Synology

To-do

Remove the SHR storage pool and create a RAID 1 pool. Create a volume. Use BTRFS if available.

• let's encrypt
• ssh
• backups for ldap databases
• backups for configuration files
• pam auth for shell log in
• samba set up
• vpn set up

• don't panic guide
• new user guide
  • samba
  • account management, change settings and password

interesting stuff in the packages folder

• various backups
• syncing

go look in the folder

User guide

Put the "DS Finder" app on your phone. It's very useful. There are Android and IOS versions.

Network changed and you're stuck!

If you do something drastic like move to a new service provider and the Syno is stuck back on the old one, you can pin it.

There is a RESET hole next to the network and USB connectors on the back. Use for instance a paper clip to hold the button for about 5 seconds, the Syno will beep. Pull out the pin. Wait for it to reboot.

The "admin" password will be blank and it will now be on a plain vanilla DHCP connection. You should be able to see the new IP in "DS Finder".

You can set a new password and then everything else should be just fine. Your files are still there, your apps...

Web access using SSL

The first time you connect you will get the security exception screen. Press on, it's okay really. We use a "self-signed" SSL certificate so that we don't have to pay for one. Really, it's okay.

Administration guide

Creating a new user

• Do NOT use "Users" and "Groups" in the DSM control panel. We use "Directory Server" (LDAP). This is so we can have one username/password for all services included Samba (file sharing) and Owncloud (cloud file storage).

1. Create in LDAP Directory Server
2. Enable in Shared Files

Manage access to folders in the Control Panel "Shared files".

Avatar in LDAP, connect to owncloud

Access from Windows - \\diskstation\ Log in with username@trailpeople.net Access from Mac - afp://diskstation.local - same credentials, username@trailpeople.net

Command line access via SSH - Use the "admin" account, then use "sudo -s" if you need root access. I put my keys in so I don't need the password to connect. The password is on the label on the server.

File sharing

In Control Panel, go to File Sharing -> File Services

There you can disable it, it's enabled by default. You can change settings. I enabled SMB 3 in Advanced Settings which only affects Windows 10+.

SMB via Windows: \\diskstation

SMB via Mac: smb://diskstation

For Macs, AppleShare is enabled by default too and it is possible to set up Time Machine.

afp://diskstation.local

For Linux, it is possible to enable NFS.

Cloud services

The whitepaper: https://global.download.synology.com/download/Document/WhitePaper/Synology_Cloud_Sync_White_Paper-Based_on_DSM_6.0.pdf

Cloud Station Server is Synology's version of synchronized file sharing.

I tried the Linux client for Ubuntu which seems to run fine on Debian Jessie, and when I installed it on Bellman from my Mac it even properly launched its GUI on the Mac! I decided not to use it since I don't need two way sync with that server. I am looking at running rsync to back the Syno up.

It installs into /opt/Synology/CloudStation and keeps its configuration files in ~/.CloudStation/. You can start the GUI with synology-cloud-station-drive which is in /usr/bin. It integrates with Nautilus.

Cloud Station Server ShareSync will sync files between two Synology Cloud Stations.

Cloud Sync lets you interact with services like Dropbox and OneDrive

Maintenance: Backups

Options from Packages:

1. Hyper Backup
2. rsync
3. Cloud Sync - could possibly do a one way sync to a server of my choice

Databases: LDAP, Mediawiki

Files:

IO can use rsync via ssh tunnel with a command similar to this

rsync -avn -e "ssh -v -p 2222" trailpeople.synology.me:src dest

Maintenance: RAID scrubbing

You are supposed to do this at least once a month and the system will send you reminders about it. This process slows everything down so only do it when there is a weekend or something. Because it's resource intensive and slow they don't let you schedule it.

1. Storage Manager -> Volume Manager Wizard
2. Start Data Scrubbing
3. Next
4. RAID scrubbing
5. start it

It gives a red warning message on the Storage Manager page while it's running. If you shut down while it's running it has to start all over again.

Hardware upgrade: RAM

The Diskstation comes with 1GB of SO-DIMM RAM and I have read of people putting in up to 16GB. I got the idea from Charles Hooper's blog and I found a nice Youtube video on the same subject.

VPN

Goal: allow remote workers (like me) to connect to and use the Synology from a laptop, from anywhere.

VPN is nice of course but if your access is via HTTPS (owncloud and webdav and synology port 5001) then it's already encrypted. If your access is via ssh, it's already encrypted. So for the time being, I am not using VPN at all.

It is a matter of controlling port access in the firewall. If you have a sophisticated firewall router (even a Mikrotik which is what I use), use that. Otherwise you can use the Synology firewall.

If you are intent on using the Synology VPN then I have a page on setting it up. Synology VPN

Database engine of choice

I wanted to use PostgreSQL but can't get it to work with owncloud. I tried and tried and gave up. Owncloud does not appear to be sending the username to postgres. I dropped back to Mariadb

Configuration files for postgresql are in /etc/postgresql/ Use a HUP to reconfigure it. killall -1 /usr/bin/postgres

Misc notes, fix this up someday

Enabled SSH Server (built in, see control panel) used TrailPeople gmail account to enable email

NGINX

When I first got the Syno, I touched the nginx configuration and ended up breaking the DSM app. I backed out my changes.

