Scott Hanselman

How to set up CrashPlan Cloud Backup headless on a Synology NAS - Backup Strategies

November 18, 2012 Comment on this post [163] Posted in Tools
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NOTE: This article has been upgraded for Synology systems that are running DSM 5.0!

Scott Hanselman's Personal Backup StrategyAt home I use a Synology 1511+ NAS (Network Attached Storage) server for all my family's digital things. The Synology gives me virtually all the features I had when I was in love with the Windows Home Server. I can add a drive of any size and get more storage, I can install add-in packages for more functionality, and most importantly, everything has multiple copies. I've even lost a whole drive and just repaired it by pulling it out and replacing it.

I have four 2TB drives in my Synology giving me approximately 5TB of redundant space.

However, the lack of a good integrated cloud storage setup has been a frustration. The Synology does support Amazon S3 as a remote backup location, but I find the opacity of my digital blobs in Amazon's S3 buckets systems frustrating. S3 is great, but it's not an awesome cloud backup experience like some of the more consumer focused backup systems like CrashPlan* or BackBlaze. Sure, these guys might use S3 underneath, but as a consumer (or pro-sumer) I don't need to know or see that.

Here's my current Backup Strategy. There are also non-cloud-based backup strategies if you don't have persistent fast internet. You can see how my strategy has changed since my 2007 Backup Strategy, but not much.

Any good backup strategy follows the Backup Rule of Three.

  • 3 copies of anything you care about - Two isn't enough if it's important.
  • 2 different formats - Example: Dropbox+DVDs or Hard Drive+Memory Stick or CD+Crash Plan, or more
  • 1 off-site backup - If the house burns down, how will you get your memories back?

More importantly a good backup strategy "Just Works" and Doesn't Require Much Thought. If you have to think about it, it is likely to be forgotten. Everything should be automated. I like that DropBox is automatic, the Synology can backup to another external automatically, so I only have to think about rotating drives off-site every month, or at least a few times a year.

The missing piece since I got the Synology has been a completely silent cloud archive. Running CrashPlan headless (headless - there is no monitor) has been the final piece I needed for a simple process that requires no effort on my part.

Step by Step: How to run CrashPlan on your Synology NAS

This gentleman at PCLoadLetter has prepared excellent packages that make it MUCH easier than before to get CrashPlan running on your Synology. However, his instructions assume a some technical ability and also require reading a LOT and visiting several pages within his site. It took me about an hour to really understand what was being said. Here's my simplified version of How To get CrashPlan* on your Synology.

1. Turn on the "User Homes Service" on your Synology

Log in to your Synology from a web browser. Mine is http://server. Go to the Control Panel, then User, then User Home and click "Enable User Home Service." This will give the future "crashplan" user a "place to live."

Turning on the user home service

2. Ensure you have a share called "public" with full for users access

Later when we run the CrashPlan package, it will expect the Java package to live in \\yourserver\public. Make sure you have a public share. I choose also to hide mine since I'll never use it and don't want to confuse my other users.

Make a public share

3. Download the right version of Java for your CPU from the Oracle Website

CrashPlan is written using the Java environment, and we want to install the CrashPlan service on our Synology. We'll need Java for that.

A Synology is effectively a headless custom Linux computer. Some have an Intel chip and some have an ARM chip. You should find out which CPU/chip your Synology has from this table, and remember it. We need to get the right version of Java for our CPU.

If you have an Intel CPU, you'll get Java 6. If you have an ARM CPU you can get Java 7. You download Oracle Java Embedded from the Oracle Website yourself. Note that you'll have to Register for an Account and Sign in. You'll also need to click "Accept License Agreement" to download it. There's a LOT of choices and it's confusing.

If you get it wrong, don't worry. Later, when you try to install the CrashPlan package you'll get a warning if Java isn't there and that warning will give you the right file name. For Intel, I needed "x86 Linux Small Footprint – Headless."

Download this file and copy it to \\yourserver\public.

4. Add http://packages.pcloadletter.co.uk as a new repository in the Synology Package Manager

Back on your Synology, from the web browser, go to the Package Center, then Settings, then Package Sources. Add http://packages.pcloadletter.co.uk as a new repository. I named it "PC Load Letter" but it doesn't matter.

Adding a custom package source

5. Install the CrashPlan package on your Synology. Stop it and restart it.

Staying in the Package Manager, go to Other Sources.

You'll need the Java Package and the CrashPlan package.

You need to install the Java Package first and it will pull from binaries from the \\yourserver\public  folder. It doesn't need to be "started" as it's really a software package disguised as a service. It's OK that its Status is Stopped.

Java Packages

Next, install the CrashPlan service if you have a basic CrashPlan+ account like I do. There are other packages for Pro and Business.

After the service installs and runs you can click More then Log and see if it started correctly. You'll need to stop and restart manually it at least once when you've FIRST installed it.

The CrashPlan Service is starting

Now, you've got a headless service waiting and running on your Synology. But you'll notice there is no UI, no settings and no way to configure it. That's where the CrashPlan client comes in that you'll run on any regular computer you have.

6. Install the CrashPlan client on one of your main computers.

Go download and install the right CrashPlan client for you. After you've installed it, you'll need to POINT the client to your Synology.

You need to edit the "C:\Program Files\CrashPlan\conf\ui.properties" text file and put in the IP address of your Synology. My Synology is called "SERVER" so I opened a command prompt and typed "ping server" and was told its address is 192.168.1.18.

    • NOTE: This is a Linefeeds only Linux text file so you'll want to use Notepad2 or something OTHER than Notepad so you don't corrupt this file. Make a copy.

Remove the # in front of serviceHost to 'uncomment' that line and add your Synology IP address at the end.

Pointing ServiceHost to the right place

  • OPTIONAL NOTE: You can turn off the CrashPlan Service on the computer that has the CrashPlan client running if you won't be backing up that machine. Run "services.msc" and change the CrashPlan service to "Manual."

7. How do you know it is working?

Run CrashPlan on your main computer to ensure it's successfully talking to your Synology.

  • You should see your Synology's name on the Settings Dialog
  • You should see CrashPlan Central in your Destinations if you have a CrashPlan subscription
  • You can select your files that exist on the Synology from the CrashPlan application on your main computer. Remember this CrashPlan client talks to the headless service running on your Synology.

The initial backup will likely take a LONG time so be patient - like for days or weeks. I am choosing not to backup super-large files like DVD backups, 60 gig VMs and other things. My #1 concern is family photos and personal files, so my initial backup set is only 200gigs.

Seeding my CrashPlan account

You can get CrashPlan+ and do one computer, or get CrashPlan+ Family and do up to 10 computers.


* These are affiliate links to CrashPlan. The link is NOT mine and I'm not personally affiliated with CrashPlan. Instead, clicking them and signing up for CrashPlan will support the nice gentleman at PCLoadLetter.co.uk who put in the hard work of making and maintaining CrashPlan packages and hosting them. By signing up for CrashPlan using his link you help him out a little, as we should, given his fine efforts. Big thanks for PCLoadLetter and the Synology community for all their efforts! I hope my tutorial makes it even easier for folks to get their CrashPlan back-ups setup so cleanly!

