How I revived a 128MB RAM NAS by building my own control panel

Source: Dev.to

How I revived a 128MB RAM NAS by building my own control panel

It all started with boredom and old hardware

I had an old Netgear Stora MS2000 sitting around — a box with just 128 MB of RAM. I had installed Debian 7 and OpenMediaVault on it once. Then the disk died, I reinstalled Debian 9, but OMV turned out to be way too heavy for this hardware. Editing Samba and NFS configs in the console every time was a pain. All I needed was two simple pages to create shares. I thought, “I’ll just write a couple of PHP scripts and be done with it.” That’s how Mini Bucket was born. ⚠️ Fair warning: I’m not a programmer. The code could be more beautiful, the architecture more elegant. But my goal was different — to build a useful tool for myself as a sysadmin on old hardware. The first two pages were quick. Shares were being created. Then I thought: “It’d be nice to see some stats.” So I added a dashboard with graphs. Then: “Since SMB and NFS are already there, let’s add rsync and FTP.” And I did. Day by day, my “two-page panel” grew into a project now called Mini Bucket — NAS Control Panel. Raspberry Pi 1 (256 MB RAM) — yes, the very first one Netgear Stora MS2000 (128 MB RAM) Debian 9 on old laptops and VMs What it can do (short version): Live dashboard with CPU, RAM, network, disk graphs Firewall (UFW) with CRUD and ready-made rules System monitor + diagnostics (ping, traceroute, speedtest) Web console (SSH through the browser) Cron scheduler with logs User management Disks, RAID (0,1,5,6,10), LVM, SMART Two-panel file manager SMB, NFS, FTP, Rsync System checker (“Check everything” button) API key rotation for multiple servers Full list — 12 sections, 20+ pages. In the first version (beta), I made some silly mistakes, and the Habr community rightly criticized me for them: Worker files, cron scripts, and temporary files were stored inside the web server’s document root

You could technically send a request to an executable file without authentication Everything was in a single SQLite database, so under load you’d get “database is locked” I’m not denying it. I’m learning. All critical files moved outside the website folder (/var/www/minib/) Apache configuration reviewed Temporary files and logs are no longer accessible from the outside Databases split across multiple SQLite files + request queuing Takeaway: A beta is a beta. But now it’s a stable release. Many asked: “What about security?” The whole process is documented, but here’s the short version: Host Manager → set the FQDN (e.g., minib.local) Security → SSL Manager → Create → Self-Signed Certificate System → Mini-B Settings → Enable HTTPS Apply & test config Yes, your browser will complain about the self-signed certificate. But the traffic is encrypted. For a home NAS — that’s enough. I realized that in any “out of the box” system, you get 80% of what you need — and the remaining 20% is whatever you personally miss. That’s why from version 3.6.4, Mini Bucket becomes a plugin platform. Log Manager — real-time log viewer, search, export, cleanup. No more SSH and remembering paths to /var/log. Plugin Template — a ready-made skeleton for your own plugins with built-in authentication, API, and SQLite support. Anyone can write their own plugin (backup to S3, Telegram bot, disk temperature monitoring) and share it with the community. Never store executables in the webroot — this is basic security, and I missed it. Split your databases — a single SQLite for everything is a pain under load. Listen to criticism — On Habr, people downvoted me for the donation requests and rookie mistakes. I fixed the mistakes. I kept the donations, but moved them out of the spotlight. You can’t please everyone — my project is niche. It’s for people with old hardware and a “let’s just get it done” attitude. Open Source is not just code — it’s the community. Forum, wiki, docs, plugins. A marketplace for plugins inside the panel Support for more languages (currently mixed Russian/English) Integration with popular backup tools (S3, Borg, Restic) GitHub: github.com/itprogresscorp/Mini-Bucket

Demo & documentation: mini-bucket.ru

Forum: see the website The project lives on donations from people who’ve found it genuinely useful. If you revived your old NAS with Mini Bucket — I’d appreciate any support. Links are on GitHub and the website. P.S. Installation on a clean Debian 9 — one command. Everything is described in the README on GitHub. P.P.S. I’m not a programmer. But it works. And it’s Open Source.