NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
Forum Discussion
Solved
Attached USB Device as iSCSI volume
Is it possible to attach a USB device to a ReadyNAS Pro or ReadyNAS RN102 and create an iSCSI volume from that? I would like to attach an external USB 3.0 drive that is encrypted with bitlocker t...
What you could do is create a VHD file encrypted with bit locker, and host that on the NAS - either on an internal volume or on the USB drive. If the USB drive was formatted as NTFS, that would have a similar effect (you could access the VHD directly from a Windows PC by attaching the USB drive to the PC, or via the NAS).
Decryption of the VHD is done in the PC client (to the NAS it is just a big file).
http://www.howtogeek.com/193013/how-to-create-an-encrypted-container-file-with-bitlocker-on-windows/ shows how to make the encrypted vhd
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBhej67wD98 shows how to mount it from a network share.
One caveat - VHD support requires Windows professional, enterprise, or ultimate.
VHD (virtual disk) is similar to iSCSI. You mount the VHD from the PC (as I guess you have done). Then you access it just like a regular drive from the PC.
But like iSCSI that's pretty much all you can do. The VHD file is opaque to the NAS. And of course since it is client-side encrypted, only clients with the key can decrypt it.
If that is not the behavior you wanted/expected, perhaps you should tell us more about what you want to do with the disk..
I did state what I wanted to do with the disk.
"The goal of this would be to unlock a bitlocker encrypted drive that is attached to the NAS via USB for backups."
I just want to backup to an encrypted USB drive, preferably using RSYNC or some other "intelligent" backup protocol, without having to have a PC running all the time, but it looks like I might have to use a different method. The encryption doesn't have to be bitlocker, but I don't know of any other external disk encryption that's even close to compatible with the NAS.
There is a program called Dislocker that allows linux based systems to mount bitlocker encrypted drives that can be found here http://www.hsc.fr/ressources/outils/dislocker/
I would take a swing at installing it; however, there isn't very much information about which flavor of linux that NAS runs, and that leaves me in a position where I'm not even sure if it is possible to install that program because of this.
Thanks for the help Stephen. I do appreciate it.
SuperNASman wrote:
I did state what I wanted to do with the disk.
"The goal of this would be to unlock a bitlocker encrypted drive that is attached to the NAS via USB for backups."
I was interpreting that as backing up from a PC, not from Frontview. So the use case would be to ensure that sensitve info can't be read if someone hacks the NAS. I was assuming that since you are specifically thinking about bitlocker, which is Windows only.
Extending the drive encryption used by the NAS to the USB drives is a different use case, and VHD won't help you there.
You make a good point. I should have been clearer on what I was trying to achieve; I understand the confusion now. I've been posting about this, asking in different ways for some time on how I can plug an encrypted USB drive into the NAS, and backup the NAS to that USB drive, but I've yet to find a good solution.
I tried plugging the encrypted USB drive into a Windows PC, and using Deltacopy to enable RSYNC cabilities on that Windows PC, but I've had some problems with it, and I don't think it will be the solution I need. My ideal situation is to use the USB connection directly on the NAS, and backup the NAS to an encrypted USB drive without having to use a separate machine.
Extending the drive encryption used by the NAS to the USB drives is a different use case, and VHD won't help you there.
If VHD won't help me there: Do you know of anything that would help me there?
Would you classify the ReadyNAS Linux as "Fedora-like" or "Debian-like"? Neither?
Dislocker install instructions use these terms.
Thanks again Stephen.
SuperNASman wrote:
Extending the drive encryption used by the NAS to the USB drives is a different use case, and VHD won't help you there.
If VHD won't help me there: Do you know of anything that would help me there?
I'm not thinking of anything. iSCSI won't work. You can encrypt an iSCSI LUN from the client, but that presents the same issues as VHD. And the LUN is opaque to the NAS even if it isn't encrypted.
VHD can work if you are running deltacopy (or other backup software) on the PC (from the PC point of view you are rsyncing from one drive to another). But not if you want to run rsync on the NAS.
Would you classify the ReadyNAS Linux as "Fedora-like" or "Debian-like"? Neither?
The RN102 runs debian etch.
NETGEAR Academy
Boost your skills with the Netgear Academy - Get trained, certified and stay ahead with the latest Netgear technology!
Join Us!
