How to install BorgBackup on your Synology NAS

I have been interested in cloud “drive” and “storage” solutions for backups lately. And BorgBackup intrigued me. And I was interested in using it with my local NAS instead of the cloud. But as it turns out, Borg needs to be installed on the server for it to work, and that’s not the case for Synology NAS. We can easily install it, however, due to Synology’s SSH security fail, Borg cannot be set up securely as a server on a Synology NAS. But we can install it to be used as a client, backing up our NAS to some other server.

Step 1 – Enable SSH

Enable SSH on your Synology NAS. You can do that in the Control Panel, just search for “SSH”.

Step 2 – Sign in with SSH

Sign in to your Synology NAS with an admin account.

ssh admin@ip_address_here

Step 3 – Get root!

sudo su -

Step 4 – Install BorgBackup

cd /usr/local/bin
wget -c https://github.com/borgbackup/borg/releases/download/1.1.17/borg-linux64 -O borg
chmod +x borg

That’s it! Borg is now installed, and you can use it as a client as you normally would.

Note: If your NAS runs arm instead of x86, this won’t work for you. Cheaper consumer models usually run arm, advanced units for techies and businesses usually run x86.

Further Reading