DIY NAS Build – Network Attached Storage

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DIY NAS Build – Network Attached Storage

Your house may have numerous computing devices which means you probably have data you want backed up.  Yes, there are all manner of cloud services (Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud, etc.) that you can utilize and they are indeed handy but your data now exists on SOMEONE ELSE’S COMPUTER.  And maybe that is what you want because there is something to be said for off site back up’s.  If there is a natural disaster and something tragic happens then you may lose all your data if it is stored locally.  We’re going to explore building our own DIY NAS.

That is a subject all in itself but back when I was working I built two small, identical NAS servers and just took one to work.  Because there was no private internet connectivity besides a phone hotspot, I would just bring one from home and take the other one back home to update it.  Again, off site back ups are an entirely different subject.

Another very common reason you might want a dedicated locally controlled server would be to rip all those DVD movies, and CD music you have to a media server.  Or a NAS server can act as storage for your security cameras (to hell with paying some company a monthly fee for your video) or for DVR.  I have a couple favorite old shows that I record currently from over the air (OTA) TV to my media server.

And if you build a device that is probably going to be on 24/7 you probably should exploit the heck out of it and make it do stuff.  Let’s build a NAS, shall we?

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Raspberry Pi SATA add on board with OpenMediaVault

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So once I needed to add some storage to a Pi and I opted for an SSD.  I added the SSD by installing a USB 3.0 to SATA adapter.  It was a good solution for the price but configuration was somewhat involved.

But now Raspberry Pi OS supports SATA devices natively.  That allows you to connect via a proper SATA add on board from Geekworm instead of a USB SATA device.  At $30 (not counting a case, power supply, and Power Management with Safe Shutdown add on board which costs all total around $100).

What you gain here is the ability to boot the Pi from the SSD drive and not the SD card.  This speeds things up.  A LOT.   You could take this device and install Plex and have your very own portable media server that you can travel with.

I’m not doing that here as I want to use 100% of my SSD drive for a SAMBA share.  This gives me a terabyte (or more if I get a larger capacity SSD) of network attached storage.  And while this isn’t a proper NAS with an array of drives, it is still pretty cool.  You can never have enough network attached storage and you can use this device for specific tasks.  In fact I was going to put Handbrake on it however there is no docker image for armhf7 for handbrake.   Still, you get the idea.  You can run any docker image and have it do a task or just be network attached storage.  Or as I suggested above use it as a traveling media (music, movies, shows) server.

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LogitechMediaServer on Unraid

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I heart LogitechMediaServer (LMS).  What is it?  It is a streaming music platform.  Back in the day it was among the first of the internet radio platforms.

Now we have Sonos.  Nothing wrong with Sonos if you are rich.  Big money for crappy sound.

Logitech made a line of “Squeezebox” devices such as the Touch and Radio, etc.  You can still find the same things basically with Sonos and Grace Digital Internet Radio.

LogitechMediaServer abandoned its hardware stake some years ago and now the software is community maintained and Open Source.

So you can essentially run the same streaming services FOR FREE and your clients can be small, low powered devices such as Raspberry Pi or essentially any computer you have.

So I install LMS (with the S meaning SERVER) on a Raspberry Pi and a music PLAYER called Squeezelite.  The newer Pi’s such as the Pi 3 or Pi 4 work pretty good but with some heavy use and network traffic you might experience a slight hiccup or two because of the relatively low CPU power and memory of a Pi.

Let’s move our LMS SERVER off the Pi and onto our REAL server.  I use Unraid at my house.   This blog won’t be a full installation blog but rather the “gotcha” I experienced.

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Time To Upgrade The NAS Server

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Finally got around to pulling my old NAS server out of the moving box and hook it up.  It had been out of service for about 3 months.

IT WOULDN’T BOOT.

One of my 4TB Western Digital Red Hard Drives gave up the ghost and also FreeNAS is now TrueNAS.  I didn’t catch that change because my server was kind of “set and forget”.

I decided to move to Unraid which uses Docker containers rather than “Jails” such as are used in FreeNAS.  Jails were always kind of hard for me, especially upgrading.

Unraid is a snap to upgrade the container and it runs all the stuff I want to run such as HomeAssistant, Emby, Plex, Apple Time Machine, etc.

Since I’m upgrading it was tempting to get cutting edge stuff.  However, in server builds faster and sexier is not always better.  Why?  Because a server is on 24/7 and that bleeding edge  motherboard and chip and power supply and 5 or 6 huge case fans will put a dent in your power bill.

Unless you are doing something crazy you really should consider a platform that SIPS power.  Serving files and streaming your movies on the network really doesn’t take that much overhead, especially if you have plenty of RAM.

I personally like motherboards with the Intel Atom chips.  Let’s pro and con the motherboard I chose.  The Asrock C3558D4I-4L

Asrock C3558D41-4L

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More on Local Control of Internet of Things (IoT) Devices

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Local Control of IoT Devices

I’m all about tech and gadgets but I’m all about security as well.  Internet of Things is a term coined that relates to smart devices that are connected to the internet.  Local control is a term that means your IoT devices only run on your LOCAL network and are not internet facing. Typically, the state of security is very poor with IoT devices.   There have been some very high profile hacks and intrusions and I’ll highlight just a few of them.  You can dig deeper if you want.

  • A Computer Takeover of a Jeep.  Yep.  It happened.
  • Ring doorbell cameras and microphones hacked.
  • Multitudes of smart devices with open SSH, Telnet, or HTTP ports open.
  • St. Judes hackable cardiac devices.
  • Baby monitor hacks. – This one is semi personal to me.  I am into Ham Radio and RTL-SDR devices.  One day I’m using an RTL-SDR device and listening around 900 MHz.  Lo and behold I can hear my neighbors baby monitor IN THE CLEAR.   Also in a similar vein one day I find Television audio where there shouldn’t be television audio.  Turns out it is the next door neighbors wireless headphones.
  • SimpliSafe – Same thing.  One day I’m setting up a 433 MHz receiver for RF home automation and I begin receiving packets of information from a neighbors SimpliSafe.  Got their Pin Code and password because it was transmitted in the clear.  Hope they fixed that by now.
  • Mirai Bot Net Attack – using hundreds of thousands of hacked IoT devices to perform Denial of Service attacks.
  • Phillips Hue – Terrible security.

IoT Can Be Dangerous

I can go on and on and on.  If you google “IoT exploits” or “IoT hack examples” you can go down the rabbit hole.  I think the biggest take-away here is that all those cool cameras, LED strips, smart light bulbs, smart outlets and smart switches, and security devices can be a giant security issue waiting to happen.   What a dichotomy, huh?  You buy some security devices to make you safe and they in turn CAUSE you to get exploited.

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Home Entertainment TV Observations

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After setting up a new household, network, and entertainment devices I have observed the following items.  My apologies for not going in depth with device names and photos and statistics……….I’m trying to keep this as simple a read as possible.

We have a smart TV and several smart devices.  Roku, Firestick, Apple TV, and HDHomeRun for Live TV connected to an antenna.

Quick observations:

  • Wireless devices and TV’s are the norm.  You have to pay bigger $$’s to get an ethernet port.  Streaming video and hi res is more likely to glitch over wifi.
  • All have abandoned Optical out for audio.  They seem to think that all devices operate perfectly over HDMI or that no one has an older Audio Visual (AV) system.
  • The HDHomeRun app only provides audio on some TV sets if set to Dolby Audio.

Granted I have older stuff but still.  Anyone with anything more than a few years old might have an AV system or surround sound system that worked on Optical or Digital out.  All these new devices seem to be HDMI only.

I have a Polk Audio sound bar on one TV that was several hundred dollars (came with the house) and isn’t that old.  It DOES NOT connect to HDMI.  So if I want to use a Roku AND THE SOUND BAR …………..it ain’t gonna happen.  In order to use the sound bar I have to hook up a super old (2015 era) Apple TV that I have.  Yeah it works but Apple no longer supports those devices and you just don’t get updated apps, etc. for them.

In other words, there is no backwards compatibility.

You would think that at a Tech Blog the guy writing it would only have the latest and greatest.  Well, let me tell you something about the latest.

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Flashing QuietCool-AFG-SMT-PRO-2.0 Attic Fan with Tasmota

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Decided to put an attic fan in over the garage and tried to find a “smart” one.  Sure enough Quietcool makes them and even better they have an ESP32 wifi chip in them which can be flashed with Tasmota.

ESP32

This means the fan can be controlled locally with Home Assistant and doesn’t need a separate app to control it.

Also while having an attic fan being smart it doesn’t need to be super smart.  You want them to come on at a certain temp and go off at a certain temp.

The manufacturers app has too much going on in my opinion.  And with these apps you just have no idea what they are up to.

The only person who has any business knowing my attic fan is on or off is ME.  Not QuietCool, not Google, just me.

 

DISCLAIMER:  This is not my work. I was walked through this by user kwikSi1ver on the Digiblur Discord discussion group.  I am only documenting this for posterity and re-creation purposes.  Again, I claim no credit for this.

