Tag Archives: headless

Synology backup with CrashPlan 4.3.0


I recently upgraded to CrashPlan 4.3.0 which I use to backup my Synology to a remote location.

On Synology, you can only use CrashPlan in a headless manner, so I am running “the head”, the client, from my MacBook.
After the update to CrashPlan 4.3.0, I was unable to connect to the engine running on my Synology. And that is a pain, as I cannot control the CrashPlan setup anymore, which I needed, to do some setup-changes.
I thought to write it down as it is the combination of to pieces of forum-information with a small alteration.

Here’s how I got to fix it (I took the rigorous way as I feel a clean start is the best start & CrashPlan keeps all your settings with you account anyway):
1) remove CrashPlan from Synology (using the package manager)
2) remove CrashPlan from my MacBook
3) install CrashPlan on Synology (using the package manager)
4) install CrashPlan on my MacBook from the CrashPlan website
5) change the client ui.properties to include serviceHost=<your NAS name / IP>
6) change .ui_info on the Synology NAS (and this was the missing bit):

Synology (server) side of things:
– Edit my.service.xml, mine was located in /volume1/@appstore/CrashPlan/conf/my.service.xml. Changed from <serviceHost>localhost</serviceHost> to <serviceHost>0.0.0.0</serviceHost>. Please keep the default port <servicePort>4243</servicePort>
– Get the server user id information, check your path… You could use the command cat /Library/Application\ Support/CrashPlan/.ui_info  ; echo

MacBook (client) side of things:
– Making a backup of the client .ui_info file just in case… sudo cp /Library/Application\ Support/CrashPlan/.ui_info /Library/Application\ Support/CrashPlan/.ui_info.backup
Substituting original client .ui_info content with .ui_info coming from server: sudo vi /Library/Application\ Support/CrashPlan/.ui_info

And, presto, this is what did it for me and my Synology!