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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November 18, 2012 6:53
Scott, why don't you use skydrive?
November 18, 2012 6:58
I'm surprised you don't use another windows server product. I know it just came out but would you consider switching to windows server 2012 essentials. It's a little expensive for home use but I imagine you could get a deal :) I'm using whs 2011 and every few days when I'm logged into it fixing some backup issue I keep thinking I need to find some other solution. But I like it being a pc so that I can easily run crashplan and sickbeard.
Dan
November 18, 2012 7:33
I've been using a Synology NAS for a while now. I use the S3 backup option. I agree that S3 doesn't present a very user-friendly interface (it's user-spiteful, actually) but I prefer that there isn't an extra service provider / abstraction layer between me and my data - that's why I don't like services like Carbonite. I like the idea that there's a big, secure filesystem out there with a mirror of my data and nothing between me & it.
November 18, 2012 8:18
Scott does the Synology NAS have software that supports the kind of full system delta backups and bare metal restores that WHS did?
November 18, 2012 9:26
Finding good backup is a big problem. A few years ago I searched for a decent backup program and found none. My criteria were as follows:

1. Must support Unicode file names.
2. Must support NTFS permissions.
3. Preferably support junctions/hardlinks.

All products I tested failed. The best I could find did not support junctions/hardlinks and wasted backup space by backing up My Documents, etc, multiple times by blindly following backward-compatibility junctions. I was amazed by how many "solutions" did not support NTFS-permissions or even Unicode file names. Most were useless and not fit for purpose.

Windows XP Backup could do all these things quickly and simply, Vista's backup was designed by an idiot and was useless (could not even select files to be backed up), 7 was useable but hogged resources needlessly while running. I am not sure that 8 has managed to really address the problem either.

It seems odd such a critical function is so poorly addressed across the entire industry.
November 18, 2012 9:39
Thought i'd share my experience -

I used to run this same setup on my Synology DS211J, but recently stopped doing so for two reasons:
1. The extra memory pressure this put on my Synology made it very slow to use. The 211J only comes with 128MB RAM, and running a Java app seems to consume all of the free space, and then some.

2. Crashplan's auto client update would often break Patters' Crashplan package as it the new update would require recompilation of some dynamic libraries (exact details escape me). This problem occurred 2-3 times in the last year or so, making the process more fragile than I'd have preferred, and (although he's done an excellent job to-date) it leaves my setup at the mercy of a single community developer.

I decided to use a cheap Asus EEEbox running Ubuntu instead, and installed Crashplan to that. Been rock-solid since.

That said, If you're using one of the Intel model Synologys, you shouldn't have either of the problems above because they're usually packed with more RAM, and the auto-client update shouldn't break any libraries.

</2c>

November 18, 2012 9:40
Really looking forward to the day when Backup can *actually* be described by: "Doesn't Require Much Thought". This blog post and the many others of its kind (on this site and others) just highlight the fact that we don't yet live in a world where backup can safely be taken for granted.

For example, who honestly still spends any mental effort connecting to a wireless network? I look forward to the day when the Backup problem will be solved with equal elegance.
November 18, 2012 13:38
I actually did exactly that on my DS211+ yesterday. So far so good, we'll see how it works in the long run.

There's another technique that involves mounting the shared folders on network drives using a system account on a PC. Then you can backup those drives from the PC but its a lot less elegant and requires the PC to be up.
November 18, 2012 15:00
To all you 'old' Apple users; I use Mozy, for online backup because of some old PowerPcs in my network.
Most providers do not provide PowerPC support, which is a pain.

Also works on Intel and all Wndows versions,so great if you have mixed environments!

November 18, 2012 15:05
Edit; sorry, CrashPlan also supports G4 and G5 processors, never mind my post ;)
November 18, 2012 18:29
I'm not sure to understand why not using Amazon (Glacier service).
November 18, 2012 21:07
Does the Synology support Xbox access to media? That's the feature I'm interested in on a NAS device.
November 18, 2012 21:49
Dude, I think I have a man-crush on you. I was shopping for a NAS storage (I have one 2 drive Synology but it is not enough) and your article showed up. Perfect timing!
November 18, 2012 23:52
Nice article, I have set up exactly this confguration about 3 months ago after buying a Synology NAS DS212+ and am very happy with it. Interesting enough a few days ago I got a crashplan email informing me that the NAS has not been backed up for 3 days, and after checking it showed that a crashplan update was not installed correctly by the package.

A short visit to the website pcloadletter explained it, and after reinstalling the package it all worked fine again.

Bottom line, everything was perfect, the crashplan service informed me at the moment I had to take action and I was only 3 days without cloud based backup... so tumbs up for this setup!

Martijn
November 19, 2012 0:33
Hi,

Can you elaborate a little bit more on the first step?
1.Turn on the "User Homes Service" on your Synology
I am using DSM 4.1 and I do not see this option
Thanks
November 19, 2012 1:09
Thank you Scott, thank you thank you. This has been something I have been wanting to do for months now, and had almost given up trying to work it out for myself. Your simple guide had me setup and backing up a treat within 30 minutes. Genius. Thank you.
November 19, 2012 1:45
wow sweet. After reading your first backup post, and listening to Ratchet And The Geek about backup, I started looking for a synology solution myself. I didn't find one to support dropbox, so this blog post it just what I wanted. Thanks!
November 19, 2012 2:27
Thor - I double checked this. Read step 1 again carefully. You have to go to the Control Panel, then User, then the User Home button.

Chris - Yes, via uPNP or the Plex server.

Altug - ;)

Everyone - Yes, this works best on Synology devices that are Intel or at least have >1 gig of RAM. Mine has 3gigs.
November 19, 2012 4:36
Hi Scott, nice to see this guide. I knew I recognised you from somewhere when I saw this referral to my site - and I finally realised that it's because I had read your excellent Who Moved My Cheese article about getting used to the Windows 8 UI. I've been passing that on to various people who complain about the transition.

If my own CrashPlan page for the Synology package has got rather complex it's because it has gradually had to incorporate more and more information, and so I hadn't really focussed on accessibility. I kind of assumed that if you're tinkering with a NAS you're probably already reasonably technical, but I'm sure this article will get more people involved!

Patters
November 19, 2012 6:08
Great stuff Scott, thanks. I know a lot of people still don't do it, but this scenario is too easy. 200GB isn't a difficult amount that one has to search high and low for a great backup service provider or spend a lot of time with NAS settings.

It's the part you admittedly skipped over - the large videos and VMs - that is the hard part and the one that most (who do backups) struggle with. I still use my antique WHS with 3 large drives to back up all our PCs nightly, and when I think about it (every couple months, sometimes longer) I backup the WHS and rotate a backup drive in our SDB at the bank. It sucks. I feel somewhat safe knowing I can get back anything after a dropped/stolen laptop, but I'd like to do better in case of fire or catastrophe, but large amounts of home videos and VMs and ISOs make it a trick.

Cloud just doesn't work well yet for that, and rotating large drives is about the best I can come up with. Burning DVDs/BRs (or, ack, tape!) is for the birds. Would like to know how you or others handle that, I know your videos are important to you too, or do you also do the same with those just with a different service?
Jason
November 19, 2012 7:11
So how is the backup workflow actually structured? Does the CrashPlan client automatically backup to the NAS which then backs up to the cloud?
November 19, 2012 12:42
I am thinking about purchasing a 1-bay Synology station and implement the off-site backup with Amazon S3 and Glacier. Does anyone have good or bad experiences integrating Synology with S3 and Glacier? I would love to hear about those.
November 19, 2012 14:32
Hey Scott.

You say that you have 3 gigs of RAM in your Synology. I have a 412+ and tried running with one 4 gig dimm. It turned out it was slower when running with that dimm... I replaced it with the original, and the speeds were normal.

