Dear Synology users,

This answer is directly targeting those of you who'd like to use OpenERP on a Synology NAS server.

I've gone through substantial efforts to get to the bottom of certain issues with the combination of OpenERP7.x with a Synology server. In this posting I'd like to give you a heads-up on some of the most "crucial" elements one has to think about when (or before deciding if) starting to customise the standard OpenERP installation:

1. By default only a "limited" set of modules are available on a standard OpenERP installation on a syno Box. If a user want to add more modules this is quite well possible but one needs to have some knowledge of SSH and command line syntax to do this succesfully. More about this later (see Ad 1. section).

2. If Python needs additional modules (like xlrd), this will require adding the python code to OpenERP7.x's "modules" directory (this is located in the following path on a Synlogy box: /volume1/@appstore/OpenERP7.x/openerp/modules. This is completely different from adding a "module" through OpenERP7.x directly and also completely different from adding a library like xlrd to Python.

Ad 1.

1. To add "non-standard" modules first download whatever module you'd like to add to your Mac/PC and,

2. unzip/untar the downloaded file (for those of you adventurous enough, obviously you can also do the unzipping/untar-ing on the box)

3. now copy the unzipped folder (whole directory) to your Synology NAS (I'll assume you copy it using your web-interface to /volume1/homes/admin (the main admin directory)

4. access your Syno box via SSH and enter the following command (adapt the paths to the locations you have used)

5. cp -R /volume1/homes/admin/name_of_directory_with_OpenERP7_module /volume1/@appstore/OpenERP7.x/openerp/addons 

6. Check if the new module "landed" in the correct spot

7. ls -la /volume1/@appstore/OpenERP7.x/openerp/addons/name_of_directory_with_OpenERP7_module 

8.  The response should be a listing of the contents of the directory you just added. If you get an error (directory does not exist or something, please make sure the paths you entered were correct)

9. The last thing you need to do is to change the owner of the new files in the module
   (by default any file for OpenERP7.x is owned by http and the group http

10. chown -R http:http /volume1/@appstore/OpenERP7.x/openerp/addons/name_of_directory_with_OpenERP7_module 
    

11. Now you can reload the modules in OpenERP "Update Modules list" from within OpenERP (in "settings" menu)

Ad 2. To add a library/module like xlrd (which is required for a module like for instance "Swiss bank statements import" for OpenERP7.x, the following steps need to be executed:

1. Download the library/module https://pypi.python.org/pypi/xlrd and unpack the package on local HD

2. Copy the contents of the package to the Synology. Copy it to any location of the user's desire (I'll assume /volume1/homes/admin/xlrd-0.9.3, using rsync via SSH or just drag and drop via web interface)

3. cd /volume1/homes/admin/xlrd-0.9.3
   python setup.py install

4. The above commands will add the module to Python but still not available to OpenERP7.x. It took me a while to realise this so I'm hoping this line will help you go the next steps. So if you're not quite feeling satisfied, read on...

5. In order for OpenERP7.x to be able to use 'xlrd' copy a file called 'runxlrd.py' into the modules directory (located at: /volume1/@appstore/OpenERP7.x/openerp/modules

6. cp /volume1/homes/admin/xlrd-0.9.3/scripts/runxlrd.py /volume1/@appstore/OpenERP7.x/openerp/modules

7. Now xlrd will be accessible to OpenERP7.x but OpenERP may require a reboot (this you can do via the package manager (stop/start) or using a command like this:

8. su -s /bin/sh -m -c "/volume1/@appstore/OpenERP7.x/bin/openerp-server --config=/volume1/@appstore/OpenERP7.x/openerp-server.conf --addons-path=/volume1/@appstore/OpenERP7.x/openerp/addons/ --logfile=/volume1/@appstore/OpenERP8.x/logs/server.log" http 

 All done, hope this helps.

Happy OpenERP-ing! 

Cheers Jappie

Dear Dhinesh, Thank you very much for your time so far.

I do not now how and where I have to extract the Package.

I use a Synology server connected with Putty.

I hope this is enough information.

kind regards, Remco Willekus

you can also try like this:

sudo apt-get install python-pip
sudo pip install xlutils  

-> xlutils contains xlrd and xlwt (libraries for reading xls files : xlrd , and for writing xls file: xlwt)

Synology linux is a very customized version of linux. The usual linux command language doesn't work. The directory structure is also very special. Adding libraries is possible but difficult and can give conflicts. Starting with synology installed openerp version is easy but it is only nice to play with. I have tried it for more than a year and couldn' t make it functional and stable for my business environment. The community is not familiar enough with this combination. You are on your own. Anyway i didn't succeed in it. And i have put everything on hold waiting for more interest in the community for this.