UPADTE: OpenVPN connect for Windows recently updated, and broke this config. This is the fix: www.spacerex.co/how-to-fix-synology-openvpn-server-windows-unknown-unsupported-options/
Thanks for making this video, I found this very helpful. I wanted to leave an update that I just set this up using the latest versions of VPN Server and Open VPN Client on Windows and I did not have to remove "pull." In fact, removing "pull" caused the config to break. So I would caution anyone doing this for the first time, try it first without commenting out "pull"!
Thank you very much for your video. It helped me immensely in doing what I needed, and in choosing which option was the best for me. For the record, as of jan. 2024, the fix you link to (commenting the "pull" line in the config file) caused my Windows OpenVPN client to not be able to connect, so I ended up using the file exactly as generated by the Synology application instead.
I know this is a year old but blurring isn't destructive.. use a black bar or somthing that is destructive instead to hide sensitive information in videos. Just to stay safe my friend.
FYI … Just got an email yesterday from Tailscale. The free version just got a whole lot better. 😊 Here’s what they said … “Some significant changes are that the Personal plan is now called Free, and it includes nearly everything that Tailscale has to offer for up to 3 users and 100 devices. You read that right, your plan just got better.“ Can’t beat that! 😎👍🏻
Thank you, this video was exactly what I needed. I'm working on setting up a NAS for a small creative team, all of which are located in different areas of the country and this seems to provide good options on how to access remotely.
also if you are talking about remote access, then you should also cover the security aspects for this type of setup. There are so many instances of newbies getting wrecked because they setup remote and it was not done properly. So maybe some guidance on security tips for this type of setup should also go hand in hand with this topic you covered. the best security setup is to keep nas for lan usage only. but if you need remote, then the security aspect needs to be discussed so you don't slip up.
Thanks so much for this one! I ran into a problem that took me 6 hours to figure out whereas for some reason, none of my port forwarding was working. Ports weren't opening, and I could not establish a connection to my server from outside my LAN. I thought it might be because of my Eero 6 Pro router, but no. Just commenting here for anyone else to find. Hyperoptic, my UK ISP, holds back static ip4v addresses unless you call them and pay £5 a month. Now that I've done that, everything is working smoothly. Cheers for the great series
Bro, thank you. I've been using Synology Drive Client, and it was starting to really piss me off when how often it simply fails to sync properly, but I'm not so great with understanding networking and thought that I was just stuck having to deal with it. I watched the segment about OpenVPN and my issues were resolved in like 5 minutes. Awesome, thank you.
i do NOt understand and hopefully someone can enlighten me... i have seen a number of videos from different creators and they recommend connection via tailscale/openvpn saying Quickconnect is a vunerability. But surely , disabling admin user, and having 2 factor authorisation vis SMS , quick connect should be safe (unless incase synology themselves get hacked?)
Great video…as usual. I use VPN Plus to connect through my Synology router when I am on my laptop and away from home. However, I use Quickconnect and Drive to access files on my iPhone. Would I be better off connecting my phone to my LAN through VPN rather than Quickconnect and using Drive to access files that way? It is a little more cumbersome to connect but perhaps more secure and maybe quicker as you are not relaying through Synology’s servers.
Thank you for the help! My wife has about 90,000 photos and videos spread across multiple devices. I'd like to consolidate them in a single place with a raid-1 type backup so she can view/edit all photos from her iPad. Max of around 2TB of data. Is the Synology system my best bet for making this work? Liked and subscribed!
There was a new DSM update yesterday due to a SSL vulnerability. 2-3 days ago all of my units using quickconnect and other remote access have been emailing me of this change. Synology’s help pages are pretty poor on explaining this. Will you be doing a video on how to fix this?
BROOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! ive been trying to figure out my nas for a while now. trying to get everything to mount like I have a physical cable running. for the Tailscale when you have to enter a password when you connect to server. what password does it require? ive changed the password on the quick connect section and tried everything I could. I get rejected and im not sure which password they require. this is driving me insane
Hey, does it mount like a local drive? Western Digital just pulled the WD Discovery! so I lost "local" mount. I just need it mount so I can use windows explorer
I've been using Zerotier on a couple of Synology models (DS220+ and DS1621+) for the last 18 months which works really well. As others have pointed out in this discussion, CGNAT is becoming more widespread and Zerotier works transparently with CGNAT. Possibly a bit harder to setup than some of the options in the video, but certainly no harder than TailScale. The big plus from my viewpoint is on the "client" side - the connection setup appears to work regardless of how the client is connecting to the internet, especially when using a mobile/LTE connection. In the past I've had connection issues when my laptop was using a 4G/5G modem or a cell-phone "hotspot". I've never (yet!) encountered any issues with ZeroTier when using those types of connectivity
I need this, oh my god. But I have been struggling setting all of this network stuff up, always pushing through till I get it right eventually. Did you install in on root or with docker? I hope I can manage to set it up
23:39 If you click "Show certificate" it will pop up a Certificate description and you can check the "Always trust" thingy and then you won't see that message again.
Great video, thank you! For the OpenVPN option I am stuck on the last step, importing the profile. Neither through importing the OVPN file nor connecting by URL. It keeps giving me a timeout error and I have no clue what exactly is wrong. So close, yet so far. I hope I can figure it out, any tips would be appreciated!
you got a smooth voice...jesus like..its really relaxing. Enjoying learning about my Synology. Im honestly going to make me an old fashioned and just drink and watch.
it's nice you mentioned tailscale. however for vpn server you should probably add setting up vpn server using router besides just the inbuilt synology vpn server setup. Some people prefer setting up vpn server on the router rather than the nas. It's fine if you want to show how the later is done, but don't neglect showing the former as well. Also tailscale is supported as a package on pfsense, so that is one less headache for setting it up compared to say hosting it directly on the NAS itself that requires a few more complex steps to setup.
Good point. @spacerex, if the VPN server is installed and a router also exists on the network, will other devices on the network still be able to access the shares. Does the VPN isolated the NAS resources from the wider local network?
Thank you so much for your videos and detailed explanation, I tried using the tailscale and it seems to workfine, however how can the other users who have limited access to the files in the Synology also get access through tailscale as Im using a specific gmail account for my user account, would love to see a video or an explanation about that.
I really need someone's help. I can't seems to map my NAS to a Network Location like shown in the video. But I somehow can do it when using 3rd Party Software like NetDrive and Raidrive, so I really doubt there is any issue with my config. I even tried tnc my NAS with my chosen port, and I see no problem. But when I try to add Network Location, it always shows "The folder that you entered does not appear to be valid. Please choose another.". I really don't want to pay just to be able to map my NAS. I'm using Windows 11 by the way.
Thank you for making this video. For the first time I was able to setup my remote webdav access following your instructions which did the trick. Very helpful and useful video. Already sub'd you.👍
Which user name and password do you use on your mac to access one of your devices. I'm on the road and this isn't working for me after I set it up at home. I added the address on my MAC but I don't know what user name and password to use. None are giving me access to my devices.
I have seen many of your videos but one important dealbreaker remains unsolved for me. No matter what I do, my remote access download speed from the NAS to the client device is super slow. I am not on QuickConnect (connected directly through DDNS). The download speed from it is around 1 MB/s. The NAS is on 1000/1000 fiber, the router confirms 1000 Mbit connection through the cat7 cable. The client device is on 5G (approx 100 Mbit download). There is only 1 client device. The NAS is not doing anything in the background. I hope you can give some feedback or address this better in a video. Thank you.
I used the tailscale option, but when I connect to work's network (eduroam) via VPN or when I am at work, the tailscale doesn't work (there's a warning: DNS Unavailable). Is there any way to fix this?
Hey man - I own a small brand design studio, and desperately want to move away from Dropbox. Needs: Store files for remote access working/collaborations, allow client access/sharing to folders like Dropbox- at decent speeds. I don't have a ton of data - roughly 5TB but also don't want to spend a fortune on the NAS, can you recommend which model would be best? I appreciate you.