Is there any reason that you choose 3 gig?
November 19, 2012 20:39
I have a 12TB unRaid NAS running on a HP Microserver that i sync with crash plan. Its the best backup ive ever had and besides from setup, its maintenance free.
November 20, 2012 2:15
Give Ciphertex NAS a try. I like them better.
Gal
November 20, 2012 3:39
Scott,

Do you still use your WHS for anything?

Rob
rob
November 20, 2012 3:42
Patters - Thanks for all you do!

Kevin - Yes.

Jacob - That's what it came with.

Rob - No, it died.
November 20, 2012 3:44
Scott,

So all your video backups are done to the external HD and moved off site
rob
November 20, 2012 4:01
Rob - Yes, for large stuff and original RAW video it's on two drives and offsite.
November 20, 2012 9:38
I bought my Synology DS, in part, because I knew this was possible. I've been using CrashPlan for over a year. You beat me to the punch and saved me hours of research! Thanks!
Wes
November 20, 2012 11:13
Well that explains alot :)
November 21, 2012 0:40
Hi Scott,

Thanks for the great tips. I have been recently tweeking my backup procedures and this should help quite a bit.

How do you get the data/content from your PCs to the NAS? Or is the NAS the "Original" copy of the data?

If that is the case is there any data saved directly on the PCs and if so how do you back that up?
November 21, 2012 0:56
Hi,

Do you know if it will work OK on the low end of Synbology's NAS range (DS212j). I read a suggestion somewhere that 1GB of RAM was a requirement, and this one only has 256MB.

I'm afraid I can't go more upmarket that that - it's just for home use and there are the drives to factor into the price, of course.

Many thanks,
Mark Smith
November 21, 2012 22:40
Scott, what do you do if a boot drive dies in one of your machines? (Synology does not seem to have a straightforward way of doing image backups... Or am I just not seeing it?)
Max
November 22, 2012 2:31
Scott,

Why not just select the Synology as the target of Windows 8 File History?
November 22, 2012 3:25
Gregory - It's faster local, but I could do that.
November 22, 2012 7:39
I have used both Mozy and Jungle disk both in the past for automated off site backups of my PC and really liked them. I always feel better getting the files off site to the cloud. Automatically backing up files to skydrive would be cool in the future.
November 22, 2012 16:38
Scott,

I can't thank you enough for this article I was pondering this EXACT solution the other day at home, when I realised my existing backup solution was becomming inadequate, I already use crashplan to backup my data as well as other offsite methods but a constant weakness of the consumer products is that they do not support network drives, I had seen crashplans unsupported documentation on enabling network paths to be backed up and also had the synology kit on my amazon wishlist for early next year (nothings more important than my data security computer wise for me) but this solution looks like it solves my issue :)

November 24, 2012 5:07
Backup is everything for every digital creative person so good that you reminding folks about that. Just recently tryied to register buckupeverything . com but it's already taken ;-0
Pol
November 24, 2012 17:43
Hi,

For those mac users out there the file to edit at stage (6) is located inside the Crashplan Application. You can right click on the application and hit 'show package contents' and browse to :

/Contents/Resources/Java/conf/ui.properties

Alternatively load up terminal and type:

pico /Applications/CrashPlan.app/Contents/Resources/Java/conf/ui.properties

and you can edit the file that way.

I am not sure about stopping the backup service on the mac if your not backing it. Crashplan drops a login item which you can remove ( from your user tab ). However i am not savvy enough to know if removing this stops the service.

November 25, 2012 10:09
Scott, are you still using CrashPlan's client locally, on Windows? If you do, doesn't it have problems with performance?

I tried using CrashPlan and found that it stops my PC to halt every few minutes.
November 25, 2012 12:31
Serg - No, I disabled the CrashPlan Service and it doesn't run at all on my local machine.
November 25, 2012 23:23
Slightly off-topic but I'm wondering if/why you would recommend Synology over using Win8's storage spaces? I've been looking at the DS 1812 and although I hear very good things about Synology, I haven't pulled the trigger yet.
November 26, 2012 1:48
Jacob Hornbech, IIRC the Max memory that *most* Synology NASs will support is 3GB. There's a lot of info out there about slowness when upgrading past 3GB. If you only have one slot on your NAS, 2GB may work better.

Scott, this article is exactly what I was looking for! I got everything set up on my DS1512+, but haven't actually run a backup yet. Thanks for your hard work.

If anyone can help, I'm trying to make Crashplan use the LAN2 connection instead of the main LAN1. Although this won't have any appreciable effect on my internet connection, I'm hoping it will allow my backup to run on LAN2 while I stream video over LAN1.

I've set up LAN2 to a static IP, forwarded port 4242 to LAN2, and used the LAN2 IP in ui.properties, but my CrashPlan settings still show the internal address for LAN1.

The LANs are set up independently (no Link-agg. or Fault Tol.) and I can log into the NAS using LAN2's IP.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Eric
November 27, 2012 0:57
Keith - I'm trying Storage Spaces now. Might be a cheap and easy way to try locally. I like Synology because it's shared in the whole family. One could also put a FileHistory shared volume on a Storage Space.
December 06, 2012 23:11
Scott, I am a big fan of the Synology DS1511+. I own one for the last couple of years and it is a great NAS! It supports DLNA for streaming on a PS3 or compatibles devices. The mobile access support is great and has many bells and whistles to satisfy several needs. I also use it as a dev platform since it supports Mono and MySQL. I upgraded mine with 3GB RAM and MySQL runs great as a dev database.

I actually run the same setup for backups. I configured it a couple of months ago and works great. I switched from SpiderOak to CrashPlan because I was able to run in on the Synology (and part due to the affordable unlimited data plan).

In short, great summary! It took me about an hour for the initial setup. This article allows anyone new to the Synology to configure a robust data backup solution in about 10 minutes.
December 07, 2012 7:00
Excellent work - such a breeze with this write up. Took under and hour where I was expecting a couple days at least. Biggest challenge was unpacking Oracle's tar/gz which was missing the tar extension for some reason.
December 08, 2012 4:31
I also had to uncomment the port number line in my ui.properties file.
December 11, 2012 2:37
Thanks for the awesome guide Scott! Worked like a charm, had me up and running in about 5 minutes.

Just curious to see if there's any hints on getting a little bit of an outbound speed boost when backing up. I'm currently on a 5MB outbound connection, and am only seeing about 700kbps from the Synology to the CrashPlan cloud. At this rate it's going to take about 2 months to backup all my photos and video. Not that big of a deal once it all gets there and I'm just doing incremental, but for now it seems slow.
December 16, 2012 22:49
I just set this up. I too was suffering from the psychic weight of unbacked-up family photos and videos.

Note: I did have to enable the "servicePort" setting as well in order to get CrashPlan to connect to my Synology. I'm running a Synology DS211J (ARM), and from the sound of it I might need to upgrade the RAM...

Just checked on the NAS and it seems to be chugging pretty bad. Hopefully this will clear up once the initial backup is done.

We'll see how this goes!
December 19, 2012 7:10
Hi Scott...great strategy. The only part I don't quite get the benefit of is the rotating of the physical external HDDs? Could you please expand a little on the benefit of doing this? Each time you plug in the rotated HDD to the Synology, do you not have to manually ensure that it maps to the same drive letter?
December 19, 2012 11:26
Shawn - No, because the synology maps to mount points (it's Linux) not drive letters.