The file I created for Trailpeople is in /usr/local/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/trailpeople.conf and it looks like this:

server {
  listen 443 ssl;
  listen [::]:443 ssl;

  server_name diskstation.trailpeople.net;
#  ssl_certificate /etc/ssl/nginx/owncloud.crt;
#  ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/private/owncloud.key;

  root /volume1/web/trailpeople;
  # set max upload size
  client_max_body_size 10G;
  fastcgi_buffers 64 4K;

  # Disable gzip to avoid the removal of the ETag header
  gzip off;

  # Uncomment if your server is build with the ngx_pagespeed module
  # This module is currently not supported.
  #pagespeed off;

  rewrite ^/caldav(.*)$ /remote.php/caldav$1 redirect;
  rewrite ^/carddav(.*)$ /remote.php/carddav$1 redirect;
  rewrite ^/webdav(.*)$ /remote.php/webdav$1 redirect;

  index index.php;
  location ~ \.php {
    fastcgi_index index.php;
    fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php-fpm/php56-fpm.sock;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $fastcgi_script_name;
    include fastcgi_params;
  }

  location = /robots.txt {
    allow all;
    log_not_found off;
    access_log off;
  }

  location ~ ^/(?:\.htaccess|data|config|db_structure\.xml|README){
    deny all;
  }

  location / {
    # The following 2 rules are only needed with webfinger
    rewrite ^/.well-known/host-meta /public.php?service=host-meta last;
    rewrite ^/.well-known/host-meta.json /public.php?service=host-meta-json last;

    rewrite ^/.well-known/carddav /remote.php/carddav/ redirect;
    rewrite ^/.well-known/caldav /remote.php/caldav/ redirect;

    rewrite ^(/core/doc/[^\/]+/)$ $1/index.html;

    try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
  }

  # Adding the cache control header for js and css files
  # Make sure it is BELOW the location ~ \.php(?:$|/) { block
  location ~* \.(?:css|js)$ {
    add_header Cache-Control "public, max-age=7200";
    # Add headers to serve security related headers
    add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=15768000; includeSubDomains; preload;";
    add_header X-Content-Type-Options nosniff;
    add_header X-Frame-Options "SAMEORIGIN";
    add_header X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block";
    add_header X-Robots-Tag none;
    # Optional: Don't log access to assets
    access_log off;
  }

  # Optional: Don't log access to other assets
  location ~* \.(?:jpg|jpeg|gif|bmp|ico|png|swf)$ {
    access_log off;
  }

  # ownCloud security tip
  add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=15768000; includeSubdomains; ";
}

Packages

Do not install WebStation! It pulls in Apache. I don't want it hanging around. Likewise skip phpMyadmin because it pulls in WebStation.

• Synology Directory Service
• Synology VPN

Enable Synocommunity, https://synocommunity.com/

for owncloud, install

• redis -- http://www.iholken.com/index.php/2016/03/16/install-redis-server-and-phpredis-extension-into-synology-nas-running-dsm-6-without-bootstrapping/
• MariaDB
• debian chroot

I download from owncloud.org because the version in packages is outdated.

wget https://download.owncloud.org/community/owncloud-9.1.2.tar.bz2

Debian packages

sudo -s
sudo /var/packages/chroot/scripts/start_stop_status chroot
apt-get update
apt-get install locales
dpkg-reconfigure locales
dpkg-reconfigure tzdata
apt-get install php5-dev
apt-get install php5-redis

More packages: ipkg

sudo -s
curl http://ipkg.nslu2-linux.org/feeds/optware/syno-i686/cross/stable/syno-i686-bootstrap_1.2-7_i686.xsh > bootstrap.xsh; bash bootstrap.xsh
ipkg update
ipkg install emacs22 less file git

YAY EMACS FINALLY YAY YAY. This version of "file" will tell you the file information and THEN segfault. You get the information you need followed by an error message. I can live with this.

Docker

There is an official Synology package, just not for the DS416play.

See https://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?t=120653 Especially the note that says to go to the Synology site and download the package for Docker from the DS415+ page. and then use the DSM Package Center manual install option.

Once it's installed it has a GUI under that "building blocks" icon in the upper left of the web page.

My immediate goal is to try to run owncloud 9.1 + redis + php7 + nginx.

The Docker GUI in Synology has a "registry" page and I tried selecting php + Download and got "Failed to query registry". Fine -- so the GUI does not work. Fine fine next I tried this instead, from the ssh command line.

docker pull skiychan/nginx-php7

and it appears to download flawlessly. See https://hub.docker.com/r/skiychan/nginx-php7/ for more information on this container. I could click "launch" in the GUI but then I could not apply any command line settings. I think the way to do this is to create a docker file and then put it on the Synology and use the "import" button in the The suggested command is:

docker run --name nginx -p 8080:80 -d skiychan/nginx-php7

Once it's launched from the command line, I can see how much CPU and RAM it is using in the GUI, which is pretty neat. I can stop it there too. I can bring up a page just for this container and do things like see what is running and connect to a terminal. All pretty cool.

PhpMyAdmin

Installed from tar ball to avoid dependencies on Apache.

User authentication

LDAP Directory Service : Synology OpenLDAP

diskstation is set up as the Provider waldo is set up as the Consumer For initial set up

Clients:

• Mediawiki
• Synology DSM
• Samba
• AppleTalk

Synology has a pretty good UI in DSM for LDAP.

After you enable the LDAP app, for LDAP settings - configure it to use "localhost" as the server, and it should detect port 389; and leave DN and PASSWORD BLANK. Set the Base DN manually to 'dc=trailpeople,dc=net'.

Mediawiki

I installed it at /volume1/web/trailpeople/wiki by downloading and unpacking the tar ball from mediawiki.org to avoid the Apache package dependencies (and the outdated version) from Synology.

So it's accessible as https://diskstation.trailpeople.net/wiki/.

It keeps its data in MySQL and the username and database are mediawiki

LDAP authentication

After installing the LDAP plugin I had to fix up the database

cd wiki/maintenance
/usr/local/bin/php56 update.php