Enabling NFS (Network File System) on your Synology NAS allows your IP cameras to use the NAS as a giant, local hard drive. Instead of saving footage to a tiny, limited microSD card inside the camera, the camera can stream and save its video recordings directly to the massive storage space on your NAS over your local network.
In short: It gives your cameras a high-capacity, centralized space to store continuous video recordings.
To allow Helix cameras to connect to Synology using NAS connection you will have to enable NFS in the file services and in the shared folder configuration. For more information on how to do this, please refer to the information provided below.
Enabling NFS on Your Synology NAS
Before accessing a shared folder with your NFS client, you will need to change the system settings of your Synology NAS to allow sharing via NFS. Please follow the steps below.
Step 1: Log in to DSM with an account belonging to the administrator's group and go to Control Panel > File Services.
Step 2: On the Win/Mac/NFS tab, tick the box Enable NFS, and click Apply.
Synology NAS supports NFSv2 and NFSv3 by default. You can determine whether to enable NFSv4 or NFSv4.1 (depending on your actual product model). To enable the option, simply tick Enable NFSv4 support or Enable NFSv4.1 support.
Assign NFS Permissions to Shared Folders
Before accessing any shared folders with your NFS client, you must first configure the NFS permissions of the shared folder you wish to access. The steps below will guide you through the process of changing NFS permissions of the shared folders on your Synology NAS.
Step 1: Go to Control Panel > Shared Folder.
Step 2: Select the shared folder that you wish to access with your NFS client, and click Edit.
Step 3: Go to the NFS Permissions tab. Click Create.
Step 4: Edit the following fields:
- Hostname or IP: Enter the IP address of the NFS client which will access the shared folder. You may specify a host in three ways:
- Single Host: The fully qualified domain name (FQDN), or an IP address.
- Wildcards: *, *.synology.com
- IP networks: 203.74.205.32/255.255.252.0, /24
- Privilege: Select read/write permissions for the NFS client.
- Security: Specify the security flavor to implement.
- AUTH_SYS: Use the NFS client's UID (user identifier) and GID (group identifier) to check access permissions.
- Kerberos authentication: Perform Kerberos authentication when the NFS client connects to the shared folder. The client can only access the shared folder after passing Kerberos authentication.
- Kerberos integrity: Perform Kerberos authentication and ensure the integrity of packets during data transfer.
- Kerberos privacy: Perform Kerberos authentication and encrypt the NFS packets during data transfer, thus preventing malicious parties from tampering with NFS traffic.
- Squash: This field allows you to control users' access privileges of the NFS client. Please select one of the following:
- No mapping: Allows all users of NFS client, including root users, to maintain original access privileges.
- Map root to admin: Assigns access privileges to root users of NFS client equivalent to the admin user access privileges on your system.
- Map root to guest: Assigns access privileges to root users of NFS client equivalent to the guest access privileges on your system.
- Map all users to admin: Assigns access privileges to all users of NFS client equivalent to the admin user access privileges on your system.
- Asynchronous: Checking this option allows your Synology NAS to reply to requests from NFS clients before any changes to files are completed, yielding better performance.
- Allowed non-privileged port: Checking this option allows NFS clients to use non-privileged ports (i.e. ports greater than 1024) when connecting to the Synology NAS.
Note: The Hostname or IP field will be the local IP address of your IP camera. Please make sure that when you are creating the NFS permissions you check all the boxes available:
Mounting Shared Folders Using NFS
Once you have completed the steps above, you can mount the shared folder with your NFS client. Here, we demonstrate how to access the shared folder using Linux.
Step 1: Open a web browser and log into DSM with an account belonging to the Administrators group.
Step 2: Go to Control Panel > Shared Folder. Select a shared folder, and click Edit.
Step 3: Go to the NFS Permissions tab. Here you can find the mount path of the shared folder, which follows the format /[volume name]/[shared folder name].
Step 4: On your Linux computer, open the command console.
Step 5: You may need to install the necessary components before proceeding with the mounting. Enter the command as follows:
Step 6: Enter the mount command as follows:
Step 7: Enter the disk free (df) command to confirm you have successfully mounted the shared folder.
Can't mount the shared folder?
- Make sure the user account has adequate access privileges for the shared folder that you wish to map.
- Check the firewall settings.
Configuring the NAS Configuration
Open the web UI for your camera select Settings>>Storage>>Destination and select NAS. Enter the NAS server address and make sure you specify the volume and the folder where the recordings will be sent to. As shown below and click Apply.
The events from your camera will be stored in the file station of your NAS.