You can also backup from your windows pc over the net if you like.
December 23, 2012 12:24
Scott,

I'm mainly interested in backing up my iPhone photos using this solution. Is this possible (DS photo+ doesn't offer a way to automatically backup photos yet)
Hy
December 28, 2012 7:09
After making the changes in step 6 (ServiceHost), CrashPlan complains about being "unable to connect to backup engine, retry?" error. I'm 100% sure the host IP of my Synology is correct. Thanks for any assistance!
December 28, 2012 7:18
Scratch my last comment, I restarted the CrashPlan service and it launched just fine (though I had to re-enter my user credentials).

Here are some additional locations for the ui.properties file for those running CrashPlan besides WIndows.

<ui.properties file location>

Linux (if installed as root): /usr/local/crashplan/conf/ui.properties
Mac: /Applications/CrashPlan.app/Contents/Resources/Java/conf/ui.properties
Solaris (if installed as root): /opt/sfw/crashplan/conf/ui.properties
Windows: C:\Program Files\CrashPlan\conf\ui.properties
December 28, 2012 7:18
Scratch my last comment, I restarted the CrashPlan service and it launched just fine (though I had to re-enter my user credentials).

Here are some additional locations for the ui.properties file for those running CrashPlan besides WIndows.

<ui.properties file location>

Linux (if installed as root): /usr/local/crashplan/conf/ui.properties
Mac: /Applications/CrashPlan.app/Contents/Resources/Java/conf/ui.properties
Solaris (if installed as root): /opt/sfw/crashplan/conf/ui.properties
Windows: C:\Program Files\CrashPlan\conf\ui.properties
December 28, 2012 7:19
Scott, your instructions were pretty spot on! I can finally back up my NAS! I have been waiting for some easy to follow directions for a long time and you did this right! A million thanks!
December 28, 2012 8:32
Scott, the way my information is split. I was hoping for a solution that could backup certain items on my Mac and some from my NAS. It appears this solution will only backup the NAS and no longer show the machine or its external drives. Is this correct?
December 29, 2012 8:11
Scott,

Thanks for your post. Unfortunately, I got stuck on step 7. When I start the CrashPlan client it prompts me for my credentials. I enter them then get the message "Unable to connect, check our network." after a while. I have confirmed that the IP address in the ui.properties file is correct, and I've restarted the CrashPlan service a few times all to no avail. When I restore the ui.properties file to its original configuration, I can connect to CrashPlan as before. Any ideas?

-Ed
December 29, 2012 9:00
Ed L - No, you can also pay CrashPlan for your Mac and run it there also, so you're backing up TWO computers to one CrashPlan account.

Ed - Did you uncomment the port also? See come of the comments above.
December 30, 2012 10:45
Great explanation, many thanks!
Guy
January 01, 2013 19:26
For those having issues to connect with crashplan to the NAS here are the steps which make it working:

1. Start and Stop the Crashplan service on the synology if you just installed it!
Note: The first time you run the server you will need to stop it and restart it before you can connect the client. This is because a config file that’s only created on first run needs to be edited by one of my scripts. The engine is then configured to listen on all interfaces on the default port 4243.
2. Uncomment also servicePort

Then it works!

Thanks Scott for the excellent article

Daniel
January 02, 2013 4:58
Scott,

Many thanks for this guide. My unlimited Mozy account was about to expire, and I wanted to switch to something else. I upgraded to CrashPlan+ family.

I am having a problem similar to Ed L. The CrashPlan application is busy churning away the initial backup for my NAS (Synology DS409 with four 3 TB WD Red Drives). However, I am unable to see if the client computer is also backed up. CrashPlan Service is still running on the PC (Windows 7). Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Brian L
January 04, 2013 5:32
Thanks for the feedback, Scott. I really don't want to pay for an additional CrashPlan so I can backup another device.

The way I organize my data, my critical stuff goes on my Mac, which CP does backup. My NAS does have items which are important, but they're not critical.

Strangely enough, my NAS's "public" shared folder shows up on CP. I think it's because it has access restrictions. I'm going to play around w/ my settings and see what I can backup.
January 08, 2013 22:42
Thanks for this, it is working like a charm!
January 09, 2013 2:32
Scott,

Thanks for the column, I was able to get my DS213 configured and working with now issues.

Do you know if the new DSM beta (4.2) has issues with the CrashPlan configuration? I rather hold off on upgrading if it breaks the connection with my CrashPlan backup.
January 12, 2013 0:35
Just some additional info around the Java SE. My DSM 4.1 has a "Java Manager" package which I just ran that connected the Java dots a little bit nicer than downloading and uploading the JRE manually. Of course, it wants the JDK rather than JRE, but big deal.

The only reason I know this is because I accidentally hit one of the buttons on the Java package while CrashPlan was running (oops, after a month running fine, I'd forgot why it was there) and it promptly removed Java from the system and CrashPlan wouldn't start after the inode let it go on the next shutdown.
January 12, 2013 1:27
I've set this up and it seems to be working great. I was previously backing up my main PC to CrashPlan Central (without going through the Synology NAS). Have I lost the ability to do that? In other words, is it an either/or choice -- either use the local client to control the backup on the NAS or the local computer? I'd like to continue doing both. (I have the CrashPlan Central Family Plan so I'm permitted to backup multiple computers.)
January 12, 2013 4:19
Jeff - You'd want to go back into the properties file and comment out the part where you tell CrashPlan to talk to the NAS. Then (assuming you have a separate license for your PC) you can continue to back it up as you did before.

Raymond - I haven't personally had any issues with DSM 4.2. I am avoiding messing with my Java config, though, because it works, even though it really wants to update itself.
January 12, 2013 9:33
So is this possible - have multiple local computers/laptops backup to the Synology, then have only the Synology talk to the crashplan servers? Ie, can the synology count as your single computer that's doing the online backup or do you have to have the crashplan family since you are backing up multiple devices' data?
January 12, 2013 11:11
Chris - You don't have to have CrashPlan Family, I don't think. You can have to individual computer subscriptions, one for the SERVER and one for the Desktop.
January 19, 2013 11:21
I installed everything according to the manual. Crashplan and Java are running on the NAS and on my computer.

But after changing the IP in ui.properties to the IP of the NAS, I'm no longer able to login to CrashPlan. When I add the "#" again, I'm again able to login. Please help me, what did I do wrong?
January 25, 2013 2:52
Hi Chris


Thanks a lot for a great article! However, I am using RAID 1 on my Synology NAS and would like to know whether this might cause any problems with the Crashplan backup. I haven't signed for the service yet, as I would like to get this clear before doing anything.

Will the online backup work? And if so, will it back up every file just once? It should, but I just want to be 100% sure...

Thanks,
Ivan
January 25, 2013 23:08
Hi

Just one question, would the crashplan also take backups from synology even if my windows computer on which the client is running is switched off.

Regards
Sammy
January 26, 2013 0:10
Sammy - Yes, it runs on the Synology and only backs up the Synology files.

Ivan - It should work regardless of file system.

Chris - The Client UI controls the remote machine. So if you've got it pointed to the server, it only manages the server. If you want to manage the local machine, you uncomment.
January 26, 2013 11:10
Thanks Scott,

so finally, I went ahead and installed crashplan, as a test run backed up couple of files, so far so good, if it works as intended, I might take the unlimited plan.

