3400 can't map on one office computer

[tester007]

This is part of a couple questions. I have had this system for about 6 months, and have access to it (file/folder structure of a Speco camera system repository via windows explorer as another drive letter) via a desktop in an office on the same network, and the main windows server terminal at the server rack which houses this unit. I can't for the life of me remember what I did to map this thing to these computers. I did not use the assistant as far as I know.

We have a large security camera system that records video 24/7 to this nas. When I set up that softare camera server (on a win 2016 server), and pointed it to the 2 iscsi addresses, it just created the directories it needed to start saving the cam data. When I mapped to the nas via one of the ip's (I assume I did initially), I could see this 'root' and the directories the camera server had created. And so I left it for months. I can go on there and create, delete folders and files..etc.

Today I went to a new computer for a security person to give access to this location so they could pull up historical cam data. If I open file explorer, click on 'network', I can see an icon for Synology(SA3400). However, I cannot right click on the network icon, enter in one of the 2 ip's, and have it connect. I tried to put the path that the other computers have, but the drive is named a name I made up on the remote desktops.

So I downloaded the assistant. I can see both IP's, but clicking to connect the drives says there is no shared folder. I found this confusing as I could see multiple folders on the other 2 computers. So I logged into the synology control panel through the web interface.

1) I noticed in file station, there was no 'shared' folder. So I wondered where my folders that were on there (camera footage folders) actually were... and I could not find anything. No matter where I look in file station, I cannot see this structure anywhere.. am I missing something? If I go to explorer on the 2 computers connected, i can see it fine, pull the cam footage..etc, create/delete folders... Those folders for all intent and purposes are 'shared'. QNAP this just looks the same as explorer, but I cannot find anything in synology file station.

2) So I created a 'shared' folder in the synology web interface to see what that would do. this popped up on the computer having issues mapping, and I could map to it. But it did nothing for me as the other computers that were already mapped to the cam footage folders could not see that folder. So I deleted the trash bucket that synology created in the folder, but I could not delete the folder.. how can I delete it?

3) And most importantly, how do I get this one computer mapped to this nas without the use of the assistant that does nothing without a synology created shared folder? As mentioned before, i've done it on 2 computers although I cannot for the life of me recall how. Entering in one of the 2 ip's doesn't come up with anything. As mentioned when I set up the camera software server, I just pointed it to the NAS and it created everything... there was no popup saying I needed to first create a shared folder or anything.

 

[Rusty]

and I could not find anything. No matter where I look in file station, I cannot see this structure anywhere.. am I missing something?

Did I misunderstood or haven you said that you have connection between your cam system and NAS via iSCSI? if so, you will not see that data via File Station.

So I deleted the trash bucket that synology created in the folder, but I could not delete the folder.. how can I delete it?

root shared folders are deleted from Control Panel > Shared folders where you also create them

And most importantly, how do I get this one computer mapped to this nas without the use of the assistant that does nothing without a synology created shared folder?

Can you ping your NAS on its IP's from that computer in the 1st place?

 

[tester007]

-I have 2 dell servers, both running win server 2016. one is just a backup/mirror. The main one runs a software server from the cam manufacturer which co-ordinates our 53 cams. That cam server sends its data through an edgeswitch, to the nas which is connected to the edgeswitch via iscsi dual 10gb. When the cam server is started up on the dell, it creates 4 directories on the NAS. I always assumed it would look like windows file explorer off a root (it doesn't through synology software), but I can only see this structure on:
A) the computer hooked to the edgeswitch (not the dell server terminal, but a regular win10 machine beside it) directly
and
B) my personal computer in an office connected to a cisco switch, connected to the edgeswitch, connected to the 3400.

I have a qnap at home and anything created from a remote computer shows up in the similar file station in qnap software. Strange to not see a structure that exists, along with GB's of data not show up through the main software.

-Thanks on the shared folder deletion through control panel. I created it through file station and there is no choice there to delete it.

- Yes I can ping both ip's on the NAS from the computer that cannot connect to it.

 

[Rusty]

A) the computer hooked to the edgeswitch (not the dell server terminal, but a regular win10 machine beside it) directly
and
B) my personal computer in an office connected to a cisco switch, connected to the edgeswitch, connected to the 3400.

So in the end you are using iSCSI, and can see the actual content only when connecting via these devices. Do you have iscsi mappings on those devices as well? Because if you are running iscsi luns then the only way to access the data on those is via a compatible OS with an initiator on it.

I have a qnap at home and anything created from a remote computer shows up in the similar file station in qnap software. Strange to not see a structure that exists, along with GB's of data not show up through the main software.

It is not the same on any vendor device if you use SMB protocol or iSCSI. Qnap, Syno or any other.

I created it through file station and there is no choice there to delete it.

if its a root shared folder subfolder then you should be able to remove it via File Station

 

[tester007]

Thanks Rusty.. this lead me on the path. In administrative tools, set up scsi initiator. In there entered in the IP and the drive popped up without having to map to it. Works now. I don't recall at all doing this previously but I must have lol.

