Introduction To Networking Configuring a NAS device

Web Portal Most NAS appliances will come with a web portal application and a basic operating system that allows us to configure our storage areas and set up access permissions One example on the right is FreeNAS, a free, small and simple operating system designed solely to implement network storage At the end of the lecture we’ll also take a look at QTS, a proprietary operating system used on QNAP devices

Initial Setup When the device is connected to the network, it will configure itself for our network by a DHCP server request, so we can access it’s web interface. We may want to make a DHCP reservation for the device or assign it a static IP address (Why?) We’ll then have to log in to our device. Our default login information will be documented in the paperwork of the device, on the manufacturer’s website and on third party websites. If that doesn’t work for some reason (especially if the device is being set up for the second time, if it was a used device or repurposed) we can usually factory reset it to restore the default information

Initial Wizard When we first open up the browser to an unconfigured NAS device, it will usually open up to a setup wizard The initial steps to the wizard will usually be very basic information, like language, console keyboard map, and time zone Console keyboard map is the standard for where keys are on this keyboard. This is used for foreign language keyboards or alternated configurations, like Dvorak

Creating Storage Pool The next step is to create a storage pool for our data This is a grouping of data that allows us to partition it, create volumes from it, and add to it Notice that we can set how we plan to use this NAS device, and that its purpose will set up how we configure our storage Our storage will be set up as a RAID array, the type of which will affect whether we have more speed, data redundancy and storage space efficiency

Integrating With a Directory System NAS devices can typically take advantage of existing user directory services on a network, like Active Directory This will allow us to import premade users, passwords, groups and permissions rather than have to create our own This is great for users as well as administrators since the user’s regular information to log into the computer will be used to access the shared storage

Share Settings Once we have created a storage pool, we need to create a share to allow users access to We would set the name as well as the client systems we would like to support As a general rule, the Windows CIFS system actually supports a lot of different user systems, so this tends to be a good default, unless you have reason to use another

Ownership Options From the previous screen, we can click on ownership to set access privileges Here is where we can set users and groups if we did not use a directory server We can set a specific user with password, as well as a group to access this share From there we can assign separate read/write/execute privileges to the user, the group, and then any users outside of the group We will typically want to set other to have no access to the files

Additional Shares After setting ownership, you’ll come back to this screen where you can click on add to add this share space to our NAS From here you can create more share spaces to allow other users or groups access to, or create more or less restrictive share spaces For example, you may want teachers to have a share space that students can read and execute from, but not write to for assignments, and then a completely closed off share space for tests and quizzes

Log Options and Saving The next option allows us to create a way for the NAS to send log files to an administrator This can be very helpful for both security purposes and for diagnostic purposes After this, we need to confirm our changes, or our changes will not take affect

Settings And Utilities This completes the initial configuration. From here, you have access to the utilities where you can change settings, add plugins, and manage the storage space and sharing settings

Full Utility Window

Testing/Accessing NAS Once the initial configuration is complete, we can test the storage solution On a client computer, go to files, right click computer, and select Map Network Drive From there you can select a drive letter, select whether the computer will reconnect automatically to the drive, and tell the computer if the shared space is using the same credentials as the user logon, or set the credentials to log onto the share space Once this is done, you should be able to browse your network and find the shared storage you created

QNAP QTS Asides from FreeNAS, there are also company specific operating systems. One such is QTS from QNAP When we install a QNAP device, they direct us to https://start.qnap.com/useng/index.php in order to follow their initial configuration We’ll also look at https://us1.qnap.com/Storage/TechnicalDocument/20160811- QNAP_Turbo_NAS_Hardware_Manual_EN.pdf in order to see how we can configure hardware in a QNAP device