One request scott, though most of the setting of crashplan are self explanatory, the "frequency and version" setting under backup TAB, in settings is really confusing. I could make out only the first slide bar "backup frequency" which I presume means how frequently you want to take the back up. Rest under "versions to keep from" is very confusing .....

Is it possible for you to write a small article explaining it. Hope ts not too much to ask .......

Regards
January 26, 2013 21:27
Hi,

Great article, just what I was looking for. However....I'm trying to set this up on my DS212j, but I somehow can't connect to the NAS from my main computer. I have:
- Installed the crashplan service on the NAS; it is up and running
- Stopped and restarted the crashplan service on the NAS (more than once)
- Installed the client on my main PC
- uncommented the serviceHost line in ui.properties and entered my NAS's IP (100% correct)
- uncommented the servicePort line, as suggested in the comments here.

Still, I get the "unable to connect to backup engine, retry?" error when I start Crashplan on the main PC.

Any thoughts? I even tried opening the 4243 port on the NAS's firewall, but to no avail.
January 27, 2013 0:07
Never mind my last post. I thought I had opened the port in my firewall, but didn't realize I had not saved my settings. With the port open, it works. For those who are running a firewall on their NAS (DMS 4.1): go to Control Center>Firewall>Allow/Deny tab. Click Create, choose Custom. Type: Destination port. Protocol: All (if anyone knows the specific protocol...). Port: 4243. Click OK, OK, and Save.
January 27, 2013 23:03
Excellent, worked first time! Will try this out before seeing if the new Synology Amazon Glacier is worth it.

NB: Needed to create a second Crashplan+ subscription to allow a backups from both a Mac and the NAS (possibly unnecessary long term ...)
January 31, 2013 15:41
Hi Scott, when you podcast about the Synology DiskStation you mentioned "can't solve the indexing problem until the NAS supports Indexing Service" and suggested a 3rd party tool to add NAS UNC paths to Windows Libraries. Comments are closed on that thread so I'm hoping to catch you here.

Two things:
  • Forcing the non-indexed UNC path into the Windows library seems to criple certain useful features like the Arrange By dropdown so I don't do that cos I love to arrange by tag on my photos. Have you noticed that?
  • Any update on Synology or any NAS vendor support for Indexing Service?
Thanks
February 05, 2013 18:48
Hi Scott,

A couple of questions.

1. I have a ds212j with 256m memory. Is this enough.
2. Which java version 7 do I download. There are 4 different choices. Arm ver 6/7 headless eabi, ver 7 headless server, ver 7 headful eabi, and ver 5
headless eabi.

Thanks,
Arnie
February 06, 2013 2:40
Arnie - Only 256megs? My gut says probably not. Is that an ARM or Intel chip? Seems like a smaller Synology, and this might be too much for it to handle.

John - I'm going to meet with Synology and have lunch, I'll let you know.
February 06, 2013 18:43
Hey Scott

I have installed java and crashplan onto the diskstation and all seems to be working well. According to the gentleman at PCloadletter, he said it will work but don't try to backup a huge amount. I have about 70 gigs and it has been backing up since yesterday with a couple of days left. Thanks for your easy instructions. I tried Glacier and didn't like the way it work and the billing was confusing. Also I am using DSM 4.2 beta.

Thanks,
Arnie
February 12, 2013 20:45
Hi Scott

Does running CrashPlan allow the NAS to hibernate?

BR, Jaakko
February 13, 2013 1:37
Thanks for the article. I'm running the latest firmware on my Synology 1511+ so it's slightly different. Overall, it took some messing about but I did get it up and running. Thanks for the article.
February 14, 2013 5:30
Great article/how to. My question is, if I want to backup my mac and my NAS to the same crashplan account, how would i go about installing it. also, what ip would i put in my ui properties file?
February 16, 2013 1:54
Steve - You'd need an account that had a license for each computer. Setup the ui.properties to point to the NAS. Get the NAS set up. Then remove the ui.properties pointers, and setup the local machine.
February 21, 2013 14:53
Hi, im excited by this as i've been looking for a solutions for about a year. I have a DS211+

I have one question

when I try to install the java from package center, install/update i keep getting told 'invalid file format.' when I try to click on next.

The file is this one
ejre-1_6_0_38-fcs-b05-linux-arm-sflt-eabi-headless-13_nov_2012.tar.gz

I've tried it with both v6 and v7 from oracle and many different combinations from the ones on offer.

Also when I try settings, package sources, add, and try to add http://packages.pcloadletter.co.uk, the response I get is 'invalid location'

I've spent about 3 hours trying to solve this and would really appreciate you if you can spot what I am doing wrong.

Thanks!

James
February 23, 2013 6:57
Got it! It was my DNS that was wrong, thanks!
March 03, 2013 13:28
This worked perfectly for me. I wasn't sure which Java package to download but when I went to install the Java Package from pcloadletter, it told me I didn't have the right one and which one I needed. Everything else worked exactly as it was detailed, thank you!!!!
March 12, 2013 23:43
I'm running DSM 4.2-3202 from 3/1/13. Under Package Manager, there is no tab for "Other Sources". I tried the manual install but I keep getting "Invalid File Format". I have tried all of the Version 7 Java clients with the same result.

Any ideas?
March 14, 2013 12:58
Just got this working on a with only 256mb of ram. I'd tried (&failed) previously to get pc load letter's steps working ( before he turned the java install and crashplan clients into packages) but this worked a charm!

Two minor notes, I was able to edit the properties file fine with windows wordpad, and I could put my synology's host name in there rather than ip address
March 14, 2013 12:58
Oh and I forgot to say - thanks!
March 14, 2013 12:59
Argh it's a ds209 synology box (curse you, iPad autocorrect!)
March 16, 2013 23:14
Hello Scott and other commenters.

I was under the impression that this hack was to be able to use synology as a destination back up, but after I have done the entire thing, I am under the impression that it is indeed to be able to backup the Synology to Crashplan Central or somewhere else?

Is there a way to run Crashplan so that the Synology is destination for backup of other computers.

I am getting slightly confused as to which one is the backup source and which one is the backup destination here...

Many thanks !
Dan
March 20, 2013 17:17
I did the setup you recommended and it worked fine up until I upgraded the software about a month ago.

Now what I'm seeing is that it scans, but doesn't include most of my files. It sees the directories but doesn't "see" the actual files and thuse I went from 400 GIG's of backup to crashplan down to 800 mg and I don't know how to make the software "see" the rest of the files.

Anyone getting this problem? Any solutions? I even deleted crashplan and reinstalled it after I upgraded to DSM 4.2.
March 22, 2013 16:54
Thought I would share, I have the DS212J and although its low on Memory, synology is working fine, although taxes the CPU and memory sits at about 50%:

http://monosnap.com/image/EuBhFIyeFKTQTM3eY7zYtskhb

http://monosnap.com/image/YyVx892EdjFZVSEuz2vS7a7nK

Anyways, just thought I would share, great article Scott
March 25, 2013 19:41
Hello,
Looking for a little help. I purchased Crashplan Family+ and set out to make it work with my Synology 212J NAS. I went through all the steps (successfully!) but I still cannot get the CP client on my end to talk to the NAS.

Similarly to an earlier post here:
main computer. I have:
- Installed the crashplan service on the NAS; it is up and running
- Stopped and restarted the crashplan service on the NAS (more than once)
- Installed the client on my main PC
- uncommented the serviceHost line in ui.properties and entered my NAS's IP (100% correct)

I also uncommented the servicePort line, as suggested in the comments here. Then, I went to Synology's UI and allowed all in/out connections through port 4243

I originally didn't do the above two steps and was sure adding them would fix it, but it did not.

