable to answer any questions about it.

Expanding on my last post of setting up a static page, this post will create dynamic content (albeit at boot time) to be served statically using the embedded HTTP server in DD-WRT.

For small home networks with a mix of leased and non-leased IP addresses, it is sometimes useful to see all of the allocated addresses at one time.  Or maybe you can’t remember the name of a device in which name lookup does you no good.  You can use this method to create a static web page that has both hosts you define with static addresses, and hosts with dynamic addresses assigned by the DD-WRT DHCP server.  Of the latter, it will include DHCP addresses that have reservations.

Why separate the static addresses from the reserved DHCP addresses?

  • I assign hardware devices like printers, set top boxes, and game consoles with static addresses.  Set and forget, almost.  I use a range of address outside of the DHCP pool for this purpose and I keep track of it on a spreadsheet.  These devices should never have to change, ever, so I don’t need them managed by DHCP.
  • I have two ranges with a single DHCP pool for two different purposes.  The first is the equipment in our family; laptops, phones, etc.  I want these in the first range.  I want them to grab DNS and gateway information from the router as well as their address so I don’t have to maintain them at each device, but I also want them to have the same IP at each boot, so I set them up with reservations in DHCP (within the first range).  The second range is for guest equipment (visitors phones, etc).  I apply two different QOS (quality of service) settings to these ranges.  If you’re a guest, you get no P2P and your traffic has the lowest priority on my network.  Sorry.

 

End Result

What you’ll end up with is a web page that has two panes.  One pane shows all the static addresses you create, the other pane shows all the DHCP leases (at router boot time).  You will access it by entering the following URL into your device’s browser: “http://router_address/user/hosts.html”.  If you have setup the router so that DNSmasq resolves local DNS names, you can substitute the router address for its name on the network – I covered that in an earlier post here.  This is what the web page will look like when complete:

HostsPage

It’s simple, small, and fast.  You can customize the headers, footers, and titles to be as pleasing as you want.  Keep in mind the HTTP server doesn’t have all the bells and whistles you would normally have.

 

Setup, File Creation

First you need to create a hosts file containing the entries for the statically assigned (not reserved DHCP).  These are the printers, set top boxes, game consoles, etc.  Devices that don’t leave the house and have no reason to ever change.

  • Login to the router as the administrator.
  • Change directory to /jffs/www: “cd /jffs/www”
  • Create the hosts file with vi: “vi hosts”.  The syntax is IP address, tab, device name, device name alias.  The content will be similar to this:

192.168.56.20 dsnas nas
192.168.56.40 wii
192.168.56.41 xbox
192.168.56.60 zinohd bluray dvd
192.168.56.70 mg6120 printer

  •  Create the file that will be served by the HTTP server (hosts.html).  This will use a frame set, yes I know it can be done with CSS but I was keeping this pure HTML.  Still in the “/jffs/www” directory, using vi: “vi hosts.html”:

<!--DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<frameset cols="50%,50%">
<frame src="hoststat.html" />
<frame src="hostdhcp.html" />
</frameset>
</html>

  • Create a header stub file (“hosts_head.html”) which will be used in the dynamic creation of the pages contents.  In the same directory “/jffs/www”, again using vi: “vi hosts_head.html”:

<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html" />
<title>DNS Hosts - home</title>
</head>
<body>

  • Create a footer stub file (“hosts_foot.html”) which will be used in the dynamic creation of the pages contents.  In the same directory “/jffs/www”, again using vi: “vi hosts_foot.html”:

</code>
</body>
</html>

  • Create the Static pane’s title file (“hosts_title_stat.html”).  In the same directory “/jffs/www”, again using vi: “vi hosts_title_stat.html”:

<h3>DNS Hosts (Static) - home</h3>
<code>

  • Create the DHCP (leased) pane’s title file (“hosts_title_dhcp.html”).  In the same directory “/jffs/www”, again using vi: “vi hosts_title_dhcp.html”:

<h3>DNS Hosts (Leased) - home</h3>
<code>

 

Setup, Activation

  • Now the router has to be told to create the pages at boot. You will utilize the boot script to do it. If you already have one, append this to it. If you don’t have one, create it.  In the directory “/jffs/bin”, again using vi: “vi boot_set.sh”:

# Setup DNS Host web page
# Copy the hosts.html file from /jffs/www to the serving location /tmp/www
cp /jffs/www/hosts.html /tmp/www/hosts.html
# Setup DNS Static web page frame
# Copy the header to a new file in /tmp/www as hoststat.html.
cp /jffs/www/hosts_head.html /tmp/www/hoststat.html
# Concatenate the title stub onto the new file.
cat /jffs/www/hosts_title_stat.html >> /tmp/www/hoststat.html
# Parse the contents of the hosts file you created above into the new file.
while read line; do
echo "${line}
" >> /tmp/www/hoststat.html
done < /jffs/etc/hosts
# Concatenate the footer stub onto the new file
cat /jffs/www/hosts_foot.html >> /tmp/www/hoststat.html
# Setup DNS Leased web page frame
# Copy the header to a new file in /tmp/www as hostdhcp.html.
cp /jffs/www/hosts_head.html /tmp/www/hostdhcp.html
# Concatenate the title stub onto the new file.
cat /jffs/www/hosts_title_dhcp.html >> /tmp/www/hostdhcp.html
# Parse the contents of the hosts file generated by DNSmasq into the new file.
while read line; do
echo "${line}
" >> /tmp/www/hostdhcp.html
done < /tmp/hosts
# Concatenate the footer stub onto the new file
cat /jffs/www/hosts_foot.html >> /tmp/www/hostdhcp.html

  • If you have just created the boot script, you need to tell DD-WRT to use it. I showed you how in a previous post here.
  • Reboot the router so it will go through the file generation steps.

 

That’s all there is to it. Enjoy!

Using DD-WRT to Serve Static Web Pages

Posted by Ripdubski on 2014.04.04
Posted in: DD-WRT. Tagged: , , , . 4 Comments

NOTE: I no longer use DD-WRT and am unable to answer any questions about it.

One thing DD-WRT can do, which is under-stated, is serve web pages (internally) via it’s built-in HTTP server. This post will demonstrate how to set it up with a simple static page which displays “Hello Home!” In another post I’ll show how to make something pretty useful with it. Stay tuned!

Pre-requisites

Before this will work and be of any use, the following must be enabled. If yours are not, enable them, then reboot the router.

a) JFFS. See my post on enabling JFFS if you need help.
b) Web Info Status page.

Storage and Access

After reboot, /www/user will be symlinked to /tmp/www. The static page will be served from this location. The access URL will be: http://router_address/user/static.html

Setup Steps

-Login to the router as root via ssh.
-Change directory: cd /jffs/bin
-Edit the startup script (if you don’t have one, create it – boot_set.sh). Add the following to the start of the file. This will copy the html file from the storage location to the serving location. to the html file we are going to serve:
# Copy static web page to serving location
cp /jffs/etc/static.html /tmp/www/static.html
-Change directory: cd /jffs/etc
-Now create the static page “/jffs/etc/static.html” with vi:
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html" />
<title>Static Intranet Web Page Test</title>
</head>
<body>
<h3>Hello Home!</h3>
</body>
</html>
-Login to the routers web admin page and navigate to Administration > Commands.
-Enter “/jffs/bin/boot_set.sh” in the Command Shell/Commands section.
-Click the “Save Startup” button.
-Reboot by navigate to Administration > Management and click “Reboot Router” from the web interface.

Test

At this point the URL should be available and you should be able to bring up the page from a browser: http://router_address/user/static.html

Stay tuned to see how you can utilize this in a very useful way!

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