UVC webcam support for Synology NAS

UVC camera not recognized

On my Intel Apollolake Synology (DS718+), my Logitech C270 UVC webcam did not load, when plugging it into USB. Turns out UVC support is not built into the default Synology kernel.

Get Synology kernel sources and toolchain

• Synology archive: https://archive.synology.com/download/
• Synology Linux-4.4.x fork for Apollolake: https://global.synologydownload.com/download/ToolChain/Synology%20NAS%20GPL%20Source/7.0-41890/apollolake/linux-4.4.x.txz
• Synology GCC 12 toolchain for Apollolake: https://global.synologydownload.com/download/ToolChain/toolchain/7.2-63134/Intel%20x86%20Linux%204.4.302%20%28Apollolake%29/apollolake-gcc1220_glibc236_x86_64-GPL.txz

Setup cross compiler

• Extract the GCC toolchain and cd to whereever you have it extracted
• Then:

  export CC=`pwd`/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/bin/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-gcc
  export LD=`pwd`/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/bin/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-ld
  export RANLIB=`pwd`/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/bin/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-ranlib
  export CFLAGS=-I`pwd`/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/include
  export LDFLAGS=-L`pwd`/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/lib
  export CXX=`pwd`/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/bin/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-g++
  export AR=`pwd`/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/bin/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-ar
  export NM=`pwd`/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/bin/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-nm
  export STRIP=`pwd`/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/bin/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-strip
    
  export PATH=`pwd`/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/bin/:$PATH
  

Linux menuconfig

• Extract the Linux 4.4.x kernel sources and cd into that directory.
• Modify the the default apollolake config at synoconfigs/apollolake, and add:

  CONFIG_VIDEO_V4L2=m
  CONFIG_CONFIG_MEDIA_CAMERA_SUPPORT=y
  CONFIG_USB_VIDEO_CLASS=m
  CONFIG_LOCALVERSION="+"
  

That last LOCALVERSION setting is needed to allow the module to load on DSM7.1 versions.

Compile kernel modules

You’re ready to compile the kernel modules now.

• Run: CROSS_COMPILE=x86_64-pc-linux-gnu- make modules -j20 This will build all kernel modules using 20 parallel processes.

Copy over the required kernel modules to the Synology

Once done, copy over the required kernel modules to the Synology (using ssh or the file browser or …)

You’ll need: videobuf2-memops.ko videobuf2-vmalloc.ko videobuf2-core.ko videobuf2-v4l2.ko videodev.ko v4l2-common.ko and uvcvideo.ko

Load the modules on the running Linux kernel

• ssh into your Synology server
• cd to wherever you copied the kernel modules on your Synology
• Then run:

  insmod videobuf2-memops.ko
  insmod videobuf2-vmalloc.ko
  insmod videobuf2-core.ko
  insmod videobuf2-v4l2.ko
  insmod videodev.ko
  insmod v4l2-common.ko
  insmod uvcvideo.ko
  

• Check if the modules loaded correctly, using dmesg. Look for Linux video capture interface: v2.00.

Plug in a UVC webcam

Now plug in a UVC webcam, and check if it’s detected using dmesg. E.g.:

  [1839456.436728] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device USBDevice (046d:0825)
  [1839456.534937] input: USBDevice as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:13.1/0000:02:00.0/usb3/3-2/3-2.1/3-2.1:1.0/input/input2
  [1839456.546939] usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo

Enjoy

Happy camming!