Category: Synology

That’s what Synology actually suggests: access your router as router.synology.com. Doesn’t that mean, it’s under control of Synology?! Looks like, doesn’t it?!! I don’t really like that.

It also has a hardwired 192.___ address (to be clarified!!!).

I am currently running my RT1900ac between my laptop and my true router, an AVM FRITZ!Box. The RT1900ac publishes its name as SynologyRouter, so I can also access my RT1900ac as SynologyRouter.fritz.box.

And certainly my AVM router also assigns a local IP address to the WAN port of my router, that I can look up in my AVM router’s administrational interface.

On the web interface at https://SynologyRouter.fritz.box log in as admin – it will ask you initially for a password.

• https://www.synology.com/en-global/products/RT1900ac
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_File_System AKA NFS
• /etc/init/nfsd-adapter.conf – read it, and find out how to start and stop the NFS daemon – it is rather, rather simple, honestly!
• /etc/exports – all this is on one line in your file:

/volumeUSB5/usbshare *(rw,async,no_wdelay,crossmnt,insecure,no_root_squash,insecure_locks,sec=sys,anonuid=1025,anongid=100)

The /etc/fstab entry looks like this (again: all this is on one line in your file):

SynologyRouter:/volumeUSB5/usbshare /media/synologyrouter nfs4 noauto,nouser,dev,exec,suid,hard,rw,bg,sec=sys 0 0

Maybe you want to replace SynologyRouter with its one of its internal IP addresses like 192.168.1.1.

The device service can out of the box serve as a CIFS and Apple file server, but despite it’s sisterhood to the Synology DiskStations the GUI is not prepared to make use of the NFS server. Yet on the command line you can achieve it.

I attached a hard disk through USB-2 (it appears as /volumeUSB5/usbshare), and made it available via /etc/exports. USB-2 has its limitations, but this set-up works perfectly for my needs.

Yes, we have to open the router’s firewall in order to let NFS communication through. I am currently a little relaxed w.r.t. opening the firewall, because I am running “our device” locally i.e. within my LAN. Of course nfsd must not be accessible on the WAN port but only on the LAN ports incl. wifi (Source IP / Specific IP / Select / Subnet / …). I will explain that here a little later.

• https://www.synology.com/en-global/products/RT1900ac
• cyberport had an intriguing offer: a demonstration model with a moderate discount – I couldn’t resist

[2015-12-20 00:27:39] johayek@Hayek001 $ ssh root@router.synology.com

BusyBox v1.16.1 (2015-10-29 15:37:59 CST) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

SynologyRouter> ./config.guess
armv7l-unknown-linux-gnueabihf
SynologyRouter> ./config.guessJHn 
=config.guessJHn,0: $config_unique=>{synology_northstarplus_rt1900ac},$config_buildnumber=>{5781},$config_smallfixnumber=>{2} // ...
armv7l-synology-DSM5.2_5781_2

Alright … – it’s a Busybox.

ssh-ing into the admin and (better!!!) root account works almost instantly. Use the GUI password for this purpose!

How to enable SSH access for user accounts? Log in as root; within /etc/passwd change the default shell entries of the resp. user accounts from /sbin/nologin to /bin/ash. (I created a separate article on that on this blog.)

I had an old 4GB SD card, that I inserted, and apart from that it seems to have internal 2GB disk volume space. I also attached an old external disk through USB to this device. More on that in my separate NFS article.

My ds115j has a compatible CPU (almost?!?), so I can borrow (extra) utilities from it:

• rsync – as opposed to the “tainted” rsync that Synology provides
• less – as opposed to poor old more
• …

For my 1st steps I attached its WAN port as a client to my VDSL router. Good for updating, good for getting acquainted with its features.

I disconnected that cable, and I attached these sticks / dongles successfully:

• http://www.amazon.de/dp/B00VUATPDC – Huawei K3765 (HSDPA, HSUPA, UMTS, …) – GSM telephony capable (e.g. with the AVM FRITZ!Box 7490 / 7390)
• http://www.amazon.de/dp/B002FP1584 – Huawei K3565-Z (HSDPA, HSUPA, UMTS, …) – not mentioned on the list below so far (2015-12-21)

Here is Synology’s “3G/4G Dongle” compatibility list:

• https://www.synology.com/en-global/compatibility?search_by=products&category=usb_3g_4g_dongles&p=1&product_bays=Router&product_name=RT1900ac&not_recommend_mode=false