Running Syncrify on Synology NAS

Synology NAS provides an easy and convenient way of storing large data with redundancy when combined with RAID. Installing and running Syncrify Server on Synology is, therefore, a natural fit. This blog talks about how to install and run Syncrify on a Synology NAS.

It contains 3 parts:

• Installing Java JRE
• Installing and configuring Syncrify
• Starting Syncrify at boot-time

Prerequisite - Installing Java JRE

Before installing Syncrify, you need to install Java JRE. Following steps demonstrate how to install Java JRE on Synology.

• Connect to Synology DSM using a browser from your Windows or MAC computer.
• Once logged in, start the Package Manager and Search for Java
• Install Java 8 - Do NOT install Java 9, Syncrify is not certified to run on Java 9 yet. See image below.
  
  

Enabling SSH

You will need to access Synology via SSH or Telnet. Obviously, SSH is preferred because it is secure. Use the following steps to enable SSH.

• Open Control Panel within DSM
• Click Terminal and SNMP
• Enable SSH.

Accessing NAS through SSH

Next, open an SSH session to Synology. On Windows, you can use Putty or Terminal on Mac OS X. In this example, we will install Syncrify in /volume1/opt/Syncrify folder using the following commands:

First, elevate your login to root using the following command.

sudo su

Note: If you get an error complaining "sudo" is an invalid command, try using "root" instead of "admin" when establishing SSH connection. The password for "root" and "admin" should be same on Synology.

Then, create necessary folder:

mkdir /volume1/opt/Syncrify

Change directory to the newly created folder

cd /volume1/opt/Syncrify

Download Syncrify

wget http://www2.synametrics.com/files/Syncrify/SyncrifyOther.tar.gz

Next, extract compressed file using the following command

tar -zxvf SyncrifyOther.tar.gz

Launch script

Lines highlighted in yellow have been updated to match the environment. Other than that, there is no difference between launchAtBoot.sh and run.sh. First, we change the current directory to the location where Syncrify is installed. Second, we specify the absolute path for java binary. These changes allow us to run the script from any location.

Important Note

You may have to add execute permission to launchAtBoot.sh, which is done using the following command:

chmod +x launchAtBoot.sh

Configuration change

Since java and the installation folder is not in System path, following changes in AppConfig.xml file are required to restart Syncrify from its web interface.

• Locate AppConfig.xml file in /volume1/opt/Syncrify/config folder.
• This file is in XML format containing several parameters. Two parameters need to be modified: jvmPath and ntServiceCommand. The parameter lines should appear like following after modification.
  

  <parameter name="jvmPath" type="1" value="/var/packages/Java8/target/j2sdk-image/bin/java"></parameter>
  <parameter name="ntServiceCommand" type="1" value="/volume1/opt/Syncrify/launchAtBoot.sh"></parameter>
  

• Save AppConfig.xml after modifying the values

Changing $TEMP

Syncrify needs a temporary location on the disk to perform several tasks. The default location for this TEMP folder is /tmp on Synology. This location is not big enough, particularly if you plan to backup large files. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that you modify the path where temporary files are stored.

For this example, we will use /volume1/opt/SyncrifyTemp folder. Following steps demonstrate how to modify the TEMP folder in Syncrify.

• Modify or create server.properties file in /volume1/opt/Syncrify/config
• Add the following line:

  java.io.tmpdir=/volume1/opt/SyncrifyTemp

• Save the file

Running Syncrify at boot time

There are two ways to run Syncrify at boot time: