PSA: Zero-Day Vulnerability in WPGateway Actively Exploited in the Wild

On September 8, 2022, the Wordfence Threat Intelligence team became aware of an actively exploited zero-day vulnerability being used to add a malicious administrator user to sites running the WPGateway plugin. We released a firewall rule to Wordfence PremiumWordfence Care, and Wordfence Response customers to block the exploit on the same day, September 8, 2022.

Sites still running the free version of Wordfence will receive the same protection 30 days later, on October 8, 2022. The Wordfence firewall has successfully blocked over 4.6 million attacks targeting this vulnerability against more than 280,000 sites in the past 30 days.

Vulnerability Details

Description: Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation
Affected Plugin: WPGateway
Plugin Slug: wpgateway
Plugin Developer: Jack Hopman/WPGateway
Affected Versions: <= 3.5
CVE ID: CVE-2022-3180
CVSS Score: 9.8 (Critical)
CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Fully Patched Version: N/A

The WPGateway plugin is a premium plugin tied to the WPGateway cloud service, which offers its users a way to setup and manage WordPress sites from a single dashboard. Part of the plugin functionality exposes a vulnerability that allows unauthenticated attackers to insert a malicious administrator.

We obtained a current copy of the plugin on September 9, 2022, and determined that it is vulnerable, at which time we contacted the plugin vendor with our initial disclosure. We have reserved vulnerability identifier CVE-2022-3180 for this issue.

As this is an actively exploited zero-day vulnerability, and attackers are already aware of the mechanism required to exploit it, we are releasing this public service announcement (PSA) to all of our users. We are intentionally withholding certain details to prevent further exploitation. As a reminder, an attacker with administrator privileges has effectively achieved a complete site takeover.

Indicators of compromise

If you are working to determine whether a site has been compromised using this vulnerability, the most common indicator of compromise is a malicious administrator with the username of rangex.

If you see this user added to your dashboard, it means that your site has been compromised.

Additionally, you can check your site’s access logs for requests to //wp-content/plugins/wpgateway/wpgateway-webservice-new.php?wp_new_credentials=1

If these requests are present in your logs, they indicate that your site has been attacked using an exploit targeting this vulnerability, but do not necessarily indicate that it has been successfully compromised.

Conclusion

In today’s post, we detailed a zero-day vulnerability being actively exploited in the WPGateway plugin.

Wordfence PremiumWordfence Care, and Wordfence Response customers received a firewall rule on September 8, 2022, protecting against this vulnerability, while sites still using the free version of Wordfence will receive the same protection 30 days later, on October 8, 2022.

If you have the WPGateway plugin installed, we urge you to remove it immediately until a patch is made available and to check for malicious administrator users in your WordPress dashboard.

If you know a friend or colleague who is using this plugin on their site, we highly recommend forwarding this advisory to them to help keep their sites protected, as this is a serious vulnerability that is actively being exploited in the wild. Please help make the WordPress community aware of this issue.

If you believe your site has been compromised as a result of this vulnerability or any other vulnerability, we offer Incident Response services via Wordfence Care. If you need your site cleaned immediately, Wordfence Response offers the same service with 24/7/365 availability and a 1-hour response time. Both these products include hands-on support in case you need further assistance.

Our investigation is ongoing, and we will provide more information in an additional blog post when it becomes available.

Special thanks to Threat Intelligence Lead Chloe Chamberland for spotting this exploit in the wild.

Source :
https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2022/09/psa-zero-day-vulnerability-in-wpgateway-actively-exploited-in-the-wild/

WP Shield Security PRO – Release 16.1

It’s been a few months in the making, but it’s finally here – our most exciting release (yet again!) of Shield Security for WordPress.

This release is absolutely packed with goodies and our headline feature – integration with CrowdSec – deserves an article all to itself.

Here you’ll discover all the exciting things we’ve packed into ShieldPRO v16 and why you should be upgrading as soon as it’s out.

Let’s dig into all the new goodies…

#1 Partnership with CrowdSec for Crowd-Sourced IP Intelligence

This is, to our mind, one of the most exciting developments for WordPress security for a very long time.

We’ve wanted to achieve this level of protection against bots for years, as we firmly believe that good WordPress security starts with intelligent blocking malicious IP addresses.

Shield does an effective job of this already with its automatic block list system, but we’ve now achieved group intelligence so all WordPress sites running on Shield will benefit from the experiences of all the other websites running Shield.

This is a big topic so we’ve dedicated a whole article to it – learn about the new partnership here.

#2 Brand New IP Rules and Blocking Engine

IP Blocking has been a part of ShieldPRO, practically from the outset. It’s core to our WordPress security philosophy.

With such a long-standing feature, you can imagine that the knowledge and experience used to create that original system isn’t as thorough as it is today. We’ve come a long way, I can promise you.

This release, spurred on by the new CrowdSec integration, sees the much-needed overhaul of our IP management system. It’s smarter and more versatile, and altogether much faster!

Shield must lookup a visitor’s IP address on every single request to a WordPress site. If we can improve the speed of that lookup, we improve Shield performance overall.

#3 Improved UI

Shield has a number of different subsystems, many of which are related. The scan results page is linked to the scanner configuration page, for example.

To-date when you wanted to view any section of the plugin, it would reload the entire page. We’ve done some work to reduce full page reloads so that you can stay “where you are” while viewing the contents of another page.

In particular we’re referring to “Configuration” pages. Links to such areas will now open in an overlay, letting you keep your current page active while you review and adjust settings.

Another UI enhancement is a new title bar across every page of the plugin, letting you see more clearly where you are, along with important links to help resources.

This title bar also includes our brand new “super search box”…

#4 Shield’s Super Search Box

We mentioned UI improvements already, but this deserves a section all to itself.

To say Shield is a large plugin is understating it. There are many options pages, as well tools, tables, data, and charts etc.

Finding your way around can be a bit tricky. Since we built it, we know it inside out. But for everyone that uses it as a tool to protect their sites, it’s not always obvious where to go to find the “thing” you need.

No longer!

With Shield’s “Super Search Box”, you can find almost anything you need, and jump directly to it. Currently you can search for:

  • Specific configuration options
  • Tools such as Import/Export, Admin Notes, Debug
  • Logs such as Activity Logs and Traffic Logs
  • IP Rules
  • IP addresses – it’ll open a popup to review the data Shield holds on any particular IP
  • External links such as Shield’s homepage, Facebook page, helpdesk, crowdsec etc.

We’ll develop this a bit more over time as we get feedback from you on what you’d like to see in there.

#5 Lighter, Faster Scan Results Display

Shield’s scans can turn up a lot of results and some customers have reported trouble on some servers with limited resources.

We’ve redesigned how the scan results are built, so it’s faster and lighter on both your browser and the WordPress server.

#6 Improved Human SPAM Detection

After working with a customer on some issues she faced with Human SPAM, we’ve developed enhancements to how Shield will detect repeated human spam comments.

For example, a SPAMer may post a comment and trigger our human SPAM scanner. But then they’ll fire off more comments which might bypass the same scanner. We’ll now use previous SPAM detections by Shield to inform future comments, too.

We also squashed a bug where Shield wasn’t properly honouring the “disallowed keywords” option built into WordPress itself.

#7 Custom Activity Logs and Events

Shield covers a lot of areas when it comes to monitoring events that happen on a WordPress site. But we typically don’t cover 3rd party plugins.

So, based on the feedback from a number of interested customers, we’ve added the ability for any PHP developer to add custom events to Shield’s Activity Logs.

When might you find that useful?

You could, for example, track WooCommerce orders, or you could be facing a particularly menacing visitor that repeats an undesireable action on your site that’s not covered by Shield, and decide to block their IP.

You can do whatever you want with this, though you should always take care when allocating offenses to actions as you may inadvertently block legitimate users.

#8 All-New Guided Setup Wizard

When first installing a platform like Shield Security for WordPress, it can be a little overwhelming. Shield is a large plugin, with many features, tools and options.

We’ve had a “Welcome Wizard” in Shield for a while, but it was a little rough around the edges. For this release we decided to revamp it and provide a new guided setup wizard, helping newcomers get up-to-speed more quickly.

Anyone can access the Guided Setup from the Super Search Box (search: “Wizard”), or from the Shield > Tools menu.

A Change To Minimum Supported WordPress Version

We try to make Shield Security as backward-compatible as possible, while it makes sense to do so.

However, this means that our code development and testing must reflect this and means that the burden of support increases the farther back we support older versions.

Our Telemetry data suggests that there are no WordPress sites below version 4.7 running the Shield plugin. Of course, we can only go on what data has been sent to us. But we have to draw the line somewhere, and with Shield v16, we’re drawing the line at WordPress 4.7.

As more data comes through and time marches on, we’ll gradually increase our minimum requirements so we strongly suggest you keep your WordPress sites, and hosting platforms as up-to-date as possible.

Comments, Feedback and Suggestions

A lot of work has gone into this release that will, we hope, improve security for all users by making it much easier to see what’s going on and what areas need improved. The Security Rules Engine is one of our most exciting developments to-date and we can hardly wait to get the first iteration into your hands and start further development on it.

As always, we welcome your thoughts and feedback so please do feel free to leave your comments and suggestions below.

Source :
https://getshieldsecurity.com/blog/wp-shield-security-pro-release-16-1/

ShieldPRO 16.1.0 Upgrade Guide

ShieldPRO 16.1.0 for WordPress is a major release packed with many changes and improvements, including UI enhancement, adding integration with CrowdSec and the ability to permanently block IP any much more.

This guide outlines what have been added/removed, changed, or improved and what fixes we’ve made.

Firstly, we’re going to explain what major changes are made and which options you’d need to review.

