Arc — a customized Redpill Loader for DSM 7.x

Enhanced hardware support, add-ons, guided (semi-automated) installation and a lot of built-in customization.
Modified to run on a wide range of hardware — bare metal, mini-PC or VM.

Everything below is part of the Arc ecosystem. Each project stands on its own, but they are built to work together.

The loader itself — guided setup that turns almost any x64 PC, mini-PC or VM into a DSM 7.x box.

• Guided or fully automated install — a dialog-driven walkthrough (Model → DSM version → Add-ons → Build → Boot) or a hands-off automated mode
• Hardware-aware model picker — probes CPU flags, SATA/SAS/NVMe/RAID controllers, iGPU and thread count, then shows only models your hardware can actually run
• Broad platform support — apollolake, geminilake(nk), broadwell(nk/v2), purley, icelaked, epyc7002, epyc7003(ntb), r1000nk, v1000nk
• Selectable custom kernel — switch between Synology's stock kernel and Arc's own builds on supported platforms
• Smart add-ons — auto-enables what your hardware needs (NVMe, cpufreq scaling, sensors, LED control, i915, vmtools, SMART …)
• Web UI & remote help — browser config page, file upload service, web terminal, plus one-click remote assistance for support
• Built-in updater — update the loader, add-ons, modules, patches, configs and kernels from the menu, each from its own release channel
• Rescue toolbox — reset DSM passwords, add an admin, force-enable SSH, clear blocked IPs, restore config or machine.key, clone the loader, edit cmdline/synoinfo and much more

_{Repository · Releases}

The evolution of arc — the Arc Loader, set up entirely from your browser.

• Setup in the browser — a few simple steps with Back and Next, in plain words; the screen on the machine tells you which address to open
• Arc at its core — the same proven setup and build logic as the Arc Loader
• Picks the right add-ons for you — recognises whether it runs in a virtual machine or on real hardware, and what disks it has, and chooses to match
• Model picker that knows your hardware — shows what each model supports, like integrated graphics or M.2 drives, and highlights what your computer has
• Tweaks — optional fixes for CPU, memory, power saving, network and graphics, each a simple on/off switch
• Starts DSM by itself — once set up, switching the computer on goes straight into DSM
• Updates itself — with one click, or from a downloaded file when there is no internet
• Format Disks — wipe disks that held another system before installing DSM
• Works offline — everything it needs is on the loader disk

_{Repository · Releases}

Custom DSM kernels that add back the hardware Synology's own kernel never knew about.

• Kernel 5.10.55 ABI — stays compatible with DSM's prebuilt modules (parts backported from Linux 6.18)
• Targets — epyc7002, geminilakenk, r1000nk and v1000nk for DSM 7.2, 7.3 and 7.4
• Three flavours — legacy (stock ABI), full (up to 64 threads - not released yet)
• Modern GPU support — backported i915 and amdgpu for hardware transcoding: Intel up to Meteor Lake incl. Arc A-series, AMD through RDNA 3.5 and Ryzen APUs (headless — transcoding only, no display output)
• Huge network driver set — Realtek 2.5G/5G, Intel, Aquantia, Mellanox, Broadcom, Solarflare, QLogic, Marvell and many USB adapters, plus WireGuard and modern TCP congestion algorithms
• Storage & sensors — MegaRAID, mpt3sas, smartpqi, hpsa, aacraid and more, with a broad hwmon set for temperatures and fan control
• Virtualization & extras — VFIO/GPU passthrough, virtio-fs, Hyper-V and VMware support, exFAT/NTFS/FUSE, USB4/Thunderbolt and Coral Edge TPU drivers

_{Built kernels are published as Arc Custom.}

Reach your NAS from anywhere without port forwarding — a self-hosted alternative to QuickConnect.

• Public HTTPS address for a NAS behind NAT — your system becomes reachable at its own connect subdomain, with no router changes, no open ports and no dynamic DNS required
• Reverse tunnel — the NAS dials out and keeps one multiplexed connection open, so nothing has to be exposed to the internet
• Works with DSM as-is — the tunnel passes bytes through untouched, so DSM Web UI, File Station, Drive, Photos, Surveillance Station and the Synology mobile apps behave normally
• Token-based access — enter your Access Token to connect; the same token identifies your system in Arc Web Management
• Sensors-only mode — publish live hardware telemetry without exposing DSM at all
• Live status — reports whether the tunnel is up and whether DSM is actually being served, so a dashboard can tell the difference
• Runs as a service — installs with systemd units and reconnects automatically with backoff; on Arc installs the token is detected for you
• Set up from Arc Control — the Arc Connect tab configures and starts the client for you

A hosted portal for your Arc systems — config backup, free DDNS, live monitoring and the community benchmark board.

• Sign in with Discord — no extra account and no separate password to manage
• Register your systems — add each loader's Access Token with a friendly name and see all of them in one place
• Config backup & restore — your loader uploads its configuration and system info, so you can pull it back after a rebuild or a new disk
• Free ArcDNS hostname — claim a *.arcdns.tech name for your NAS, with optional wildcard and a built-in connection check
• Live monitoring through Arc Connect — diagnostics, resource and network views for a connected system, plus a direct link into DSM
• Benchmark scoreboard — compare CPU and GPU results with the rest of the community, best result per chip
• Shared dark mode — matches the look of Arc Control and the loader web config

_{🌐 arc.xpenology.tech}

The following install directly in DSM. Add the package source once, then find them in Package Center → Community:

Updates then arrive through Package Center like any other app — no manual .spk download needed.

A DSM app that brings loader configuration, monitoring and hardware tuning to your Synology desktop — no reboot into config mode needed.

