Cloud backup and other concerns...

[MadDogDean]

I've had the AS6604T for a week and so far and relatively impressed.

What does not impress me is Asustor's lack of attention to Documention - or should I say "lack of documentation"!!

Following last week's Deadbolt assault, I upgraded to ADM 4. However I see now that "Backup & Restore" no longer offers Cloud backup. Instead we have a new app called "Cloud Backup Center". So here is an app with no information, no details, no forum page nothing. Click on any of the few chosen cloud offerings and figure it out.

Is there a chance Asustor will hire another technical writer or two to provide documentation (and possibly to update the docs to features that have changed) - or are we just pawns in their game? Perhaps they will develop a useable UI and intelligent interface?

External Devices - Printers does not work with Epson inkjet (unless you shell the $50AUS for VirtualHere)
Cloud Backup Center - has no details, potentially lacking support for S3 compatible datacenters (but DOES include a preset for Amazon S3 CHINA!)
- inane design and operation

For example, if I select the source folder "Photos" located at:
- Documents
---- Sub-folder 1
------- Yesterdays project
---------- Photos
------------- photo1.jpg, photo2.jpg. etc

And backup to folder
- Projects

Cloud backup will recreate the entire folder structure!!! I end up with:

- Projects
---- Documents
------- Sub-folder 1
---------- Yesterdays project
------------- Photos
---------------- photo1.jpg, photo2.jpg. etc

This is absolute insanity!!!!

As a hobby programmer, I know how much time goes into writing new apps. There should be working papers describing these new offerings and this should be cleaned up and provided to us. "We" would be the people that PAID Asustor money for the privilege of buying their hardware and paying their wages.

Or perhaps this is just another wisp in the wind and a waste of a few hundred dollars that'll end up in the back of a closet somewhere!!
I just hope I haven't made a bad choice and maybe should have gone with one of the big guys...

[mc1457]

Same concern re documentation: I'm using Cloud Backup Center to back up to S3. There is no documentation, that I can find. It leaves far too much guesswork.

The biggest issue I have (after working out the permissions) is the lack of incremental backups. Users need to be VERY aware that if your bucket has versioning enabled and you are backing up automatically your S3 usage (and your AWS bill) will grow without bounds if you do not have a lifecycle policy on your bucket. All of which should have been discussed in documentation.

From what I can see so far, it appears that the app does not create new versions (perhaps because S3 is smarter than the app), but does upload all files every time. This makes Cloud Backup Center a non-starter for me. Cloud backup software should only upload files that have changed, at a minimum.

Permissions

Create an IAM user with only the following. Save the Access ID Key and Secret Key in a safe place, as you will need it any time you create new backups.

When you create an S3 backup job, the following API calls are issued:

• ListBuckets
• ListAllMyBuckets
• CreateBucket - even for an existing bucket. My best guess is that the developer thought this a handy way of determining if the bucket exists...or as a way of handling existing or new bucket in one API call
• GetBucketLocation - determine the region of the bucket to using in the PutObject API calls

The following is the minimum policy required for S3 backups to work:

Code: Select all

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "MinimalCloudBackupCenterPermissions",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "s3:PutObject",
                "s3:GetObject",
                "s3:AbortMultipartUpload",
                "s3:PutObjectRetention",
                "s3:DeleteObjectVersion",
                "s3:GetObjectAttributes",
                "s3:CreateBucket",
                "s3:ListBucket",
                "s3:DeleteObject",
                "s3:GetBucketLocation",
                "s3:ListAllMyBuckets"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "*"
            ]
        }
    ]
}

On the good side, backing up an entire NAS file system to an S3 folder is pretty trivial. It supports badwidth limits (I got blocked by my ISP without them). Scheduling is basic, but handy.

What I would like to see:

• Document the specific S3 permissions needed
• Offer the option to specify the bucket and region at the same time as the key, thus avoiding the need for s3:ListBuckets. "least-privilege" should be the goal.
• Offer full and incremental backups
• Leverage Lifecycle policies to enable users to save a limited number of versions of an object
• Remove the ability to create a bucket from the app. It's unnecessary and, as an AWS expert, I don't want software like this making decisions for me that may impact my spend.

I'll be using Amazon Storage Gateway cached volumes instead. Basically, it's a local cache for an S3 bucket with a CIFS or NFS mount on the local network. I'll be running the OVF image under VirtualBox. I'm upgrading my AS5202T to 16GB of RAM tomorrow (note: max supported is 8GB, but rumor is that 16GB will work). With the Storage Gateway I won't need backups: I'll use versioning on the S3 bucket with a Lifecycle Policy that will balance between number of versions and storage size. Also using a Lifecycle Policy to transition objects to cheaper storage tiers based on age. All this to replace a Dell PowerEdge 2950 running the same Storage Gateway and consuming 10x the electricity of this NAS.

[Gartenlampe]

Oh yes. To explain, I find it irresponsible for the manufacturers of various backup software to enable cloud backup for their customers and not to encrypt it!