There are two different strategies to access /volume1/@optware through /opt:

• a symlink (the approach I prefer)
• “mount -o bind” (usually run through /etc/rc.optware)

Once in a while (usually after a DSM update)

• the symlink “/opt” got removed
• and/or /etc/rc.optware already executed the “mount -o bind”.

I am checking on my /opt symlink in my ~/.profile, so I notice the misery rather soon.

I am going to describe,

• why I do not like /etc/rc.optware and the “mount -o bind“
• and how to get rid of the “mount -o bind” (I hope my approach works!!!)

After you got rid of the “mount -o bind“, the symlink needs getting re-established:

On synology_apollolake_218+ with x86_64-synology-DSM6.2.4_25556_0 I am doing this:

On … I am doing one of these:

$ ln -s /volume1/@optware /opt
…

Why do I not like the “mount -o bind”?

Once it is running, you can not identify, where the mountpoint really points to. The symlink is much clearer.

Why do I not like /etc/rc.optware?

Quite possibly /etc/rc.optware gets run and it already executed these lines:

$ mount -o bind /volume1/@optware /opt # some equivalent to the symlink
$ /opt/etc/rc.optware # which in turn runs a couple of init-scripts

I don’t really like the init-scripts runs through /opt/etc/rc.optware :

• /opt/etc/init.d/S??*

So maybe you (like me) want to prevent /etc/rc.optware from getting run (and thus also the “mount -o bind“) by renaming it a little …

How to make /opt/bin available on your PATH

For properly accessing the executables provided at /opt/bin, you need to extend your PATH like this in your ~/.profile:

PATH=/opt/bin:$PATH

For further reading

There is a separate and essential article on “IPKG for Synology”:

• http://forum.synology.com/wiki/index.php/Overview_on_modifying_the_Synology_Server,_bootstrap,_ipkg_etc

Maybe you want to read this file:

• /opt/etc/ipkg.conf