• Edit the loader config from DSM — model, DSM version, serial, MACs, USB VID/PID, SataDOM, cmdline and more, with config backup
• Add-on management — browse, search and toggle add-ons; get notified when a loader update is available
• One-click reboot into any mode — rebuild, update, config, recovery, automated, junior or UEFI
• Live monitoring — CPU, RAM, clocks, temperatures, disk I/O, full SMART per drive, NVMe, network throughput and an NVIDIA tab when a card is present
• CPU & power tuning that survives reboot — thread count, governor, turbo, energy preference, P-core/E-core pinning and dynamic power saving
• Fan control — three-point temperature curves for Full/Cool/Quiet modes with a live graph (needs supported hardware)
• Services & patches — Arc Connect remote access, storage panel matching, HDD/SSD database, Synology Photos and Surveillance Station patches, UGREEN LED control
• Diagnostics — storage/CPU/encode benchmarks, speedtest, kernel log, module list, browser terminal and a one-click report for support
• DSM integration — desktop app tile plus a widget showing version, temperature, CPU clock, load and disk I/O

_{📦 Package Center → Community → Arc Control · also published as arc-control.}

A standalone QEMU/KVM hypervisor packaged for DSM — virtual machines with real PCI passthrough, without Synology's Virtual Machine Manager.

• Full VM lifecycle — create, edit, delete, start, shut down and force off; BIOS or UEFI, NUMA split, autostart
• Flexible disks — create qcow2/raw images, reuse existing ones, or hand a whole physical disk to a guest
• Virtual networks — isolated or bridged onto a NIC, with multiple adapters per machine
• PCI & GPU passthrough — binds the full IOMMU group to vfio-pci, lists devices and warns about group mates (the thing Synology VMM cannot do)
• Browser console — noVNC behind DSM's own login, so the console has no LAN presence; optional temporary VNC port with an expiring password
• Snapshots & scheduling — offline disk snapshots plus scheduled start, shutdown or snapshot with retention
• Import & export — JSON for lossless moves, OVA for Proxmox, ESXi or VirtualBox
• Coexists with Synology VMM — never touches its libvirtd or API

_{📦 Package Center → Community → Arc VMM}

A container manager for DSM with its own, current Docker engine — independent of Synology's Container Manager and the Docker version it is stuck on.

• Current Docker engine — Docker's own static builds, updated with the package, so compose v2, the newer mount syntax and buildx just work
• Containers — create with a guided editor (ports, mounts, environment, devices, limits), start, stop, restart, pause, inspect and remove; change restart policy and limits without recreating
• Compose projects — edit, bring up, take down, update and read the logs of a whole stack
• Images, volumes & networks — pull with Docker Hub search and tag browser, bridge and macvlan networks, registry sign-in and mirrors
• Logs & live stats — filter, follow and download logs; live CPU, memory, network and disk use per container
• Updates on a schedule — one-step update for a project or container, plus timed update, start and stop tasks
• Housekeeping — disk usage per type with cleanup, and a choice of volume for the image store
• Coexists with Container Manager — its own daemon, socket and image store; never touches Synology's

_{📦 Package Center → Community → Arc Container}

Run a real NVIDIA GPU on your NAS — install the driver from DSM and pass it into Docker.

• Installs as a normal DSM package — a small .spk that fetches the driver on demand instead of bundling it
• Pick and switch versions from a UI — its own web UI plus a tab in Arc Control; install, start, stop, switch or remove without SSH
• Driver branches — 595.x, 580.x, 550.x, 535.x LTSB and 470.x with a recommendation per GPU from a built-in compatibility table
• Platform support — DSM 7.2+ on kernel 5.10.55 platforms (epyc7002, v1000nk, r1000nk, geminilakenk); modules are compiled per platform
• Full CUDA / NVENC / NVDEC userspace — including nvidia-smi, persistence mode and automatic device node creation
• Docker & Container Manager GPU support — optional NVIDIA Container Toolkit layer that registers the nvidia runtime and re-asserts it after updates
• Optional NVENC ffmpeg layer — a jellyfin-ffmpeg build pinned to the driver's NVENC API

_{📦 Package Center → Community → NVIDIA Driver}

A modern, fully hardware-accelerated FFmpeg for DSM — Intel Quick Sync, AMD VCN and NVIDIA NVENC in one package.

• FFmpeg 8.1.2 for DSM — installs alongside DSM and never patches or replaces Synology's own ffmpeg
• Intel Quick Sync & VAAPI — iHD and i965 drivers, Media Driver, oneVPL and OpenCL, with a legacy fallback so Gen8–Gen11 (Skylake → Ice Lake, Gemini Lake, Jasper Lake) get QSV too
• AMD acceleration — Mesa radeonsi VAAPI with VCN decode and encode, RADV Vulkan and AMF, covering Polaris through RDNA 3
• NVIDIA NVENC / NVDEC / CUDA — compiled in, working through the NVIDIA driver package
• Split into base + vendor packages — download only the driver stack your hardware needs; either side updates independently
• Broad codec coverage — H.264, HEVC, AV1 (dav1d/SVT-AV1/libaom), VP8/VP9, VVC, AAC, Opus, FLAC, JPEG XL, WebP, plus subtitles, tone mapping, VMAF and SRT/RIST/RTMP streaming
• ~100 Jellyfin patches — tone mapping, Dolby Vision and HDR10+ handling, CUDA/OpenCL/VAAPI/QSV filters
• GPU diagnostics included — vainfo, vulkaninfo, clinfo and render node permission setup

_{📦 Package Center → Community → Video Compute Runtime, plus - Intel or - AMD for your GPU}

Release	Download	Version	Downloads
Stable	get it
Essential	get it
Beta	get it
arx	get it