Tips and tricks for Debian on QNAP TS-41x/TS-42x

Here are some tips and tricks about running Debian on the QNAP TS-41x/TS-42x.

Automatic fan control

Debian ships a program called qcontrol which can be used to control the fan, LEDs and buttons on QNAP devices. You can edit the /etc/qcontrol.conf configuration file to change the behaviour of qcontrol, for example how the fans are regulated depending on the temperature or which commands to run when a button is pressed.

Scheduled power

You can tell your QNAP device to power on at a specific time using the wakealarm system. For example, if you want your QNAP to power on in 5 minutes, issue the following commands and turn off your device:

echo 0 | sudo tee /sys/class/rtc/rtc0/wakealarm
echo `date '+%s' -d '+ 5 minutes'` | sudo tee /sys/class/rtc/rtc0/wakealarm

You can check whether a wakealarm has been configured with:

cat /proc/driver/rtc

Look for alrm_time and and alrm_date.

Automatic power on

QNAP machines can turn on automatically when power is applied if the device was not powered down correctly. This is helpful when your power goes down. In order to enable this feature, run the following command:

sudo qcontrol --direct autopower on