 

[Rusty]

Thanks Rusty.. this lead me on the path. In administrative tools, set up scsi initiator. In there entered in the IP and the drive popped up without having to map to it. Works now. I don't recall at all doing this previously but I must have lol.

Be very careful with multiple clients accessing a single LUN. If the lun is not configured to allow multi-client connections or it's not managed by the system that can drive that setup, r/w operations from multiple clients at the same time will corrupt the LUN.

So make sure that a) your iSCSI target on Syno side is configured with multi-session option, and B) that the OS running the LUN (Windows server or whatever) is capable of this as well. Considering that you are on win 2k16, guessing this is already configured as such, just saying it out loud.

Glad you figured it out.

 

[tester007]

Where are these settings? In synology? Right now I can see the drive from 2k16, and 2 x win10 machines. These are not set up to be accessing it regularly. I access on 2k16 machine at end of month to archive the active storage directories as the cam server screws up after a few months and randomly deletes footage folders. Other than that, it's never really accessed. The computer I just set it up on today is securities computer, and extremely rarely will need to go back to historical footage to look at an event if there is an incident.
But having said that, we need to store footage by law here for 365 days so I can't afford to lose it.

-- post merged: 30. Mar 2022 --

under san manager-Lun-edit, my only choices are properties/mapping/permission.

-- post merged: 30. Mar 2022 --

found it...
iSCSI-edit

yes, multiple sessions is checked off.

 

[Rusty]

multiple sessions is checked off.

Yes setting is on the target level not Lun but you found it. Considering this, DO NOT access same lun from multiple clients at the same time. You will nuke the volume.

Also if this is on a 1Y backup policy guessing you are backing up that lun from synology side?

 

[tester007]

We aren't backing up, or we'd need the same 110Tb or so somewhere to do so. Cost prohibitive at the moment. When we start the cam server, it creates it's directories. I have found after a few months it starts to screw up and was only recording 1 of 2 streams from some cams, a couple others said they were recording but weren't.. Shutting down and restarting that server, clearing and recreating cam pools didn't solve it. After a bit of trying things eventually it erased the latest footage randomly from 6-10 weeks of data. We have a sister company in another province that had similar issues so it's not our setup but the cam server flakiness. But once you commit to a brand...
Anyways, I found that simply shutting down the cam server, and then dragging the entire recording directory to an 'archive' directory I created, and then restarting the cam server seemed to solve things.. the server recreates it's cam directories for each cam, and every cam was recording, both streams. So we created an SOP to simply shut server down, drag the cam data to an 'archive' folder named with the end date of that month. We will probably hit 110-115Tb at the end of the year, with a 13th month overlap before we can delete the oldest month and just keep the mandated 365 days going.

ANyways, other than these times, or if an incident ever happened and archival footage needed to be looked at, that 'drive' shouldn't need to be accessed remotely.

The software server is connected all the time of course, and sends 53 streams to 106 directories all the time. Is this considered massive concurrent connections? There are remote clients that security has running 24/7 that show all these streams live on their monitors of course. But they can also go to a calendar and view historical footage which would go through the cam server, and pull off the synology. However, because we pull the cam footage off in blocks of 1 month, security could not use this client to view the same way. They would need to pick a directory vs using the client calendar and find the date/time manually based on file name, then play that file in the client.

So there are times there will be massive writing going on, but also reading from a client.. this is unavoidable due to what we have to do. This isn't just a repository. But it isn't something where we have a file that 2 people may use at the same time.

-- post merged: 30. Mar 2022 --

As per above, forgot to ask my main question.. if the Speco cam server is accessing that LUN storing footage from the dell 2k16 server, then I assume anyone doing anything from another terminal would be accessing at the same time. We can't really shut down the speco server and not record, just to look at some archival footage. Or is this different than what you meant? Security looks at events over the night almost daily while recording is running and it's worked fine so far.

 

[Rusty]

I was referring to multiple iscsi lun mapping and usage from separate devices.

If you have users accessing it via cam system it’s fine. Because the cam platform is the one using the lun.

 

[tester007]

But anyone simply opening file explorer from their desktop while the cam server is recording though would be multiple?

 

[Rusty]

But anyone simply opening file explorer from their desktop while the cam server is recording though would be multiple?

If they attach the same target and LUN, yes

 

[tester007]

I checked on my computer and I have it set to round robin for MCS. I've never had an issue (so far)... I assumed the iscsi connection was no different than a fiber or 10gb copper line.

Should we have set up a shared drive, and then pointed the cams to that initially? What really is the point of the iscsi connection vs any other method? I thought this basically made this look like an external drive to the Dell.

 

[Rusty]

Should we have set up a shared drive, and then pointed the cams to that initially? What really is the point of the iscsi connection vs any other method? I thought this basically made this look like an external drive to the Dell.

It is made to look like an external drive, but with multiple clients targeting the same lun over the same target, is something that needs to be managed or you will get into trouble