New Added Features

For 16.1.0 release we added

With the CrowdSec integration, your WordPress sites will have access to intelligence about malicious IP addresses before they’ve ever accessed your website. (This intelligence will have already been gathered for you by other websites.)

This reduces that “window” available to malicious bots to zero.

The settings can be found under the IP Blocking section:

There are 2 options available

  1. CrowdSec IP Blocking – how Shield should block requests from IP addresses found on CrowdSec’s list of malicious IP addresses.
  2. CrowdSec Enroll ID – link site to your CrowdSec console by providing your Enroll ID.

There is now the option to log custom events to Shield’s Activity Log. It’s impossible that Shield can log every possibly event for every plugin and scenario, so you can now add logging for all your desired site events. This is an advanced option and will require professional software development experience to implement. 

  • Logging: App Password Creation

Shield now captures creation of new Application Passwords in the Activity Log.

  • Shield’s Super Search Box

This search box will look for almost anything you need and provide you with links directly to the item in question. 

Currently you can search for:

  • Specific configuration options
  • Tools such as Import/Export, Admin Notes, Debug
  • Logs such as Activity Logs and Traffic Logs
  • IP Rules
  • IP addresses – it’ll open a popup in-situ to review the data Shield holds on any particular IP
  • External links such as Shield’s homepage, Facebook page, helpdesk, CrowdSec etc.

The Super Search Box is accessible and visible from every page inside the plugin.

Enabling the Shield Beta Access option allows you to gain access to beta versions of the Shield Security plugin.

  • All-New Guided Setup Wizard

For this release we revamped it and provide a new guided setup wizard, helping newcomers get up-to-speed more quickly.

You can access the Guided Setup from the Super Search Box (search: “Wizard”), or from the Shield > Tools menu.

For whitelisted IP addresses, there are no restrictions for the user related with that IP whatsoever –  none of the setting will apply to that IP, including the hiding login URL. 

We added a special notice for a user with a whitelisted IP:

Changes

Change 1: Improved UI

We’ve done some work to reduce full page reloads so that you can stay “where you are” while viewing the contents of another page.

In particular we’re referring to “Options/Configuration” pages. Links to such areas will now open in an overlay, letting you keep your current page active while you review and adjust settings.

Example

Also, IP analysis dialog now opens in an overlay, for example:

Another UI enhancement is a new top title bar across every page of the plugin, letting you see more clearly where you are and with some important links to help and other resources.

Example

Change 2: Completely New IP Rules and Blocking Engine

This release, spurred on by our CrowdSec integration, sees the much-needed overhaul of our IP management system. It’s smarter and more versatile and altogether much faster.

We also made some UI enhancements on the Management & Analysis section:

  • “Manage IP” section is renamed to “IP Rules”
  • IP blocking and bypass list are merged and a new table is used now
  • IP Analysis dialog is now separated and can be loaded for each IP directly from within IP Rules, Activity Log, and Traffic Log. Example, loading from within IP Rules:

  • “Reset” option added into the IP analysis dialog

  • Manual adding IP to the block or bypass list is merged now and can be accessed from within “Add New IP” option:
  • Manually or auto blocked IP can be now permanently blocked

    You can do this by manually adding IP to the block list or directly from within IP analysis dialog

Change 3: Improved Build Custom Charts option

The Shield event(s) are now displayed in a form of list. Selecting desired events is much easier now.



Improvements

For 16.1.0 release we’ve made the following improvements

  • Improved and Faster Scan Results Display

    We’ve redesigned how the scan results are built so it’s faster and lighter on your browser and on the server itself.

    Eliminated errors and slow processing when displaying scan results pages for large datasets. Shield now uses highly optimised queries to request only the records required to display the current table page.
  • Improved Human SPAM Detection
    We’ve added some enhancements on how Shield will detect repeated human spam comments.

    We also squashed a bug where Shield wasn’t properly honouring the “disallowed keywords” option built into WordPress itself.
  • A change to minimum supported WordPress version: 4.7
    Based on Shield telemetry data, we’re pushing our minimum supported WordPress version up to 4.7. We’ll continue to push this upwards as usage data suggests it make sense to do so.
  • Protection Against Unauthorised Deactivation
    The Security Admin feature that protects against unauthorised deactivation has been further strengthened with offenses.
  • Shield Navigation Bar
    Shield offer a much better navbar on the dashboard with built-in search, helpdesk links and updates.

Removed Options

For 16.1.0 release we removed the following options

  • Auto Block Expiration (under Config > IP Blocking section) we removed “1 minute” option.
  • Leading Schema Firewall Rule
    This rules flags too many false positives for members.

Fixes

For 16.1.0 release we’ve made various fixes

  • Mitigate a fatal error caused by the latest wpForo plugin passing NULL to locale filters.
  • Bug when specifying a particular list when adding/removing an IP address using WP-CLI.
  • Shield no longer attempts to solve the issue of invalid ‘from’ email addresses on a WordPress site.

