Installing the NAS from scratch

11 min · 8 sections

This guide covers the very first thing: taking an empty computer and turning it into your NAS, with the panel open in your browser. It is three things — download, write a USB stick and install — and the machine does the last one on its own.

What you need: a computer with at least 2 GB of memory and a disk, a USB stick of 2 GB or more, and another computer to write it from. A small disk is plenty for the system, and it does not have to be one of your good ones: see Which disk it installs on.

The machine's disk is wiped COMPLETELY. The installer does not ask and there is no going back. If that computer holds anything you care about, take it off first.

1. Download the image

It is at lgm-os.com/descargar. It is a .iso file of about 700 MB. Let it download completely before you continue; a truncated download will not boot.

2. Write the USB stick

An .iso is not copied onto a USB stick like an ordinary file: it has to be written, and that needs a program. The simplest is balenaEtcher, which works the same on Windows, Mac and Linux: download it from balena.io/etcher, open it, and it is three buttons — pick the image, pick the stick, write.

Everything on the stick is erased. And check twice which one you picked: choose the wrong drive and you erase that one.

If you would rather use the command line:

• Linux: sudo dd if=lgm-os-installer.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress oflag=sync (replace sdX with your stick; check it with lsblk first).
• macOS: sudo dd if=lgm-os-installer.iso of=/dev/rdiskN bs=4m (diskutil list to find which one).
• Windows: use balenaEtcher or Rufus; dd is not included.

3. Boot from the USB stick

Plug the stick into the machine that will become the NAS and switch it on while pressing the key that opens the boot menu. Which key depends on the maker, and it usually flashes up on screen:

Pick your USB stick from that list. If it is not there, go into the BIOS (F2 or Del) and check that USB booting is enabled.

4. The installation

Once it boots you will see this:

There is one option and it starts by itself after a few seconds: nothing to choose, nothing to touch. From here the machine works on its own.

The first thing you see is a welcome screen that says what it is about to do; press Continue. Then it asks what the NAS will be called. It is the name you will use to reach the panel from any device at home (https://<name>.local:5001), so pick something short and easy to remember: home, nas, nas-de-luis. Letters, digits and hyphens only; if you type spaces or capitals, the installer tidies them up by itself. Go Back returns to the previous screen. If you change your mind, it can be changed later from the panel: Control Panel → System information → Change.

Which disk it installs on

If the machine has a single disk and it is empty, the installer goes straight ahead and uses it. If it has several, it shows the list with each one's size and model, and whether it has data, so you choose where the system goes; an empty one comes selected. The one you pick is wiped completely and stays for the system: data volumes are made afterwards, from the panel, with the other disks. If you pick a disk with data —or the only one there is has some—, before erasing it the installer tells you what is on it, and from that screen you can go back to the list.

The system does not need a good disk, nor a drive bay. Freshly installed it takes about 8 GB and it does not balloon, because your files, the applications, Docker and the virtual machines live on the volume and not here. 32 GB is fine and with 64 GB you can forget about it. The three setups that work best:

• A small SSD over USB, or an adapter with an old laptop SSD. No bay, no SATA port, and plenty of room.
• An M.2 or mSATA slot on the board, free on many machines.
• The smallest disk you already have, if you would rather not buy anything.

What does not work is a keyring USB stick. The NAS writes to the system disk all the time —the log, the file index, the usage readings every minute— and a plain USB stick wears out with that: it lasts a few months and then starts giving odd, hard-to-read failures. An SSD over USB for €30 is a different thing and lasts years. (The installer already helps: on disks under 32 GB it trims the system log to write less.)

And something worth knowing before you choose: the system disk is not used for data. Even with 900 GB to spare, the panel will not offer them for a volume.

That is why the installer asks, right after the name, how much disk the system gets:

• The whole disk is the usual answer, and the right one when the machine has other disks for data.
• Set aside 64 GB keeps the system in that part and turns **the rest of the disk into your data volume**, already mounted the first time you open the panel. It is the answer to "I only have one big disk and I don't want to spend it all".

What to be clear about if you set aside: your data would share the disk with the system, so if that disk fails you lose both at once, and there is no way to spread the information across several disks to protect it. With two disks —a small one for the system and another for your things— you are better off.

