QNAP NAS Community Forum

Goodmorning community !

I own a QNAP TS228-A which works very well on my local network.

Now, I would like to go to the next level.

I am currently using Google Drive to store and access any types of data (including personnal sensitive datas, YES I know it's bad and I want to change it !).

I would like to use my NAS as a Cloud Storage like Google Drive. I want to have a folder synchronized on my phone or PC which I can access offline and have a sync when I am online, just like Google Drive but on my Qnap Nas.

You could tell me: "just use Cloudlink with Qsync and you are good to go ! " but here is the thing: I want to have a secure access and I don't want my datas to pass through QNAP servers (China privacy policies ).

I have read many topics and from what I've seen, the best option is to use a direct connection with a VPN. My router does not support VPN, so I will need to host it on the NAS or to buy a new router.

Questions:
1/ Can I use Qsync and Qsync Pro (Android) through a VPN connection (OpenVPN hosted on the NAS) ?

2/ Does an OpenVPN server hosted on the NAS allow me to access computers on the same local network (like a VPN hosted on the router) or only the NAS itself ?

3/ On Android, when you setup a VPN connection, all you traffic goes through it. Is it right ? When I am on a public network, I don't want all my traffic to go through the VPN in the NAS, but just have a connection with the NAS like a Google drive and let my traffic go through the public network...

4/ General questions: What is the most secure way to access your NAS from outside ?

Thank you for your help !

Up ! Just need a little help..

I have the same issue.

1/ You can use ownCloud or Qsync.

2/ Whether it OpenVPN server allows access to other devices depends on the settings you define and your network configuration.

3/ If you are on a public network you probably DO want all your traffic to go through your NAS, this ensures that you aren't being monitored or having people intercept your sessions, this may slow things down slightly, but a "split tunnel" is often far worse security wise and harder to reason about where different traffic is being routed.

4/ Using VPN with certificate based auth (NEVER password auth) is probably the most secure as you only need to expose one port and not allowing password auth (AT ALL) strongly discourages brute force attempts.

I can recommend a Raspberry Pi 4 running PiVpn and Wireguard as a very cost effective and efficient way to access your NAS or other lan devices when away from home.