I am having trouble connecting via SMB on my Mac :( It is working perfectly in my iPhone and iPad. If I type the Tailscale IP address in Safari, it connects, but when I try via Finder it just keeps loading and gives a “failed” error
Well described, well skilled. I wish i could apply this also but i am suffering from DS-Lite on Vodafone in Germany and this offers no port forwarding but IPv6 Host Exposure. So my skills are not (yet) good enough to find a solution, youtube is rather confusing me with the various recordings. But i consider your sources as one of the best, understandable and focused. BR Uwe
Nice thanks for option 3 with Tail scale! I hope to use that as I have been having the issue where I can only access my nas/ DDNS setup on the LAN!! Going to test this now I have it setup after I have completed a file trasfer. And hopefully it works when I test it over my hotspot! as then Im sorted when I travel and need to edit! So thanks. And is there anything I can to to increase my speed to my NAS? It is doing around an hour for a 140-180 gigabyte transfer. Thanks:)) Mon 11.3.24 21:49pm
Weird thing happens. IDK what to do. Usual i able access DSM from mobile or pc via data or wifi (quick connect). Now it so slow and unable connect. When i using local network (such wifi office), got no trouble. Anyone encounter this issue?
great vid! I'm trying to set up tail scale on my gas but can't get anywhere. I installed the app and click on open and it says my devices key has expired. It does not do anything when I click on the blue reauthenticate button. I was able to install it on my Mac just fine. I'm only having this issue on my Nas. Any help you can give would be great! Thanks
Good day! just want to ask if is it possible to speed up my read and write speed thru the internet? Example is my NAS is at my house and i will access my NAS in the province its like 300km away from our house? Thank you!
i tried to follow him on how to do the WebDav, go to external access, and select DDNS with the Service Provider being Synology, and right out of the gate, it stopped me saying 'You can only set one hostname for each DDNS provider.
I run open vpn on my Raspberry Pi so I can have a secure connection when on travel. Can I run a second copy of open vpn for my Synology? If so do I just follow your instruction ast #5? Thank you.
what password is used to log in on option 3 after putting in the IP address? I can't get any password to work whatsoever. Tried everything. Trying to connect a macbook pro to a windows desktop pc in order to use my WD ex2 ultra....
You read my mind. I was going to ask you to do exactly a video about accessing my NAS remotely. I live in NYC, but travel to San Juan often for a few weeks at a time. This video will help me decide the best way to access my files while I’m away. Thank you very much for taking your time to make this video. It is much appreciated.
Watching this video for second time and weighing different options. I want security but also flexibility if possible. Which of these options plays nice with Plex? Or do they all? Thank you in advance.
Wow the timing of this video is perfect. I have been trying in vain to setup my Synology NAS with PPTP (I know old and weak) on my Android phone but it did not play ball at all. This came into my feed and BINGO OpenVPN worked first time with your help. Thank you. Just a quick question on the OPENVPN setup it asks if access to the LAN is required, by default it is OFF, I assume this would route requests from the external VPN network to the local network via the Synology router?
Very interesting video, thank you. I've been considering a NAS for over a year, mostly to replace the Apple iCloud service my wife and daughters are currently using as I'm sick and tired of the monthly payment bs (talking about iPhone backups here). My chief concern was how does everyone in the family connect to my "home cloud" outside of the house. Something for me to mull over a little more. As a side note and completely unrelated, I must say that your style of presentation and enunciating are quite interesting and even a little humorous (not trying to denigrate you here). I can't figure out if you sound more like "Bill S. Preston Esq." or "'Ted' Theodore Logan" or even if you're from San Dimas, but heck I enjoy your content nonetheless. Thank you! 🙂
I believe that Will did videos on using Time Machine to back up Apple products to Synology. IIRC, there were 2 videos; one for a single Apple device and another when backing up several Apple devices. ( I have an Apple phone but don't use TM.) I do use Tailscale on my laptop and my iPhone and it works brilliantly.
Fantastic explanations - thank you! I used WebDAV previously, but changed my ISP which now runs behind a CGNAT, so I am unable to use the WebDAV option further as I do not have a public IP address any more. I currently only use Tailscale, and it works fine, but have been interested in the VPN Server option. Do you have any advice on whether the VPN Server will work if being behind a CGNAT as I suspect the DDNS will not connect due to the public IP issue. Any feedback will be appreciated! Many Thanks!
When I try the last option, I keep getting the error message "Error Message: options_error. sorry, unsupported options present in confiuration: UNKNOWN/UNSUPPORTED OPTIONS"...any idea what is going on? all other steps I actually managed to use and are great :D by the way, this error comes up as soon as I hit connect. so it's definetly something to do with the file.
