Goodsync Server on the ReadyNAS

I a really looking forward to getting this setup.

I had a rather constructive discussion with Goodsync support desk.
They are planning to work on a add-on for the ReadyNAS x86 series, in order to make install process easier.

Meanwhile, I can provide basic installation support by PM.

I have been using goodsync client to sync a number of PC's and Macs to readynas; via WebDAV over SSL. This means clients can sync with readynas when on my local network or outside my firewall; i.e. my readynas is my cloud storage provider.. and i always have multiple copies of my data - both on my remote device and on my readynas.
This scheme generally works oK but there are drawbacks with webDAV (eg issues with timestamps) and it can be slow. I would love to move to a block-based sync method; this requires a goodsync server on ReadyNAS.. glad to hear that its coming.

Hi all,

So, after some of you tested my basic setup procedure, I think I can post it here.
****DISCLAIMER***** This is for testing and educationnal purposes only, I cannot be held responsible if something goes wrong with your datas !!!

Setup of Goodsync Sevrer on a ReadyNAS Pro (but other flavors with INTEL processor should work too !) Things to do before going for this setup 1-This was tested on my ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer Edition, but according to GoodSync, this should work on any NAS running under Linux, with an Intel processor 2-You need to have SSH Root access for this to work. You can read more here : http://www.readynas.com/index.php?s=root+ssh 2bis- You will need basic Linux Command Line knowledge to make this work. Valuable informations can be found all over the internet. Google is your friend ! 3- Since this setup is using root SSH access, there’s always a risk of breaking something in your NAS. I suggest making backups of important data. 4- This tutorial if for educational purpose only. I cannot be held responsible, should something wrong happen and damage your hardware, software or data. But I did this myself on my own NAS, and everything went OK. 5- I may or may not create a ReadyNAS Add-on in the future to help setting this up easily. I cannot give any release date at this point. 6- It is MANDATORY to buy a Linux Licence from goodsync in order to make the server accepting connections. You can install and run it without a licence, for testing purpose: this will allow you to try to contact the server from another computer, using goodsync client. You’ll get a message saying that you need to register the server to use it. But then you’ll at least know that the server is running and listening ! 7- If you don’t have UPNP feature on your home firewall/router, you’ll need to configure port forwarding manualy to allow goodsync server to be reachable from outside. I won’t describe it hrer, you can find port informations on goodsync website. Also, I assume you already have a goodsync account. If you don’t, install Goodsync free version on any computer, launch the client, and it will show the GoodSync Connect Setup dialog. If it does not, you can open it from 'Tools > GoodSync Connect Setup'. On the 2nd page select 'Create a new GoodSync Connect Account' and follow the wizard (creating and using a GoodSync Connect Account is free) Getting and unpacking the software 1- You must download the latest version of the Linux package. You can find it there: http://www.goodsync.com/platforms/unix/linux 2- Either download it on a PC or directly from the root Shell, using wget command. 3- Create a folder in an easy to remember place, to store goodsync files. For the rest of the tutorial, I assume you create a folder named gs-server, in /usr/sbin folder. 4- Move the archive there (use mv command), then untar the package using tar command. I advise using tar -zxvf name-of-the-archive.tar.gz 5- Some security things: chown root:root /usr/sbin/gs-server cd /usr/sbin/gs-server chown root:root * . Setting up things 1- We need to create a local admin account for the server. This is done this way: gs-server /set-admin="gs-userid:gs-password:system-userid" gs-userid should be your goodsync username. This was created when you installed Goodsync on another computer previously. Gs-password is your password, obviously. System-userid : use root. This will be the owner of goodsync server files. 2- We need to enable access to the WebserverUI. Edit file /root/ .goodsync/server/settings.tix with your favourite text editor. Look for WebUiLocalOnly parameter and set it to No. This way, you’ll be able to configure things easily via the web UI. We’ll see a bit later how to use this. First start 1- we are going to launch the server manually to test installation. Use /usr/sbin/gs-server/gs-server 2- Try to connect to the web UI with your browser, using http://your-NAS-IP:4444 3- Log in with your goodsync credential. 4- Add a new user, using the link at the top of the screen. We need to create a local only user that will become our administrator. That way, the remote user we are using right now will lose access to the server settings, which is a good idea for security concerns. So, select “Local user only”, choose any user id you want, and for system user and password, use root with no password. You should check “Server Administrator” and “Protect System Files” 5- Fix and remove admin status on your goodsync user: just click “edit” near the username that we used earlier (not the one you just created), uncheck “Administrator”, change system user to your regular NAS user-id (no password) and save. 6- Get back to your NAS Shell, and stop server using CTRL+C Securing things In that part, we’ll use a little trick, to prevent goodsync users connecting to our NAS from being able to reach everything from root filesystem 1- create a new folder: mkdir /root/.goodsync/server/fs 2- go there (cd /root/.goodsync/server/fs) 3- create symbolic links for every share or folder that should be visible from goodsync: ln –s full-path-of-target ./name-of-target (eg: ln –s /commonshare/docstosync ./docstosync) 4- when you are finished, do a chmod a+wrx * When we create users with the webUI, we’ll set their home folder to file:///root/.goodsync/server/fs . That way they’ll only see what we allow them to see. Don’t forget to check that this is set for every user… (Use the edit feature for older users) If you set correctly System User names for your users, you can give them the corrects right on your NAS files… Say you have 2 users, Sam and Dave on your NAS, and 2 shares, SamShare and DaveShare. If Sam can access SamShare and Dave can access both SamShare and DaveShare, any goodsync user set up with Sam as his system user will have acces only to SamShare and any goodsync user set up with Dave as his system user will have acces to both SamShare and DaveShare… as long as they have the password ! If you want to give access to NAS user rights to Goodsync users without giving out your NAS user password, just put the System password in the goodsync user profile when you create it… I don’t know if I’m very clear about this... I’ll try to make it easier to understand later… Making the server run at startup 1- We’ll create the startup script: create a file named gsserver in /etc/init.d and edit it: #! /bin/sh # Carry out specific functions when asked to by the system case "$1" in start) start-stop-daemon --quiet --start --background --chuid root:root --exec /usr/sbin/gs-server/gs-server ;; stop) start-stop-daemon --quiet --stop --exec /usr/sbin/gs-server/gs-server ;; *) echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/blah {start|stop}" exit 1 ;; esac exit 0 2- chmod a+x /etc/init.d/gsserver 3- update-rc.d gsserver defaults (that will update the startup scripts) Everything should work now… Reboot your readyNAS using Frontview, and then try to connect to the webUI with your browser. If it works, you can then try to connect to the server with any goodsync client, using the same goodsync user that the one you already created within the server. If the server answers that you must purchase a licence, everything works. When you purchase a lilcence, you’ll get a mail with an order number along with your name. To activate your License, you must once again log with root SSH on your NAS. 1- first, stop the server: /etc/init.d/gsserver stop 2- let’s activate : type gsync /orderid=your-order-id-here /username="the-name-as-provided-by-goodsync" 3- restart the server: /etc/init.d/gsserver start Try again to log to the webUI, and then with goodsync… Things should be okay now ! This ends the tutorial, version 0.2

Feel free to send feedback !