[Pc_Support] Re: Synology DS-106 w/FTPS (explicit) access

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Tue, 2006-08-22 at 23:10 -0400, Damien McKenna wrote:
> It sure looks pretty nifty.

It's GbE interface has full jumbo frame support and whips the Buffalo
Gigabit LinkStation in performance according to Tom's.  The on-board
266MHz FreeScale processor might have a bit to do with that -- I think
the Buffalos are using older XScale (not sure).

And that's before the fact that the Buffalo does _not_ offer FTP-SSL/TLS
(FTPS) access.

> I'm also looking at the *Thecus N2050 ... cut ...

I'll answer that in another e-mail, since it's not a NAS.

> Too bad they don't have plain-jane SSH & SFTP, would have been better
> IMHO.  Ah well, maybe in a ROM upgrade..

Don't knock FTPS, it works well, using proven FTP mechanisms and then
the explicit SSL/TLS options for authentication and/or transfer.  It's
nice that the Synology does _full_ IETF standard explicit mode, and not
just an implicit (separate port 990), which makes it more compatible
with firewalls and whatnot.

Furthermore, SSH/SFTP can be a PITA to support.  After doing embedded
and secure file transfer work over the last 2 years, I really have a
_dislike_ for the OpenSSH codebase -- even OpenSSH 4.x.  The client
_and_ server are _both_ very _buggy_ and/or _limited_ when it comes to
options, error codes, etc...  The codebase really needs a serious
overhaul IMPO -- seems very "hacked."

> A bit expensive though.

Not really.

> That would be 100 *separate* *shares*, obviously you could share one
> folder and add sub-directories.

But it seems it only has per-user share security, like virtually all NAS
devices.  At least that's what it seems at first glance.

> Also... because it has MySQL and PHP you could install Gallery2 and use
> the Gallery2 exporter for iPhoto to put your photos in a network-shared
> album.  I do wish, though, that they used Gallery2 by default rather
> than their own system, it would give it much more flexibility.

There is photo support and other uPnP goodies -- although some things
are clearly Windows-only.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith          Professional, technical annoyance
mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org    http://thebs413.blogspot.com
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