For more information on Shield 16.1.0 release, read this blog article here.

Source :
https://help.getshieldsecurity.com/article/476-shieldpro-1610-upgrade-guide

How to set up the Surveillance Station of QNAP NAS?

Introduction

To satisfy the increasing demand for embedded network surveillance solutions on NAS, QNAP unveiled a value-added application ‘Surveillance Station’ on its All-in-One Turbo NAS Series. The Surveillance Station enables users to configure and connect many IP cameras at the same time and manage functions including live audio & video monitoring, recording, and playback. Installation and configuration can be easily carried out remotely in a web browser in a few steps. Various recording modes are provided: continuous recording, motion-detection recording, and scheduled recording. Users can flexibly define the recording settings according their security plans.
The Surveillance Station supports a large number of IP camera brands. You can find a list of supported cameras at: https://www.qnap.com/compatibility.

Contents

  • Plan your home/office network topology
  • Set up the IP Cameras
  • Configure the Surveillance Station on the QNAP NAS
  • Configure Alarm Recording on the QNAP NAS
  • Play Video Files from the Surveillance Station

Plan Your Home/Office Network Topology

Write down your plan of the home/office network before starting to set up the surveillance system. Consider the following when doing so:

  • The IP address of the NAS
  • The IP address of the cameras
  • The IP address of your router and the wireless SSID

Your computer, the NAS, and the IP cameras should be installed to the same router in LAN. Assign fixed IP addresses for the NAS and the IP cameras.
For example:

  • The LAN IP of the router: 192.168.1.100
  • Camera 1 IP: 192.168.1.10 (fixed IP)
  • Camera 2 IP: 192.168.1.20 (fixed IP)
  • NAS IP: 192.168.1.60 (fixed IP)

Set up the IP Cameras

Configure the IP address for both IP cameras using the following steps.
You can download a camera IP Finder from official website of your camera’s vendor.
The name of the IP finder may differ between vendors. IP Finder is a utility that helps you search for the IP address of the camera.
CONNECT the IP camera to your home/office network with a network cable and run the IP Finder. Set the IP address of the cameras so that they are on the same LAN as the computer. You will then be able to login to the configuration page of the camera with a web browser. Enter the IP address of the first camera as 192.168.1.10. The default gateway should be set as the LAN IP of the router (192.168.1.100 in our example).

Note: The default IP and ID of administrator may differ based on what camera model is used.

ENTER the web configuration page of the IP camera.
You will then be able to view the monitoring image.

GO to ‘Network/ Network’ and check the IP settings of the camera.

NEXT, if you are using a Wireless IP CAM, please go to “Network/Wireless” and configure the wireless setting of your camera. Please ensure the camera’s settings are completed.

Repeat the above steps to set up the second camera.
To summarize, so far you have finished the following settings:

  • Camera 1 IP: 192.168.1.10
  • Camera 2 IP: 192.168.1.20

Note:
If you forget the camera settings, please press the reset button at the back of the camera for 5-10 seconds. The camera will be restored to default settings. You can then set the IP address and login to the camera’s configuration page with using the default login name and password. The reset function may differ by the brand of the camera. Please refer to the camera’s user manual in advance.

Configure the Surveillance Station on the QNAP NAS

Go to “Control Panel” > “System Settings” >”Network” > “TCP/IP” and press the “Edit” button to specify a fixed IP to the NAS: 192.168.1.60. The default gateway should be the same as the LAN IP of your router, which is 192.168.1.100 in our example.

Install Surveillance Station

  • Auto installation: Go to “App Center” > “Surveillance” > “Surveillance Station” and click “Add to QTS” to start installation.
  • Manual installation: Download the Surveillance Station QPKG from the App Center on the QNAP website. Then you can install it by clicking the “Install Manually” button and by selecting the location of the Surveillance Station QPKG to start installing.

Please note: To ensure proper operations of Surveillance Station, we recommend rebooting the Turbo NAS after its installation is completed.

In the Surveillance Station, please go to “Settings” and select “Camera 1” then click “” to add the camera configuration, e.g. name, model, IP address, recording setting and recording schedule.

In our demonstration we will assign the following IPs to each camera:
Camera 1 IP: 192.168.1.10
Camera 2 IP: 192.168.1.20

Note:
Before applying the settings, you may click “Test” on the right to ensure the connection to the IP camera is successful.

You can enable or change the recording option of the camera in next page. Click “next” to move to the next page.

On this page, you will see the “Schedule Settings.” In the table, 0~23 represents the time period. For example, 0 means 00:00~01:00, 1 means 01:00~02:00. You can set a continuous recording in any period that you want.

Then you will see the “Confirm Settings” on the next page.

After you have added the network cameras to the NAS, go to the “Monitor” page. The first time you access this page by browser, you have to install the ActiveX control (QMon.cab) in order to view the images of Camera 1 and Camera 2.