Actually the Tailscale vpn solved my problem trying to have access remotely to my nas from the office, but the copy speed is very bad... 3mbps more or less! I have an upload of 200mbps and 10GB port on the nas... how can i solve that?
I previously set up QuickConnect and now I'd like to add the Tailscale package. But I can't figure out how to disconnect from quickconnect (I'm a newb) - install the Tailscale package on my Synology and then reconnect to QuickConnect for when I am at home. Any help is appreciated.
Thanks for all you do!! I’ve learned a lot from your videos. I was just able successfully to setup an OpenVPN connection using my router and works well but when I disable quickconnect my iPhone’s synology drive stops working (vpn or home network). Am I doing something wrong? Would the outcome be different if I setup the vpn connection through my NAS?
I spoke with Synology support and they said you can backup a computer outside the Network SYnology is on. I have a PC in storage I want to backup to Synology Nas at Home. But I have had no luck. Any pointers?
Hello! I am trying the 3rd solution but i have these problems: I install Tailscale from synology but when i try to login it doesnt do anything. So I installed it from the tailscale site and i managed to login. But then there is another problem. Tailscale recongize my PC and not my NAS. So it connects only my PC. I cant manage Tailscale to find my NAS. Do you have any solution?
Thank you for your video! I was wondering if the Tailscale method would work with any file manager in Linux (in your video you state MacOS and Windows)? Thank you! 🙂
Can you please do a video on how to mount a Synology shared folder onto a linux machine that does NOT have a graphical user interface. So linux machine is on the network and can be access via SSH, but it is all in the terminal, nothing GUI. How does one map a Shared Folder in such a scenario?
5 ways???? That’s why I don’t have this going 😅 But I will soon..thanks for this and all your videos! Hope you and your wife are enjoying Raleigh.. Lived there once in my early IT days..Will move back to Raleigh in 3-4 years.. beautiful place
what about the slow speed via QuickConnect while having the "Synology relay" is checked? once I unchecked this option it started to work fast, but there are a few drawbacks for example my "sharing links" don't work in local wifi or can't play videos in Synology drive (while connected to the same wifi as my server) - it says my certificate is not valid.
Love your videos ! But please note, ( and you do it often) every time you say "I already have it installed so I'm just...." you loose anyone who dont already have it installed because what well see next isn't what appears on your screen. . Which in for example my case its pretty much every time. These videos are probably more geared for people who aren't new to this but as a person who is new to this, it doesn't come natural. But I do appreciate all your doing and realize much of this is user error.( I'm slow) I think for synologys part. They would do better designing things that more user friendly. Way too many layers. All I want is something I can store my large Lightroom cc eco system on and be able to access from time to time remotely. in under 400 clicks.This process under synology for a person who isn't fluent in this stuff is frankly brutal. A friend asked me a while ago , so after a month how do you find NAS? I told him to stick with his dozen external hard drives. Im dreading adding the remote unit for backing up. Very frustrating !
Hello, great Video thank you. Now I have a Question since Ian looking into getting a 4 Bay NAS and have to consider my budget I am looking Arcturus DS423 (Value Series). I know a plus model would be better but what are your thoughts on the 423? Thank you
Hi thanks for the great tutorial. I have a question about using quickconnect vs open VPN. A). When you transfer files (large amount) from one drive/folder to another. which is faster? If I'm not mistaken, with quicconnect Synology does the work, but using VPN my mac is in charge of the transfer and depending on my connection does thing go slower? B). Plus I can't close my mac until the transfer is over right? where as with quick connect, even if i close my browser the transfer should continue.
Thanks for this video, it helped a lot. On a side note, I have to say that based on your persona and your looks ... you could have easily been a replacement for Jeffrey Donovan (aka Michael Weston) on 'Burn Notice'. I love that show.
Hi, Will, very good job on providing these tutoring videos. Thank you very much. Here is my question, if my friend used option 1 and gave me his quickconnect link, a local user name and password, what is the easiest way of download files/folders to my Synology NAS? He doesn't want to bother with other methods. Thanks again.
What would be the best way to have a server at home for my small business and at my office have 3 or 4 workstations accessing an EHR program on the home server? Would it work if I had a windows server on it that my employee can access?
