Minimal QNAP setup

[vnangia]

Hi folks,

I bought a QNAP TS-212-E and am trying to get it set up as an offsite backup, living in a relative's house. As such, I want to minimize the number of things running on it and basically just want it to sit there quietly doing its thing until I absolutely need it. I'm probably not going to check in more than a couple of times a year unless something breaks.

I've got two drives setup in RAID1 and I'll be using BTSync to transfer the files from the main server living in my house to the QNAP unit remotely. I've switched off all the local networking that I can find - SMB, NFS, AFP, Telnet, Twonky, mt-daapd, apache, rsync (why is that on by default?), etc. I've muted that cursed buzzer and turned off the ability to do any harm by accidental button pushing and locked down the reset config button and setup auto-power on and all of that.

However, I'm starting to run into the limits of what's documented now as necessary. While I do not think I will absolutely need myQNAPcloud, I would like a way to be able to login to the machine remotely - for example, to handle a firmware update, or understand an event it emails me about. Does anyone have a list of myQNAPcloud dependencies? Does it need PPTP and OpenVPN? Anything else?

Is there anything else I should do to get it ready to sit on its own for a bit? Is the antivirus something I should leave on? Is there any other malware detection app I should try? Is it worth setting up (if even possible) a permanent VPN link to my house?

Much obliged!

 

[stevech]

Beware RAID.. it is NOT a backup.

Offsite backup... do you have the ISP upstream data rate to make this practical?

 

[vnangia]

Beware RAID.. it is NOT a backup.

Offsite backup... do you have the ISP upstream data rate to make this practical?

Your second point first: we have a 105/105 symmetric FiOS connection - in fact, significantly more than the 30/5 connection at the other end. That said, considering that realistically we're talking about max 2-3GB a day, since the initial backup will happen - is happening right now - inside our wired network, I think we have no data rate issues.

To your first point, I'm less clear what you mean by this. This offsite backup is part of a larger strategy: our full desktops backup every few minutes to the server which has stores the data on a ZFS pool. The majority of the ZFS data is media (audio, movies, TV shows that can be repurchased) that doesn't really need backing up, along with our photo library and documents library (the "important stuff"). The media is backed up nightly to external USB drives; the "important stuff" is backed up every hour to two external USB drives - one of which sits inside a fireproof safe. Additionally a small subset of the "important stuff" (scans of major life documents like passports and insurance documents) and a selected few pictures (graduation, wedding, etc.) are also stored on Dropbox.

Until recently, about every two months or so when we had another 25GB of important stuff, or after a major event from where I had photos, I'd burn a disk and take it along to work, but that's both silly, and easy to forget to do. That's the role the QNAP is taking here.

So when you say RAID is not backup, what precisely do you mean here? Do you mean used as the only other copy? Or do you mean when used in a multi-tiered backup strategy as here, RAID is insufficient? If the latter, could you clarify?

 

[stevech]

Indeed - good. The offsite NAS we're discussing is itself just for receiving backup. Good.

Opinion: Encrypt personal sensitive info yourself with winzip or Safehouse Software or Trucrypt before putting it on a cloud storage like Dropbox. The disgruntled employee/contractor issue. It has hit Dropbox once that I read of. I just don't do it. Amazon's AWS has so much now, it's a worry. Some big companies, including big stock brokers with $B in custody, use and rebrand AWS. I know there'll be a big inside-job breach there someday soon.

I have quadruple redundancy in such VIP data. Maybe my greatest risk with home NAS/PCs is burglary, not hard disk failure. Close behind is human error (oops!).

 

[vnangia]

So I read this as not being an issue with my use of RAID per se, but rather a general concern about using RAID1 as an only backup? I did use Truecrypt for quite a while until ... well, until May when that bizarre message went up on their SF page. I've been using encrypted zips since then, but I mean, it's really lipstick on a pig. Honestly, though, I strongly suspect that any breach will happen here at home rather than at Dropbox. They have a huge security staff; here it's me, five minutes a day. I've been trying to get recommendations for a home UTM, and may go down the Zyxel USG40 route early next year.

Do you have any other suggestions for how to configure the QNAP itself? Is there anything that needs to be done to harden it?

 

[stevech]

Yes, not you, but so many users naively think that RAID is a means of backup.
They don't take into account the more likely data loss risks:

• Burglary
• human error (delete, hosed up file contents, etc)
• File system corruption due to NAS power supply/mainboard fault. Users with RAID often have just ONE file system, rather than non-RAID and 2+ volumes/file systems

For encrypted files, I moved from TruCrypt years ago to freeware SafeHouse Software. Just one mouse click, enter password, and the encrypted pseudo-drive is ready to use.

 

[vnangia]

For encrypted files, I moved from TruCrypt years ago to freeware SafeHouse Software. Just one mouse click, enter password, and the encrypted pseudo-drive is ready to use.

That's Windows only and not even remotely audited, so completely no go. We are almost completely OS X-based here and currently only have one Windows machine left on our network, an HTPC exclusively to support CableCard. That may go once HBO Go is available separately from a TV subscription in the next few months. I just don't have the energy or willingness any longer to keep up with the crap I get from Windows and apps that run on Windows. Ugh.