Note:
You can use the Surveillance Station in Chrome, Firefox or IE. The browser will prompt you to install the “ActiveX control” (QMon.cab) before using Monitor or Playback functions. Please follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.

Note:
When you click on the monitoring screen of a camera, the frame will become orange. You can use the s configuration page.
In Surveillance Station 5, there is a new feature called “Instant Playback”. You can click the floating button to play recording and find recent event.

Configure Alarm Recording on the QNAP NAS

The Surveillance Station supports alarm recording by schedule. To use this function, go to “Camera Settings” > “Alarm Settings” in the Surveillance Station. You could select ‘Traditional Mode’ to do basic configurations or ‘Advanced Mode’ to define advanced alarm events.

  • Traditional Mode :
    You may define criteria enabling alarm recording then click ‘Apply’ to save the changes.
  • Advanced Mode :
    You may select the event on the left side and add an action on the right side by clicking “Add”.

Then you may choose the action type you need for this event.

The event “Motion Detection” has a corresponding action “Recording”.

Play Video Files from the Surveillance Station

You have to click or to enter the playback page and follow the steps below to play the video files on the remote Surveillance Station.

1. Drag and drop camera(s) from the server/camera tree to the respective playback window(s) to select the channel(s) for playback.

2. Select playback date from.You can examine each channel to know the time range when the files were recorded for each IP camera. The blue cells indicate regular recording files and the red cells indicate alarm recording files. If it is blank, it means no files are recorded at that time.

3. Clickto start the playback. You can control the speed and playback direction by dragging the button to right or left on the shuttle bar.

4. Specify the time to play back the recording files at that moment. You can view the preview image on the timeline bar to search the moment you want to play.

5. Clickto control all the playback windows to play back the recording files. When this function is enabled, the playback options (play, pause, stop, previous/next frame, previous/next file, speed adjustment) will be applied to all the playback windows.

Source :
https://www.qnap.com/en/how-to/tutorial/article/how-to-set-up-the-surveillance-station-of-qnap-nas

Hot-swapping the hard drives when the RAID crashes

“No server downtime when you need to replace the RAID drives”

Contents

Procedure of hot-swapping the hard drives when a RAID crashes

RAID 5 disk mirroring provides highly-secure data protection. You can use three hard drives of the same capacity to create a RAID 5 array. RAID 5 creates an exact copy of data on the member drives and protects data against a single drive failing. The usable capacity in RAID 5 is the size of the smallest member drive. It is particularly suitable for home or business use in saving important data.

Logical volume status when the RAID operates normally

When the RAID volume operates normally, the status is shown as Ready under “Storage/Snapshots” > “Manage” > “RAID Group of Storage Pools”.

When a drive fails, follow the steps below to check the drive status:

  • The Turbo NAS will beep for 1.5 sec twice when the drive fails.
  • The Status LED will continuously flash red.
  • Check the RAID Group in the Storage Pool section. The volume status will be in Degraded mode.

You can check the System Logs for error and warning messages regarding drive failures and disk volumes being in degraded mode.

You can configure your Turbo NAS to send you alert emails by configuring the alert notifications. For these settings, please refer to the System Settings/ Alert Notification section in the user manual.

Install a new drive to rebuild RAID 5 by hot swapping

Please follow the below steps to hot swap the failed hard drive:

  • Prepare a new hard drive to rebuild the RAID configuration. The new drive should have at least the same capacity as the failed drive.
  • Install the drive into the Turbo NAS. It will beep for 1.5 seconds twice. The Status LED will alternate between flashing red and green.
  • If you check the RAID Group in the Storage Pool section, the status will be Rebuilding and the progress will be shown.
  • When the rebuilding is completed, the Status LED will be in green and the volume status will change to Ready. RAID 5 mirroring protection is now active.
  • You can check the disk volume information in the System Logs.
Important: Do not install a new drive when the system is not in degraded mode, otherwise you may encounter unexpected system failures.

Source :
https://www.qnap.com/en/how-to/tutorial/article/hot-swapping-the-hard-drives-when-the-raid-crashes

How to install WordPress on QTS 5.0?

WordPress is a free and open-source content management system that allows you to easily create a blog or website. Here are the steps to install WordPress on QTS 5.0.

  1. Open the Control Panel.
  2. Go to Applications > Web Server.
  3. Check Enable Web Server.
  4. Go to the App Center.
  5. Search for and install Container Station.
  6. Search for and install WordPress.
  7. Open WordPress.
  8. Follow the on-screen prompts to configure your WordPress:
    1. Select a language.
    2. Click Continue.
    3. Enter a Site TitleUsernamePassword, and Email. It is also recommended to check Discourage search engines from indexing this site.
      Important: The Username and Password should not be the same as your NAS User name and Password.
    4. Click Install WordPress
  9. Once installed, you will be prompted to log in to WordPress using the Username and Password.
  10. You can now use WordPress on your NAS.