I was thinking about tailscale, is it possible to use Synology photo and upload every videos and photos during a trip ? I think it’s a good idea maybe. What do you think ? Right now , I use synology photo only on my local network and I let run synology photo on my iPhone from time to time to upload everything to my nas.
hey so i didnt exactly follow your video I'm out here looking for a solution. i setup webdav on my nas and I used nginx with a domain that I own and it was an easy setup since I have a static IP. now that I've mounted the network drive on my windows PC I am unable to figure out how to get the correct shared folder to show up since the mounted drive only shows "home" folder and the one I want to mount is "/homes/user". i have tried checking the permissions of that folder but that didn't help.
which method would be best for using Plex server remotely? I had quickconnect opened in the past, but I kept getting notfication from my ISP saying someone was trying to access my device and got blocked, so I set the firewall to only local network now, still looking for the best way to open it up to remote access
Thanks. 1 Question: For the 5 methods described, I presume the authentification and the files are send over the internet encrypted? With a strong encryption?
thanks. From the Synology Drive can you only choose one folder to sync? What if I need multiple folders? Also, are the users and permissions respected? thanks again.
SpaceRex this is an outstanding video and stands the test of time. It is still relevant a year later and impressive in its breadth and depth. Thank you for your efforts.
I am started using taiscale and I noticed it works with http and not https, I'm guessing it's safe. Will did not talk about it but is there anything to worry about?
Is it possible to tagg files, on mac and pc. so the user can see if a file is used. Color or text tags. Or is there a file management app / system that shows the crossplatform user that the file is ready in use orworking. It hase nothing to do with this tutor but I can't find enyting about this
I wished they did a better job with FTP services or better yet.. IP banning lists.... I would very much like to just have an allow list for FTP where I could specify common USA IP ranges
When on Mac I get a failed to connect, please try again later basic popup even when using a hotspot and making sure I'm logged out of the nas via quickconnect as well as no shares mounted on desktop etc I even rebooted and tried and still get the ppup error There was a problem connecting to the server “username.synology.me”. "This file server will not allow any additional users to log on. Try to connect again later." Any advise please? I'm on macOs Sonoma but get the error on previous macOS versions on another machine. The port forward in webdav on NAS matches the port I forwarded to on my router and when I test connection on the NAS for DDNS it works.... hmmmmm
Do you know what kind of transfer speed I can achieve between two 500 Mbit/s /up and down networks with this openvpn settings and by adding the 10.8… network share to the finder ? Right now, it struggles beyond 5Megs…
Tailscale just made some changes to their free plan. According to an email that I received from them yesterday ( April 18 ) : "Some significant changes are that the Personal plan is now called Free, and it includes nearly everything that Tailscale has to offer for up to 3 users and 100 devices. "
My remote access method uses reverse proxy. I bought a SSL certificate for my personal domain name and access DSM and all services running on my Synology that way. Using reverse proxy, I don't need to open any ports and simply have port 443 forwarded to my NAS. All access to my Synology NAS is encrypted using SSL. This method allows me to easily share my media library with others out of my home and allows users to login into their accounts via a simple encrypted URL. The VPN method is great, but I find it more limited since only specific clients configured for VPN access can be used - which I agree, certainly has its benefits. Using HTTPS is super fast even on lower bandwidth-higher latency connections.
So just one thing to know about this is it does leave the services exposed to the internet. There is a layer of security through obscurity in there with having to know the domain name
@@SpaceRexWill But doesn't having any other ports forwarded to the NAS also expose it to the Internet? Or when one connects through a VPN, there is still a remote connection being made to the NAS which requires credentials to be entered. What is the real security risk with using the reverse proxy method? Is it just someone guessing the login credentials? I want to make sure I am not making my NAS anymore vulnerable than necessary.
So when you have a VPN setup a user has to first authenticate to the VPN server, before being allowed on the local network. This means if something on the local network has a vulnerability, it still cannot be exploited unless someone gets on the local network, or through the VPN With a reverse proxy you don't have authentication, this means that if there is a vulnerability on that local service you have given access to, someone *could* exploit it, but just knowing the hostname
Great video. Thank you. I am using windows. My mapped drives continue to work whether on my LAN (without Tailscale running) or remotely (with Tailscale). So you can use the netbios or multicast dns name perfectly. They can also be used to access the web gui for the Synology NAS. (at least this was my experience)