Flashing with Tasmota is really no issue.  I can do that.  The magic and genius behind this is the reverse engineering.  Telling what relay to do what.  Making sure both relays don’t come on at the same time.  Making sure the power LED comes on.  Making sure all the sensors are recognized and spew out the right information and are DISCOVERABLE.

Yep, anyone can flash Tasmota.  The guys who reverse engineer stuff get all the credit.  But first ya gotta flash it.  But first lets back up the manufactures firmware in case something goes wrong.

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Using 2 Smart Lights in a 3 way switch configuration

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We all know what 3 way switches are even if we don’t know what they are called.  It is a light that has 2 switches, like at the top and bottom of the stairs.  What I did here was to wire up two smart switches that are not 3 way switches in a 3 way configuration.

BIG DISCLAIMER

FIRST OF ALL LET ME SAY THIS ISN’T MY DOING.  I HAD TO HAVE MY HAND HELD DURING THE ENTIRE CONFIGURATION OF THE SWITCHES BY THE COMMUNITY AT DIGIBLUR’S DISCORD CHAT ROOM.  THEY ARE THE GENIUSES. I’M MERELY DOCUMENTING THIS PROCESS FOR POSTERITY.

If you have any interest in Home Automation be sure and check out the YouTube Channel of Digiblur and his Discord chat room.  Great resource.   Let’s get to the switches!

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Kauf Smart Light Bulb Preflashed with ESPHome

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Kauf Smart Bulb

So you go to Walmart or something and see a smart light bulb. You bring said smart light bulb home and stick it in a lamp.  At this point you realize you have to:

  1. Download an app
  2. Create an account

This never goes well.  But you get it working.  And it’s cool.  But the app is probably harvesting your contacts list, wants access to your camera to scan a QR code, etc, etc, etc.

It’s crazy.  And it isn’t good for network security or your personal privacy.  I am NOT saying all smart devices are evil and do bad stuff but I am saying that a light bulb exposed to the entire internet is a bad thing.

I run a hardware firewall.  I can clear the active log and within SECONDS and I mean SECONDS there are all kinds of exploits being blocked by my firewall.   There are bots out there continually trying things over ranges of IP addresses.

Remember all the old movies where the skull and crossbones comes up and you knew you were hacked?  It isn’t like that.  The bad guys don’t want you to know they are using your computer for a bot to carry out their attacks, or trying to harvest your SSN or credit card numbers or bank passwords.

Anyway, that’s enough of that.  This is about the Kauf Smart Light Bulb.  They go for about $15 which is steep for a light bulb but cheap for a SMART light bulb.  Not a bad deal at all.

The best part of this bulb is that it comes pre-flashed with ESPHome.

NOTE: THIS BULB IS VERY SPECIFIC IN THAT YOU NEED HOME ASSISTANT HOME AUTOMATION SOFTWARE TO USE IT. AT LEAST WITH ESPHOME ON IT.  ONCE YOU FLASH IT TO TASMOTA YOU CAN CONTROL IT VIA A WEB BROWSER IF YOU GO TO THE LIGHT BULBS IP ADDRESS.  THIS BULB IS FOR GEEKS ONLY!  DON’T JUST BUY ONE IF YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO DO THIS STUFF.

If you do know how to do this stuff……….keep reading.

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Hey, Hey, You Get Offa “The Cloud”

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Go in any big box store and you’ll find dozens of smart home appliances.  Light bulbs, security cameras, smart outlets, smart switches, LED strip lights, etc.   There is no end to it.

So you buy something.  Then you have to download the app, and create an account and then you wow your friends by demonstrating how smart your home is becoming.   Then you buy another device which means you need another app and another login account.  Then you do it again and again and again.

Pretty soon your phone is full of apps and you can’t remember the passwords to all the new accounts you have.

Is it really convenient?  There are ways to get all those devices under one roof so to speak with home automation software but this blog isn’t about that.   It’s about your security.

All those devices are connected to the INTERNET, aka “The Cloud”.  You don’t know who wrote the app.  You don’t know if the app has gaping security holes or intentional malware.  Also you grant network access to that device.   Also when you fill in the app you provide your network credentials to the app.  Do you use your wifi password with any other account anywhere?  Does the app writer transmit your credentials back to their server?

In 2016 there was an exploit on Internet of Things (IoT) cameras and routers called the Mirai Bot Attack.  The attacker focused a Denial of Service (DDoS) attack using HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DEVICES.  That kind of implies that in 2016 there sure were a lot of infected Internet of Things devices.  Wonder what that statistic looks like in late 2021.  Better?  Worse?  My educated guess = WORSE.

How can you make it better and more secure?

Get Off The Cloud.

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