    Source :
    https://www.qnap.com/en/how-to/tutorial/article/how-to-install-wordpress-on-qts-5-0

Online RAID Capacity Upgrade

https://www.youtube.com/embed/V6VFGkeFN8I?enablejsapi=1&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.qnap.com

A New Challenge for Modern Businesses

For modern businesses, one of the greatest challenges is to select and set up a reliable network-attached storage server to secure and share important data to increase work efficiency. Meanwhile, the necessity to reduce the risk of data loss by backing up data increases the demand for higher capacity storage. With the increasing storage capacity of hard drives, QNAP provides a solution to hot swap lower capacity drives with larger capacity drives so that your QNAP Turbo NAS can grow with your business.

The QNAP Turbo NAS series provides a high-performance and low-TCO (total cost of ownership) solution for modern businesses. In addition to best-in-class hardware specifications and easy-to-use applications, the QNAP Turbo NAS series also offers innovative features such as Online RAID Capacity Upgrade (for example, replace three 500GB hard drives with three 1TB hard drives) and Online RAID Level Migration (for example, RAID level migration from RAID 1 to RAID 5). These advanced features used to be exclusive to corporations with large budgets, but QNAP implements an intuitive way to allow more businesses to enjoy these powerful technologies.

The scenario below demonstrates how users can benefit from using Online RAID Capacity Upgrade.

Use Case

  • Jeffrey bought three 500GB drives for the initial setup of a TVS-882 and used a RAID 5 configuration for these drives.
  • Six months later, the storage needs of his department sharply increased and the current storage capacity of his TVS-882 was no longer enough. At the same time, the price of 1TB hard drives had significantly dropped. Thus, Jeffery decided to buy three 1TB hard drives.
  • Jeffery now wants to upgrade the capacity of his TVS-882 NAS.

Operation procedure

Log in to QTS with an administrator account. Go to  “Storage & Snapshots” > “Storage/Snapshots”. Select the storage pool that will be expanded, then click “Manage“. The “Storage Pool Management” window will appear, select the RAID group that will be expanded and click “Replace Disks One by One” in the “Manage” menu.

Highlight the first disk to be replaced, and click “Change“.

Tips: After you replace hard drives, the description field will show the message “You can replace this drive”. You can now replace the hard drive to a larger one or skip this step if the hard drives have already been replaced.
Caution: When the hard drive synchronization is in process, DO NOT turn off the NAS or swap hard drives.

When the description field displays “Please remove this drive”, remove the hard drive from the NAS. Wait for the NAS to beep twice.

When the description field displays “Please insert the new drive”, insert the new drive to the same drive slot.

After inserting the hard drive, wait for the NAS to beep. The system will start rebuilding.

When the RAID is finished rebuilding, repeat the steps above to replace the other hard drives one by one.

After swapping out hard drives and the rebuilding completes, click “Expand Capacity” to expand the RAID.

Click “OK” to continue.

The NAS will beep and start expanding the capacity.

Depending on the drive sizes, the process may take anywhere from a few hours to tens of hours to complete. Please wait patiently for the process to finish. DO NOT turn off the NAS.

After RAID expansion is finished, the new capacity will be shown and the RAID group status will be “Ready”. The process is now complete and the new storage space is available for use.

Tips: To expand the capacity of closed NAS models (those without accessible drive bays) you need to shut down the NAS, unplug its cables, lay the NAS on a flat surface, open its cover, and then replace the hard drives within. Then replace the cover, plug in the cables, turn on the NAS, and then follow the instruction on the screen.

Source :
https://www.qnap.com/en/how-to/tutorial/article/online-raid-capacity-upgrade

Manually Install QRescue to recover Qlocker-encrypted files on QNAP NAS

Overview:

QRescue is the data recovery tool for Qlocker-encrypted 7z files. It contains:

  • PhotoRec (Open Source Project / GNU General Public License / Project Link):
    File recovery software designed to recover lost files from hard disks and CD-ROMs, and lost pictures (thus the Photo Recovery name) from storage medium.
  • QRescue (Powered by QNAP):
    The script to recover file structures from the encrypted 7z files and PhotoRec files.

Requirements:

  • Download the QRescue app from this link.
    https://download.qnap.com/QPKG/QRescue.zip
  • Prepare an external hard disk drive with a capacity larger than the total used storage space on your NAS.
    • Note: It’s advised to prepare an external HDD with 1.5 to 2x free space than the total used storage space on your NAS. Additional space might be required during the recovery process. If the available space is less than the suggested value, error and other issues may occur.

Demo Video:

Steps: 

Part 1. Configure external HDD with the name “rescue” and create folders with the name “recup1” for recovery.

QRescue will process the recovery process to external drive first, and we need to do some configuration for this recovery process and create the specific destination and folder name.

