Locking Down Off-Site (RSync) Backups Between Two AS5304T NASs

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Ringo
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Locking Down Off-Site (RSync) Backups Between Two AS5304T NASs

Post by Ringo »

Hi,

I’ve searched the forums and cannot find an answer to the following problem.

I have recently bought an Asustor AS5304T NAS running two 8TB drives in RAID 1. I have a friend who has also bought the same NAS (Asustor AS5304T) and is also running two drives in Raid 1. We are each using our NAS as a local backup for our respective PCs.

What we want to do now is to use each other’s NAS for off-site backup, AND make it that we cannot access/see each other’s data when it is on our own NAS. I can set up the off-site backup using RSync, but I am able to view/access my friend’s data when it is on my NAS and he can access my data when it is on his NAS.

I can use EZ Sync to sync my data from my computer directly to my friends Asustor AS5304T NAS and he cannot access my EZ Sync data. But this way will require two different back up types (one from my PC to my local NAS and then EZ Sync from my PC to my friends NAS) and is getting a bit complicated. EZ Sync is significantly slower than RSync, as well as the need to have the PC running until the sync is completed.

Is there a way to lock down the RSync backup, or use some other method to ensure that my data, synced from my NAS and located on my friend’s NAS, cannot be easily accessed by him, and vice versa?


Thanks
Ringo 
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Nazar78
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Re: Locking Down Off-Site (RSync) Backups Between Two AS5304T NASs

Post by Nazar78 »

You'll probably need to look for other apps that's simple to setup on the PC such as Duplicati or Syncthing.
But this way will require two different back up types (one from my PC to my local NAS and then EZ Sync from my PC to my friends NAS) and is getting a bit complicated.
Isn't this the better way of backing up? So you would have two copies, one on your NAS and the other on your friend? Look for the 3-2-1 backup strategy (two local and one offsite).
AS5304T - 16GB DDR4 - ADM-OS modded on 2GB RAM
Internal:
- 4x10TB Toshiba RAID10 Ext4-Journal=Off
External 5 Bay USB3:
- 4x2TB Seagate modded RAID0 Btrfs-Compression
- 480GB Intel SSD for modded dm-cache (initramfs auto update patch) and Apps

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Ringo
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Joined: Wed Mar 22, 2023 4:29 pm

Re: Locking Down Off-Site (RSync) Backups Between Two AS5304T NASs

Post by Ringo »

Thanks for the response. I will have a look at Duplicati and Syncthing.

I currently have 2 on-site backups, and know I should add an off-site one.

The biggest disadvantage I can see of using EZ Sync as a backup option is that if a file is (say mistakenly) deleted on the PC, that file delete is then duplicated via EZ Sync to the off-site backup and then there is no off-site backup of that file. Using Asustor Backup Plan, there is a setting that will not delete files from the backup when it is deleted on the PC. I cannot see a similar setting in EZ Sync.
Ringo
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Mar 22, 2023 4:29 pm

Re: Locking Down Off-Site (RSync) Backups Between Two AS5304T NASs

Post by Ringo »

For those that are interested, I found Duplicati and RSync did everything that I needed. I set up Duplicati to do an encrypted backup from our respective PCs to our respective NAS. I then used RSync to duplicate that encrypted backup respectively from our NAS to each other’s NAS. This enabled the actual backup to be very quick via LAN, and then the RSync transfer via the Internet could happen in slower time in the background.

If a restore is required, there are two options:
1. Use Duplicati to directly connect to our respective NAS via the LAN, or
2. Use Duplicati to connect via the Internet to the other NAS.

I found that using Duplicati to connect to the NAS (either by LAN or the Internet) required:
1. Connecting via WebDAV just needed to log on with User access on the NAS, but
2. Connecting via SFTP (SSH) needed to log on with Administrator access on the NAS.
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