Sharing encrypted shares

On my Synology DS111 I have several shares/folders for my files. For things which are important I have it encrypted storing the key outside of the box - storing that on the box itself, with automounting, sounds like a crazy idea. Why to bother with all the encryption if someone can just take your box, power it on and have access to your files - since they get automatically mounted...

It was not possible to use encrypted shares via NFS (at least as of synology firmware DSM 3.2) and I wanted to have unix permission visible. So I decided to use SFTP, since I had SSH already enabled.

SFTP on the Synology DS111

I did that on firmware DSM 3.1 and 3.2 and it worked well, so...

Using ipkg install openssh-sftp-server

Edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config and add line:

Subsystem       sftp    /opt/libexec/sftp-server

Find sshd (ps | grep ssh[d]) - it will look like (9315 root 4112 S /usr/syno/sbin/sshd ) and kill it.
Start it again: /usr/syno/etc/rc.ssh

From now on it should be possible to use sshfs to mount your diskstation! Without installing sftp you will be confronted with rather cryptic error message on client side:

~$ sshfs -d my_user@diskstation: /mount
subsystem request failed on channel 0
read: Connection reset by peer

Unfortunately this change in sshd_config will be lost after installing new Synology firmware. If you know how to make it permanent (apart from checking it periodically with some script) - please drop me an email.

Good luck!

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