From there it prepares the disk, downloads the system and installs it, all in one go and without asking anything else:

This first part takes between ten minutes and half an hour, depending on the machine and the network; the long one comes afterwards, on the first boot. Do not switch it off even if it looks stuck: there are stretches where it is downloading and the bar does not move.

If your network does not hand out addresses

Almost every home router hands out addresses on its own (DHCP) and you will never see this screen. If yours does not, the installer says it could not configure the network on its own and then asks you for the IP address, the netmask, the gateway and the DNS:

Apart from the name, that is the only thing it can ask you during the whole installation. If you do not know what to type, take the address of another machine in your home and change its last number for a high one (say .200); the netmask and gateway are the same as its own.

When it finishes

The machine restarts on its own and takes the USB stick out of the picture. On the NAS's own screen you will see this while it finishes getting ready:

On this first boot the NAS downloads the latest version of LGM-OS and installs it. That is why it needs the internet, and why an image written a year ago still installs today's latest. The bar on that screen runs from 0 to 100 and updates itself. This is the long part: it installs more than a thousand packages and can take an hour or more, depending on the machine and the network. The bar moves with every package; while it moves, it is working.

5. Getting into the panel

That same screen shows the address. From any computer or phone in your home, open:

https://<the-name-you-chose>.local:5001

The first time, your browser will warn that the certificate is not trusted: that is normal — the certificate was made by your own NAS. Go in anyway (“Advanced” → “Continue”), and once inside, under Control panel → External access, install the NAS's certificate on your devices: the warning goes away and you also get fingerprint sign-in and the panel as an app. See Installing the panel as an app.

The panel will ask you to create your administrator account. That is the only password you choose in the whole process, and the one you will use from now on.

To create it, the panel also asks for the setup code shown on the screen connected to the NAS (if you log in over SSH with the lgm account, run sudo lgm alta). That way nobody else on your network can create the administrator before you. On the NAS's own screen the code is already filled in.

Go in by name, not by IP. Over <name>.local you can use passkeys (fingerprint or face), install the panel as an app and view it offline. Over an IP address the browser allows none of the three. The addresses that reach your NAS are listed under Control panel → Addresses.

Your first volume, without going looking for it

With the account created, the NAS looks at the disks it has and suggests a volume, already worked out: how many disks it would use, how much space you will have and what happens if one fails. There is nothing to choose between RAID types or filesystems. Two buttons: Create it or Not now.

• Only empty disks are considered. A disk that already has data on it is never suggested: creating a volume starts by wiping it. If all your disks have something on them, the wizard says so and takes you to Storage, where you can also recover volumes from another NAS as they are, with their data.
• “Not now” does not come back. It is an offer made once; from then on you create the volume from Storage whenever you want.
• Once the volume is made, it offers you your first household folder, “Documentos”. That is the one you will see from any computer in the house. If creating it fails, never mind: it takes a minute from Control panel → Household folders.

What next

• Administration guide — the first ten minutes with the NAS in front of you.
• Storage — if you said “Not now”, or if you would rather pick the disks, the kind of protection and the encryption yourself instead of taking the suggestion.
• Connecting your devices — making the NAS show up as another folder on Windows, Mac, Linux and your phone.

If something goes wrong

The machine will not boot from the stick. Almost always it is Secure Boot: turn it off in the BIOS. If the machine predates 2012, also check that USB booting is allowed.

It sits still for a long time. That is normal at two points: detecting disks, and downloading the base system. Give it half an hour before worrying.

An error comes up. Press Ctrl+Alt+F4: that is the installer's log, with the real reason. A photo of that screen is what is needed to work out what happened.

It finished, but the panel does not open. The NAS needs the internet on its first boot to download LGM-OS. If it had none, it waits and retries every minute: plug in the network cable and give it a couple of minutes.

The console account. The installer creates an account called lgm with a password that is different on every machine, generated during installation. You only need it if one day you are left without the panel and have to get in with a keyboard and screen. Until you create your administrator account it is on the NAS's own screen, hidden behind asterisks: press C on that screen to see it for a minute — write it down if you think you will need it. After that it stops being shown, and it is read from the panel (Terminal) in /etc/lgm/clave-consola. The panel account is a separate thing and you choose it.