When I say it is not working, by this I mean that when I open the CP client BACKUP>FILES>CHANGE.... I do not see the Z,X,Y drive letters which is usually the letters I mount to.

HELP! :(
Tom







March 27, 2013 23:53
I am experiencing the same as "Dunlop" above. I'm running DSM 4.2-3202 from 3/1/13. Under Package Manager, there is no tab for "Other Sources". I tried the manual install but I keep getting "Invalid File Format". I have tried all of the Version 7 Java clients with the same result.

Does anybody have a solution for this?

Thanks!
TJ
TJ
March 28, 2013 11:25
Based on this - thank you! - I established a slightly different method.

- All PCs and the Mac in the household have CrashPlan installed, and backup the files according to the computer's usage.

- The Synology RAID does the following backups, all using CrashPlan:
a) Cloud backup to CrashPlan
b) most important stuff (photos, videos, development) to a locally attached USB drive (for a quick duplication in case the Synology breaks down before (a) has finished.
c) offsite backup to a second Synology machine in my parent's basement.

So really, I only have two copies, but I'm combining "different formats" with "1 off-site", automatically. I feel safe enough with this solution.

(My parents use the Synology themselves, we bought big enough machines each and "divided" the available HDD slots. When I need more space, I buy two discs, one for my machine, one for my parents'.)
March 29, 2013 11:52
Just wanted to say thanks for the guide. I've been using CrashPlan for some time, but also have a DiskStation. Combining the two was made easy, thanks to you!
March 29, 2013 19:40
I found the answer to my question above. In DSM 4.2 they changed "Other Sources" to "Community" in the Package Center. You will be able to find the Java and Crashplan package in there. I hope that helps somebody.
TJ
March 31, 2013 14:42
TJ,

Solved my problem - thanks!

Awesome guide!
March 31, 2013 23:51
Thanks for the clear writeup Scott! Just got Crashplan running on my DS213+.
April 04, 2013 1:21
So I had the wrong Java package installed 7, and not 6, which is what I need for a 212j Synology. I reinstalled six. I was very hopeful but when I restated everything, I still cannot see the NAS in CP. What am I doing wrong here? The backup> other on CP has my C drive as well as E thorough G. No matter how many times I map the NAS to X,Y or Z it does not see the drive.

the ui.properties file should only reference the IP of the NAS, right? In my case 192.168.0.199, and not any directories that I mounted to my computer (i.e. drive X is really //192.168.0.199/SHARED).

Now I'm certain I followed all the steps, both client and java package are running... the IP is confirmed....what's the deal? I'm starting to get bummed out.



Tom
April 04, 2013 1:23
I am running DSM 3.2
Tom
April 04, 2013 23:00
Hi Scott,
Do you have any thoughts on the DS213 ?
The 1511 is super ice but also pretty spend.
The 213 thought being a 2 bay NAS has a 2 GHz processor but the max.supported memory is 512 mb(I think). If the main usage is Backups and streaming,is the 213 decent enough or limiting in your opinion?
April 08, 2013 23:58
Hi Scott,
I have installed the headless Crashplan package on my Synology DS413 with DSM 4.2 and it works perfectly! It was so easy!

My setup is Synology DS41

Thank you so much for your hard work!
Ben
April 12, 2013 20:47
Hi Scott,

Thanks a lot for these instructions. Helpful - and I'm still stuck at installing the Java package. Are you installing it with the "Manual Install" in the Package Center? It says "Invalid file format". I chose ejre-7u10-fcs-b18-linux-arm-vfp-client_headless-28_nov_2012.tar.gz which is a Java SE7 for my a ARM. Not sure if the tar.gz file extension is not what the package installer is looking for?

I also just have 256MB RAM - shall I stop right here?

Thanks so much

Martin
May 02, 2013 16:11
Nobody has mentioned speeds, which are critical to me, I'm looking for a fast transfer. Any thoughts or recommendations appreciated.

- 4TB of data to upload.

- DS412+ running DSM 4.2, 1GB RAM.

- ADSL max upload 800 kbps, 6.5 Meg Download.

How long are we looking at for this with CrashPlan and would it be faster with an alternative cloud service?

Cheers
May 10, 2013 3:11
Got everything setup up on my DS1010+ but I am running into one issue. The calculated folder size does not match the actual folder size. I have approximately 50GB in on folder but when I add it for backup through that GUI it reads as 3.1GB. Can anyone explain why this happens?

Running DSM 4.2-3202 on a DS1010+
May 12, 2013 5:15
I've got java and CrashPlan installed on my DS212j, but Crashplan won't start. I go in and do "Action, Run" then I get a message that says "Wait a few seconds, then stop and restart the package to allow desktop client connections." However, when I refresh it still shows a status of "Stopped". I haven't been able to find any way to resolve this. Does anyone have any suggestions? Any ideas are much appreciated.
DZ
May 12, 2013 15:13
Any reason that restores would be extremely slow? We're talking 6hrs for two files totalling 2MB. Service is 10MB down and I can get that speeds when downloading files.
May 12, 2013 18:02
Crashplan & my DS 1512+ have been working flawlessly until 3 days ago where Crashplan does not see the Diskstation anymore. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Crash Plan and that did not work either. All Crash plan sees are my local drives. Anyone knows what might have gone wrong?
May 13, 2013 23:39
I have installed and connected properly to the headless client, but it just keeps saying "Waiting for connection". I have forwarded port 4242 and I have disabled the firewall on my DS212J.

Any ideas as to what might be wrong?

Any help is very much appreciated!

Was a bit worried that my 256 mb ram is not enough, but the app seems to be running fine. Just won't connect.
May 19, 2013 16:30
I am considering installing the PC Load Letter package, but wonder: How often does CrashPlan change their software such that one has to "rebuild" the Synology set-up?
If that happens several times a year, that could be a pain... Or do the PC LoadLetter packages semi-auto-update? (Does the Synology note that an update is available and allow one to select that for updating in a similar way to the Photo Station package?)

Better yet: Has anyone heard anything about if and when Synology might officially support CrashPlan?

-Mike
May 21, 2013 2:54
I got to thinking that I ought to post my question to Patters' (PC Load Letter) site, since the answer might come directly from the creator of the package himself. I got some replies on his site that lead me to believe that there is not much to do unless Synology updates DSM. Hence, I may go ahead and try the PC Load Letter package this upcoming weekend, but following Scott's wonderful instructions.

-Mike
June 02, 2013 17:16
To answer Jeff Alperin, it seems that you cannot have both your PC and your NAS being backed up at the same time if you have CrashPlan installed on only one PC. You can go back and forth between the two only. I think you would need to install CrashPlan on another PC that you weren't backing up to CrashPlan and then do this trick there.

Scott, this is outstanding, thank you so much for making this trick understandable to more simple minds!

June 13, 2013 17:09
Great article - saved me a massive headache and a weekend of frustrations!!!
June 15, 2013 1:17
Thx,

One question ...

I've got a low performance, inexpensive NAS placed at a friends place.
Every night my setup is performing a incremental backup to that NAS.
Apart from that a RAID setup on a ds412+ and even a backup to a in-house rsync NAS.

Why bother with some manual offsite backup rotation or even crashplan when it's easy to place a NAS offsite ?



