Mirrored two-way offsite NAS

[Drummert]

Hi all,

So, after a few years of not using FreeNAS I want to get back to using it, properly. My situation is this:

I am an audio engineer with quite some data storage needs which all need to be safely backed up. I'm of the type that likes to store things in three different places, one needed to be offsite, to feel safe about my backup. Also, I would like to send my family photos with it as well, since we are doing this anyway.

My idea is to put one NAS on our side with my backups and put one NAS with my parents, who live 2 hours drive away. The idea is that I am responsible for putting the files from my own system to the NAS myself (no automation needed). The NAS then copies the files to the offsite at my parents in its own time. My parents want to do the same the other way around, since my mother is a enthusiast-photographer with quite some data footprint as well. All in all this makes a system like this:

- Me and my mother put our files in the NAS on our end ourselves, no automation needed
- The NAS then copies the files to their respective mirrors at the offsite.
- If a NAS crashes, catches fire, gets smashed or simply vanishes into thin air a new NAS has to be able to pick up and get the full backup again.
- We don't have to reach each others backup that are stored on our end.
- My parents have a static IP, unfortunately I do not...


The static IP I can solve with something like no-ip or so. Also, I have to be able to reach the offsite to manage it.

What our my best options? Am I looking at something that is possible with simple tools or am I going to end up with something too expensive for enthusiasts needs?

 

[sretalla]

A combination of ZeroTier (now included in FreeNAS as CLI, but GUI will come eventually... a bit of messing around in CLI for now, but it really isn't hard and is certainly worth the effort) for the "VPN" and replication jobs with one pool each on each side would do the job nicely.

ZeroTier doesn't need you to have a fixed IP at either end, just assigning an IP to each system on your virtual ZeroTier network switch so the systems can talk as if plugged physically to the same equipment (just on another shared subnet not present otherwise in your independent locations).

If you add your "management device" or other devices to that same ZeroTier network, you can have the required direct access to those systems from wherever you want.

I would suggest starting each pool with a RAID 1 (you don't mention size requirements), this way you can add 2 additional disks (of the same size as the first 2 or different if you prefer) to each pool at a time to grow in future when needed... clearly needing to match that at the other end to cope with the replica.

Getting a system with a minimum of 4 drive bays would be essential for that design... but 8 or more would be helpful to allow for expansion without the need to buy new chassis.

 

[Drummert]

Allright, sounds good. I'm defnitely going to have a look at that. Size requirements for now are at two times 2TB. Obviously a RAID 1 would be safer, but I guess I will have to start it as singular disks to reduce costs first. Since all of these files are still present on a pc and at the offsite I dare take that risk for now (I also forgot to mention the photo-pc from my mother is already running a RAID 1 setup). In the future this will obviously become a RAID 1 setup.

I guess the replication jobs would mean putting some cron jobs in for that? I was also looking just now at some rsync options, but from what I saw this only gives a one server one client option. I could probably pull my mothers files to this side and push my files the other way, but maybe putting two machines at work instead of one more heavily is a better option.

 

[slimknot]

Syncthing will do what you want. We use Syncthing and it works really well. You can easily do a one way or two way mirror for any number of folders on the server.

 

[Drummert]

I'll check that one out as well then ;p

 

[Stux]

ZFS replication will do it too...

 

[sretalla]

ZFS replication will do it too...

I guess the replication jobs would mean putting some cron jobs in for that?

As I originally suggested, a replication job would be easiest. (set in the GUI and forget until one of the servers breaks)

The only difficulty with setting them up is working out the SSH key and assigning it to the user you will use for replication (really not rocket science).

 

[petitbas]

A combination of ZeroTier (now included in FreeNAS as CLI, but GUI will come eventually... a bit of messing around in CLI for now, but it really isn't hard and is certainly worth the effort) for the "VPN" and replication jobs with one pool each on each side would do the job nicely.

How did you configure ZeroTier via CLI? I'm not finding any documentation.

 

[sretalla]

https://github.com/zerotier/ZeroTierOne/wiki/Command-Line-Interface

To save you a bit of reading, what you're looking for is probably as simple as zerotier-cli join <16 character network ID>

This clearly assumes you have created a network to join with your machines on zerotier.com in the first place.

 

[petitbas]

https://github.com/zerotier/ZeroTierOne/wiki/Command-Line-Interface

To save you a bit of reading, what you're looking for is probably as simple as zerotier-cli join <16 character network ID>

This clearly assumes you have created a network to join with your machines on zerotier.com in the first place.

When I try to join:
zerotier-cli join <16 character network ID> I get this error message:

zerotier-cli: missing port and zerotier-one.port not found in /var/db/zerotier-one

I can fix that problem by running:
zerotier-one &

But after a reboot I'm back to square one. Zerotier doesn't start up and I have to join the network again manually.

I just tried this both on a live server and on a fresh install of FreeNAS-11.1-U6 in VMWare.

 

[sretalla]

Have a look at the suggestions here. https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/zerotier-how-is-this-configured.56070/