  1. You need to prepare an external HDD that its usable capacity is larger than the total used storage size of your NAS. This is because you will recover the files to the external device first. Please check your used volume size first by clicking More > About on the QTS desktop.
  2. Insert the external drive to your NAS. Please go to Storage Manager > External Device > Select your external device > Click “Actions” > Click “Format” to format the external drive.
  3. The File System must be “EXT4”, and the Label name must be key in “rescue”. If these configuration is ready, please click “Format

    Notice:
    The QRescue app will use “rescue” as the external drive name. If you use other names, the recovery process might fail.
  4. (Optional) If you disable the admin account or you don’t use admin to login QTS, you might not see the external drive on the File Station. Please go to Control Panel > Privilege > Shared Folder > Edit Shared Folder Permission to enable or change read / write permission for “rescue” folder and to match the account that you log in the NAS.
    • Sample:
      Grant other administrator group account (Example: “_qnap_support” is the administrator group account for read/write permission to external hard drive naming “rescue”).


       
  5. Using File Station to check the volume for the correct external device name.
  6. Create the new folder and name as “recup1” (format: recup+{number}). If you have more than one storage volume, you need to add more folders for recovery.



    Notice:
    The QRescue app will use “recup+{number}” as the folder name. If you use other names, the recovery process might fail.Part 2. Download and Manually Install the QRescue AppThis QRescue app is a special build. Therefore, you need to manually install this app from the QTS App Center.
  7. Please go to this link to download the QRescue app.
    https://download.qnap.com/QPKG/QRescue.zip
  8. Please go to App Center > Click Install Manually > Click Browse to find the QRescue app location on your computer.
  9. After selecting the app location, you can click Install. Wait until the installation completes and open the QRescue app on QTS desktop or side-bar.
  10. When you open the QRescue app, you will see the web console. It can help to run PhotoRec and QRescue to recover your files.Part 3. Run PhotoRecRunning PhotoRec can help you to recover the lost files from hard disks to the external drive. Now you will recover the NAS files to the “recup1” (example: recup+{disk_number}) folder on the external drive.
  11. Type this command and press Enter on your keyboard. You will start to run PhotoRec.
    Command:
    photorec
  12. Use Up/Down arrows to choose the hard drive. And you can start to select the NAS disk for running recovery by PhotoRec.
    • Sample:
      • /dev/mapper/cachedev1 as 1st data volume
      • /dev/mapper/cachedev2 as 2nd data volume
      • /dev/mapper/cachedev20 as 20th data volume
    • Note:
      You can check the number of data volumes in Storage & Snapshots > Storage/Snapshots
  13. Select the “ext4” partition and press “Enter
  14. Select the file system as [ ext2/ext3 ] and click “Enter” key.
  15. Select the space as [ Whole ] and click the “Enter” key.
  16. Now we need to select the external device’s folder as the recovery destination. 
    • Source Destination: /share/external/DEV3301_01/qpkg/QRescue   [QRescue qpkg]
    • Recovery Destination: /share/rescue/recup1 [External Device]
    • Click “..” to go back to the upper level folder
       
      • Sample destination: External disk on QRescue app
      • Sample: External Device (name: rescue) > Destination Folder (name: recup1)
  17. Please click “C” on the keyboard when the destination is “/share/rescue/recup1”.
  18. Start to run the recovery process by PhotoRec. Now you can see the estimated time to completion.
  19. When you finish the PhotoRec, you can press enter when you select  [Quit] or type in “ctrl-c” to exit.
    Part 4. Run QRescueRun QRescue can help you to recover the files retrieved by PhotoRec. Now you will recover the files from the “recup+{number}” folder to the “restore+{number}” folder which auto creates on your external drive.
  20. Type this command and click Enter on your keyboard. You will start to run QRescue.
    Command:
    qrescue.sh
  21. (Optional) If you have two or more data volumes on your NAS, the screen will let you select which data volume you will start the process. Please type the number and press “enter”. If you only have one data volume, you might not see this step.

  22. (Optional) Now you can see the progress for which files were completed in the recovery process.
  23. When all of the QRescue process is completed, the screen will show the result summary and the process for sending the system log.
  24. QRescue app also will send the event log to QuLog Center / System Log and notify you on finishing the whole recovery process. If you have opened the QNAP support ticket, don’t forget to make the feedback for your case. QNAP support team will help you to double check. Thank you very much.

Part 5. Move the recovery data to your NAS.

You can move the recovery data to your NAS by File Station


Source :
https://www.qnap.com/en/how-to/tutorial/article/manually-install-qrescue-to-recover-qlocker-encrypted-files-on-qnap-nas

How to set up myQNAPcloud to remotely access a QNAP NAS

Requirements

Register your NAS with myQNAPcloud

  1. Log in to your QNAP NAS.
  2. Open myQNAPcloud.
  3. Click Get Started.

    The Welcome to myQNAPcloud! window appears.
  4. Follow the steps to register your NAS. Click Next to move to the next step.
    1. Enter your QNAP ID and Password.
    2. Enter a Device name for your NAS.
      Note: This name is used to identify your NAS on myQNAPcloud and must be unique across all users.
    3. Choose what NAS services will be enabled and the Access Control setting.

