Setting up Synology Web Station

Setting up external access on your Synology NAS is not strictly necessary, and many features can be used by simply activating quickconnect. Some features do require access over a proper domain though, luckily DSM includes tools to get you going in no time.

Port Forwarding

To make sure your NAS is reachable from outside your network, certain ports have to be forwarded. To get a web server running, it is only necessary to forward port 80 and 443 to your NAS, this will have to be configured on your router, check its manual or the manufacturers web page on how to do that.

DDNS

This post assumes you’re not spending money on a static IP and will cover how to set up DDNS with Synologys own services.

The settings are located inside Control Panel under External Access. Here you can configure multiple DDNS services, we will focus on the one offered by Synology. To get started, add a new service and choose Synology. If your NAS is registered already, most of the settings are already configured for you and you only have to choose a hostname and one of the available domain names.

When you’ve picked a valid hostname, it will even ask you to set up a Let’s Encrypt certificate for that domain and set it as default. Click yes if you don’t have one yet and don’t want to configure it manually later on.

Web Station

Next, go to the package manager and install Web Station. The installation should automatically create a web share on your nas, this is the root for the main web page. Once Web Station is installed, go to https://hostname.domain that you’ve picked before to check if you can see the default Synology web page.