Run your own Unity Package Server (QNAP NAS)

date

Jul 8, 2023

type

KnowledgeBase

year

slug

package-server-nas

status

Published

Unity Package Server in Virtualization Station

As a first step I logged into the QNAP NAS (I have a TS-664-4G) and created a VM in Virtualization Station, where I installed Ubuntu Server 22.04

Next I launched the console of the VM and Installed verdaccio as per step 2 in the other blog post

And here’s what’s different:

Automatically starting verdaccio after server restart

Check the location of verdaccio: $ which verdaccio

$ crontab -e (if it asks for your favourite editor, just pick nano)

add one line to the bottom: @reboot /usr/local/bin/verdaccio (or whatever location you got above)

CTRL + x to exit, asks if you want to save - you do.

🔄 Restart the VM

Now we check if that worked and verdaccio automatically started after the reboot. We do this with $ pstree - if it shows up in the list, we’re good! In the screenshot below you can see it as the second item from the top and we can even see that it was started by cron

🚨

If it’s not showing up, then try and run it manually - then you will very likely see what error is preventing it from launching during startup!

We could also pipe | the output of pstree into grep and filter for the word “Verdaccio” like this: $ pstree | grep Verdaccio - then we would only see the one line we actually care about.

How can we see the output from our auto-started verdaccio?

$ ps aux | grep verdaccio - gives us a filtered list of processes showing only entries with “verdaccio”

Note the process id in there! (in my case 688)

Now we can live-capture verdaccio’s stdout output like so: $ sudo tail -f /proc/688/fd/1 (CTRL + C to exit)

Or we can pipe it all into less and review it: $ sudo cat /proc/688/fd/1 | less (PG UP, PG DN, q to exit)

Optional: Local DNS Record

if you’re using a Ubiquiti router like the Dream Machine Pro, then the Ubuntu server should pop up under Topology in Unifi Console.

Click on it to show its details, switch to Settings and assign a local DNS record (like verdaccio.internal). You probably also want to give it a Fixed IP.

It might take a minute or so, but you should now be able to go to http://verdaccio.internal:4873 and see the web interface - but even if you have packages already in there it might say it’s empty.

To solve this open up the config.yaml in nano again cd ~/verdaccio; sudo nano config.yaml and add your URI under listen:

Then restart your VM and it should work!

~~Then open the VM and do~~ ~~$ export VERDACCIO_PUBLIC_URL=http://verdaccio.internal~~ ~~to save it into the environment variables and restart. And now if you got to http://verdaccio.internal, it should be working!~~

Run Verdaccio via Docker in Container Station on QNAP NAS

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Does not work yet. If you figure out how to make it work, please let me know!

Upgrade to Container Station 3 Beta

Containers > Create

Image: verdaccio/verdaccio:5.9

Advanced Settings > Storage

Remove what’s there and add Bind Mount Host Path and point it at where you want the verdaccio content to live on your NAS.

Make sure that folder exists, make a conf folder inside of it and put the config.yaml in there

make a storage folder inside the conf folder and put packages + .verdaccio-db.json in there (if not starting empty)

Now Create it, watch it start, go into the detailed view - if you click on the port forwarding port it copies the URL into your clipboard

Go to that url and it should all be there! But the IP changes at every restart. We can create a fixed IP address for it like this:

Edit Container > Network
Add > Network Mode: Bridge > Check Use a static IP address, set it to something > Connect > Apply

Restart and then it should be accessible via its static IP! (You can remove the other network)

⚠️

But I can’t get this one to show up under My Registries in Unity. The one running in a VM with a local DNS record works just fine… No idea why it doesn’t like this one… Might be an issue with having the storage on the NAS drive - but downloading right from the web interface works 😕

shows these errors: