arpl

Note: this project has been archived. The README points to https://github.com/RROrg/rr as the active replacement.

ARPL, short for Automated Redpill Loader, was a tool that helped users install Synology's DSM operating system on hardware that Synology does not officially support. DSM is the operating system that runs on Synology network-attached storage devices, which are small computers used to store and serve files on a home or office network. ARPL let users run DSM on generic PC hardware, virtual machines, or other compatible machines, a practice sometimes called XPenology.

The process works by burning an ARPL image onto a USB drive or a small storage module called a SATA disk-on-module, booting the target machine from that media, and then walking through a menu to configure the loader before starting DSM. The loader automatically detects the hardware it is running on, including the type of storage device and the network interfaces present, reducing the amount of manual configuration a user would otherwise need to do. It also automatically re-applies patches to the DSM kernel if the system receives an update that would otherwise break the boot process.

The menu interface can be accessed three ways: directly from a terminal on the machine, through a web browser on another device on the same network, or over SSH. Once a DSM model and build number are selected and a serial number is generated, the loader builds a boot image and starts DSM. Final DSM setup continues through the browser.

The project has minimum requirements: at least 4 gigabytes of RAM, and SATA-connected storage (SAS or SCSI disks are not supported by the DSM kernel). Some hardware features such as SMART disk monitoring only work on specific DSM models.

The author, a Brazilian developer, built ARPL originally for personal testing and shared it publicly. The underlying techniques build on earlier community work from the XPenology project.