      Your device is registered on myQNAPcloud.

      A summary page displays all the registration details and services guidelines of your NAS.

Remotely access your QNAP NAS with myQNAPcloud

  1. Go to https://www.myqnapcloud.com/.
  2. Sign in using your QNAP Account.
    Note: If you are already signed in you are automatically redirected to My Devices .
  3. Go to My Devices.
    The devices registered to your QNAP Account are displayed.
  4. Click the ”  ” button next to the device to display the device IP and SmartURL.
  5. Click SmartURL.

    A login page for your NAS appears.

Source :
https://www.qnap.com/en/how-to/tutorial/article/how-to-set-up-myqnapcloud-to-remotely-access-a-qnap-nas

How to back up your Mac to QNAP NAS using Time Machine

Requirements:

  • QNAP NAS with QTS 4.3.0 (or later).

There are two ways to back up your Mac to a QNAP NAS: using QTS or HBS 3.

QTS: Go to “Perform Time Machine Backup to your QNAP NAS”.
HBS 3: Go to “Back up Mac with the shared Time Machine account in HBS 3”

  • Perform Time Machine Backup to your QNAP NAS
    • (Optional) Create a designated Time Machine backup user and shared folder
    • Configure Time Machine to use QNAP NAS for backups
  • Back up Mac with the shared Time Machine account in HBS 3
    • Set up shared Time Machine account
    • Configure Time Machine to use QNAP NAS for backups

Perform Time Machine Backup to your QNAP NAS

  • (Optional) Create a designated Time Machine backup user and shared folder
    1. Create a Time Machine backup user.
      Tip: A dedicated Time Machine user account can be created to provide additional security and the ability to set storage quotas for each Mac.
      • Open Control Panel.
      • Go to Privilege > Users.
      • Click Create.
      • Select Create a User.
      • Click Create.
    2. Create a Time Machine backup shared folder.
      • Open Control Panel.
      • Go to Privilege > Shared Folders.
      • Click Create.
      • Select Shared Folder.
      • Enter a Folder Name.
      • Click Next.
      • Give the Time Machine backup user RW access privileges.
      • Click Next.
      • Check Set this folder as the Time Machine backup folder (macOS).
      • Click Finish.
    3. Configure QTS to use SMB 3
      1. Open Control Panel.
      2. Go to Network & File Services > Win/Mac/NFS > Microsoft Networking.
      3. Click Advanced Options.
      4. Under Highest SMB version select SMB 3.
      5. Click Apply.
  • Configure Time Machine to use QNAP NAS for backups
    1. Connect the NAS to your Mac
      • Open Finder on your Mac.
      • Open the Go menu.
      • Click Connect to Server.
      • Enter smb://<NAS name.local or IP address>.
      • Enter the username and password of the backup user account.

        Note:
        If your NAS is a member of a domain then you should log in using the domain name and user account. For example, if your NAS is named qnapnas and you want to connect using local NAS user account nasuser1, then your username is qnapnas\nasuser1.
      • This can be your NAS account or the dedicated Time Machine user account.
      • Select the NAS shared backup folder.
    2. Open Time Machine.
    3. Click Select Backup Disk.
    4. Select the NAS shared backup folder.
    5. Click Use Disk.
    6. Enter the username and password of the backup user account.
      Tip: This can be your NAS account or a dedicated Time Machine user account.
    7. Click Connect.
      Result: You can now use Time Machine to back up this Mac to your NAS.

Back up Mac with a shared Time Machine account in HBS 3

  • Set up the shared Time Machine account
    1. Open HBS 3.
    2. Go to Services > Time Machine.
    3. Check Use shared Time Machine account.
    4. Enter a password for the Time Machine account.
    5. (Optional) Set a storage quota.
    6. Select Maximum
    7. Enter the total capacity in GB.
      Important: If the backup data size is greater than the quota, the Time Machine backup will fail.
    8. Click Apply.
  • Configure Time Machine to use QNAP NAS for backups
    1. Connect the NAS to your Mac
      • Open Finder on your Mac.
      • Open the Go menu.
      • Click Connect to Server.
      • Enter smb://<NAS name.local or IP address>/TMBackup.
      • Enter the username TimeMachine and the password you created earlier.
    2. Open Time Machine.
    3. Click Select Backup Disk.
    4. Select the NAS shared folder TMBackup.
    5. Click Use Disk.
    6. Enter the username TimeMachine and the password you created earlier.

      Note:
      If your NAS is a member of a domain then you should log in using the domain name and user account. For example, if your NAS is named qnapnas and you want to connect using local NAS user account nasuser1, then your username is qnapnas\nasuser1.
    7. Click Connect.
      Result: You can now use Time Machine to back up this Mac to your NAS.

      Tip: Backups can be located under the shared folder TMbackup.

Source :
https://www.qnap.com/en/how-to/tutorial/article/how-to-back-up-your-mac-to-qnap-nas-using-time-machine

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