Regards, Dan
June 16, 2013 18:58
Thanks for this guide.
Scott can you explain why I only see the public folder (synology) in my Crash Plan list.
I assume If i move my work projects there, they won't be secure anymore. I wish I could configure which folders crash plan can see. Can anybody help me with this?
June 18, 2013 0:37
Hi, for some reason the crashplan client is asking for login data after making the described changes. when I enter my login data (which actually work, I have double checked via the website), the client now says unable to connect. check the network.
is it possible that crashplan figured out that I am trying to backup my nas and they now prevent the login? Any other ideas?
June 21, 2013 5:55
I was trying to figure this out all day. hope i can now figure out how to do this.
June 22, 2013 10:25
still unable to connect to backup server after the client connected once. anybody else has this?
June 22, 2013 11:04
Oh, it says unable to connect to backup engine, I guess this means to the crashplan engine running on my synology. what could be causing this? it was able to connect before.

June 22, 2013 13:04
Hi, This guide worked good for me.
Just a few things i had to do to get it working.
I have a synology ds411 with 512 mb and to make matters worse it was doing a consistency check.
I had many problems connecting to the nas.
When you change the ui.properties file, on a slow nas with a high load, i changed
serviceHost=192.168.2.105
servicePort=4243
pollerPeriod=10000 # 10 second seconds
connectRetryDelay=10000 # 10 seconds
connectRetryAttempts=10
#showWelcome=true

So crashplan would have more time to connect :)
After that it worked very well, not fast but workable and a synology is always on anyway.
July 03, 2013 6:12
Thanks!
July 05, 2013 16:20
I did used this guide but still not able to connect to my Syno.
I have a 210j and still unable to connect to 192.168.57.10:4243
Even with Martijn Tromp's slow NAS settings.
Need some help please...
July 05, 2013 16:23
Owh, First i installed Crashplan on my iMac, now i like to change it to backup my Syno.
Still 6 days for my CrashPlan+ Trial will expire.
do i have to change my settings from imac to Syno, and how?

Thanks in advance
July 06, 2013 10:36
Hi,

Thanks for the guide - followed it and I think it installed successfully on a DiskStation 213. Interestingly it couldn't download the CrashPlan package, so I had to download manually and put in the public share.

When I run the client on my Windows PC (after adjusting config file) it asks me to login to CrashPlan service or create new account (thus it seems to connect to DiskStation ok). Choosing either option results in it saying "Please Wait" for agents and then presents in an error "Unable to connect, check your network".

I set the config file back to local settings and restarted the service and was able to register a new account successfully and login.

Put the config back to the DiskStation IP and again the same problem... was thinking perhaps an internet access issue with the NAS (remembering I had to download Crashplan for Linux manually), but it downloads other packages ok.

Any thoughts anyone on what I can test/check?

Thanks...
July 20, 2013 11:55
Hi,

Great tutorial!
I've got de crashplanengine working on my DS209+. Everything is working fine, backup runs continuously. However crashplan prevents my NAS from going into hibernation. I therefore want to stop & start the crashplanengine on my NAS once a day using the task scheduler in DSM 4.2. I cannot get this to work. I'm using two user-define task:

Crashplan start
/usr/local/crashplan/bin/CrashPlanEngine start

Crahplan stop
/usr/local/crashplan/bin/CrashPlanEngine stop

No success so far, any suggestions?

Thanks!
July 22, 2013 23:34
Thanks for sharing these detailed steps, Scott! This was a primary motivator in me also choosing to buy and set up a Synology device for my home file storage.

My setup and some things I've learned are documented here.

Thanks, Scott
July 24, 2013 5:37
Has anyone happen to test this process running the current 4.3 Beta DSM?
July 28, 2013 16:35
Hi Scott,

With your setup are you then able to have multiple crashplan clients pointing to your synology and the just a single crashplan account (being your synology) to sync with crashplan?
August 01, 2013 16:34
Hi All,

How safe are files put onto Crash Plan? Im meaning like privacy

thanks
August 04, 2013 7:12
Howdy would you mind stating which blog platform you're using? I'm planning to start my own blog soon but I'm having a tough time selecting between BlogEngine/Wordpress/B2evolution and Drupal. The reason I ask is because your layout seems different then most blogs and I'm looking for
something completely unique. P.S Sorry for
being off-topic but I had to ask!
August 16, 2013 10:53
When Hacking - Headless Synology CrashPlan, does the
CrashPlan app still Sync Online also ?

Or is the Sync Just to the Synology Box ?

Thanks

August 19, 2013 16:40
Hi Scott,

Really like your Hanselminutes - I am an eager listener.

What if you only want a single file restored from Crashplan. Is it possible ?

BR
Ulrik
August 25, 2013 19:39
First off...thanks so much for this great resource and work...awesome effort.

Can anyone help me with making the below suggested change to my DS412+ that I found on the Synology Wiki. I'm a Linux newb and stuck. I can SSH to the DiskStation> but do not have the CLI skill to get any further. My CrashPlan cloud backups were running very well until recently when the below constant re-start/disconnect issue started occurring.

Thanks in advance.


"CrashPlan silently crashes, and restarts (sometimes repeatedly) or stops after working for awhile

If there are large or many files in the backup set, it is possible that the Java VM runs out of memory and crashes. This would be evident if a GUI is connected as it will complain about loss of connection. It may be possible to find "Caused by: java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space" in /opt/crashplan/log as well.

This situation can be resolved by increasing the maximum heap size for the virtual machine, if the device has enough RAM to support it. The -Xmx switch determines the maximum size, while -Xms is the initial (minimum) size. Note that the maximum size CAN be set larger than installed RAM, which may be necessary in certain cases. Although this may cause swapping, it will only occur if necessary, and the performance loss may not be noticeable depending on workload.

Suggested values for devices with 1GB RAM and 2GB swap, not running any other memory intensive applications: modify the first line in /opt/crashplan/bin/run.conf

from:
SRV_JAVA_OPTS="-Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -Dapp=CrashPlanService -DappBaseName=CrashPlan -Xms20m -Xmx512m ...


to:
SRV_JAVA_OPTS="-Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -Dapp=CrashPlanService -DappBaseName=CrashPlan -Xms128m -Xmx1536m ..."

August 27, 2013 8:42
Hi Scott

I think I followed steps correctly and I can see all "7. HOW DO YOU KNOW IT IS WORKING?"
but my tray icon says "waiting for log in", also the icon is gray...

I need help Please!
August 28, 2013 0:17
thanks so much for all this information, now what about 4.3? 8-)
August 28, 2013 19:17
I did some more digging and managed to actually resolve my issue and am once again successfully backing up to the cloud. I changed the file /volume1/@appstore/CrashPlan/syno_package.vars by editing in vi to remove the # in front of the command: #USR_MAX_HEAP=XXXX and making XXXX=1536 After editing, I stop re-started the package. Google searches for basic vi usage and some advice from co-workers saw me through here. Thanks anyway. And again, thank you for this great information.
August 31, 2013 8:23
Roonie,

I think I'm having the same problem as you. Can you explain how you found this file /volume1/@appstore/CrashPlan/syno_package.vars

I'm really new at all this, and can't seem to find this file. I'm assuming it's somewhere on the my DS112 but not sure how to get there. I don't see Volume1 under File Station. Once I locate it, can I just use textedit on my mac to make the changes you suggest? Or will I be editing through the DSM UI?

Thanks.
September 01, 2013 11:16
I upgraded to DSM 4.3 but now I can't connect to the service running on the NAS anymore. All worked OK on DSM 4.2. Has anybody experienced the same issue?
September 01, 2013 18:02
Meir,

Log in as root and type the following at the command line:

vi /volume1/@appstore/CrashPlan/syno_package.vars

You will need to know some basic vi commands to do the editing and save the updates (Google vi commands). Once edited and saved, restart the CrashPlan package. Not sure if you will be successful on a DS112 but it worked for me on a DS412+ with 1GB of RAM.
September 08, 2013 3:38
I currently have the Synology DS1512+ unit. I too am running version 4.3 but haven't tried installing the Crashplan setup mentioned above on it yet. As Christoper mentioned above, after he upgraded to version 4.3 his no longer worked. Before I try installing this, I want to make certain someone else has it running on their 4.3 version. Also (and I apologize if this was already answered), what is the largest single sized file Crashplan will allow? I too have many family HD videos that are several gigs in size each and those are what I want to upload the most and protect. It doesn't do any good to go through with this if I can't back those up to CrashPlan's site servers. Thanks guys!!
September 11, 2013 15:05
Thanks for this, really helpful, have crashplan running on my DS 412+ and works like a charm.

Regards
Joe
September 12, 2013 7:26
Just wanted to say thanks - got this running on a DS411j on 4.3. Was PO'ed when I realized you couldn't backup a mounted volume to Crashplan but your turtorial (and Synology Package) saved the day!
September 24, 2013 7:57
I've got crashplan running on my Synology 412+ thanks to this guide. Scott thanks for your help! I'm having a slight issue though. Crashplan doesn't seem to see the shared folders I've created. It sees the folders that were created by by the audio station application but not the folders I've created. If I create a new folder without changing the permissions crashplan will see it, but if I create a folder and apply domain groups it doesn't show up. I'm wondering if this is a permissions issue since I control access to my folders with Windows ACLs. Any assistance is much appreciated.
September 27, 2013 11:22
Just want to confirm I got this working on Synology DS213j. First attempt failed as I tried to use Java 7; it installed but would not start the CrashPlan service properly. With Java 6 it worked without a hitch. So far so good. It manages to initiate and complete nightly backups of a few gigs consisting of smallish files (around 15-20 Mb each). Will have to monitor as the server fills up to see if the heap size needs adjusting as the backup tasks increase in size. Utilizes 80% CPU when running but very little memory (like 25%) of 512 Mb. Thanks for making this beautiful solution available.
September 29, 2013 18:57
I couldn't get past the Java installation stage, as Java 7 didn't work and I couldn't locate version 6.

Anybody have a quick link to the actual file that works? So many of them to choose from.
October 14, 2013 18:20
Works fine on DS213j. However, i noticed that since i installed the Crashplan package, the disk in my DS213j isn't going to standby/spindown anymore. Is there a way to fix this?
October 15, 2013 6:15
Greetings. I have a DS213j. I've done everything that has been described on this page, but have been unsuccessful in getting my CrashPlan+ to link up to the NAS.

1) The USER HOMES SERVICE is checked.
2) The Public folder has been created and shared.
3) Java 6 & 7 were installed (currently on 6), and load successfully on the NAS.
4) The repository has been created, and CrashPlan+ has been installed on two separate Windows 8 computers. It loads successfully. Both show positive results in their respective logs. The ui.properties text file is updated to the proper IP address.
5) When CrashPlan+ loads on the computers, it just times out saying that it cannot connect.

I'm now officially tapped for ideas, and am now easily on my 3rd+ hour of trying to make this work. Any thoughts about how to make this actually work? I'm a reasonably intelligent person, but seem to be inadequate to the task.

Thanks for reading!
October 21, 2013 19:43
First, wanted to say thanks for this info, very helpful!

However, my backup has stopped after getting about 125 GB backed up. I now get an error in Crashplan saying the backup destination is not available.

Looking at the package, it shows it's running. I've tried stopping and restarting, but no change. I did try shutting down and restarting the Synology, but do help there either. Same with the PC that I have configured to point to the Synology.

Has anyone seen this with their Synology and if so, what was the fix?

Thanks,
Chris
October 25, 2013 1:24
Scott, for me is not clear: even you stop that service on you computer Crashplan still use your computer to backup data from NAS or after you done with setup you can disconnect computer and NAS talk to Crashplan directly?
October 25, 2013 22:00
Hi
Your great tutorial allowed me to set-up the headless client easily.
Everything worked fine until a couple of weeks ago when crashplan simply stopped connecting to the servers.
While I suspect it was the RAM I couldn't really locate the log files (crashplan support wasn't very helpful as they don't officially support a headless client).

So I have 2 main questions:
- How can I find the log files (once they are created using the crashplan central log service)
- How can I increase the RAM allocated to crash plan on my NAS

Thanks in advance
Tom
November 03, 2013 14:13
Hello
I've the same issue I think that @Todjk69.
All the setuup is fine on my Syno but I can't connect through my Mac.
When I load CrashPlan on my Mac (after updating the servicehost address) , I have to onnect to crashplan. Then, when I put my Id it says "the information you entered is incorrect".

NB1: it's working if I remove the servicehost line and connect to CrashPlan.

Does anyone has an Idea ?
Is there any forum somewhere on the tool ?

THanks!
November 05, 2013 13:11
I have Crashplan running on the latest DSM 4.3 in a 413j, after reinstall of Java 7 and the CP package. It works fine.

Except: the NAS Resource Monitor is not working, it can't "connect". I raised the issue at Synology Support, they checked my NAS remotely and claim some "binaries" in my NAS have been altered, they think by a 3rd party package like CP.

Through Synology Assistant I can see CPU load, but not individual processes. And there is some process with high CPU load, and when the NAS is not thumbnailing for photostation, or CP is not backing up, there is still a high CPU load.

Synology now advises DSM reset to get back the resource monitor: search on Synology Wiki How_to_Reset_the_Synology_System, but I don't know if the issue will return after reinstalling CP.

I'll keep you updated.
November 05, 2013 18:52
In case anyone was wondering:
The DS413 has a PPC processor, so I downloaded the Java file (currently) called ejre-7u45-fcs-b15-linux-ppc-e500v2-headless-26_sep_2013 from Oracle and then installed Java7 from PackageManager.

I just installed and my test backups are working great so far, hitting around 7Mbps-11Mbps of my 35Mbps upstream capacity. I didn't do this, so I'm just hoping that none of my directories or filenames contain non US ASCII characters!

Thanks for a great post.
Tim
November 06, 2013 20:55
Great guide and has been working great for me on OSX 10.8.5. I just upgraded to 10.9 and crash plan will connect to the NAS but does nothing. it just says waiting for backup.
Any ideas?
I have java automatically updated to 1.7 on OSX and NAS.

Thanks,
Marco
November 07, 2013 6:43
Just finished setting up with my DS213j and everything seems to be going smoothly so far. Used soft-float java version for my NAS and installed the crashplan package.

Thanks again!
November 14, 2013 19:56
Scott..I loaded up CP Pro and added a schedule, it did not kick off - so I hit the button to force it....any idea if because this is on the synology, will schedules work or is the first backup needing to be run for a schedule to kick in?
Ron
November 16, 2013 17:05
Does this work on the DS413? I get as far as installing the Java package, but within the Package Center, under Settings, I don't see "Other Sources". Within the main Package center, there is nothing for either Java or for Crashplan.

Is this due to the fact that the 413 is running a PowerPC chip vs the ARM or Intel?

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.