Hello everyone, I’m trying to setup gl-ar300m / gl-ar150 so it can manage backups but will need the attached usb/hdd to be encrypted and will access the disk through SFTP, so I can use ddns and all, as if it were a NAS, does sombody knows any setup steps anywhere ?
This will be an awesome implement, similar to lima ultra but for less price.
Thank you in advance.
No idea about how to access encrypted data. It should depends on the implementation.
Hello,
How often would the data be uploaded to the router, and would it be used by your average user or just for more technical people to do backups? The problem with encrypted disks is that these routers CPUs are quite tiny so there would be a significant speed bottleneck to encrypting the drive itself in real time. My suggestion would be, if possible, to encrypt the files first on the device and then upload the files to the router.
To install the SFTP server onto the router should be pretty simple, all you would need to do is follow this tutorial: https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/sftp.server
If you were still interested in using encryption on the disk itself at the router level, there is a brief openwrt wiki entry here: https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/disk.encryption
I haven’t tried this personally so I can’t vouch for it, but it seems like it should work. Hopefully if I have some free time soon I can test this myself!
Thank you for answering.
Of course the other way you mention can be done, first the encryption and then the backu, although I’m trying to use it like if it were a NAS.
It will be me or the designated user the only ones that would be able to access for the backup process, due to the little size of the router so it won’t use all memory by having many connections; the data will be uploading depending on projects done. The hard to setup thing for me is to access the encrypted files too through SFTP implementation, becouse the SFTP server looks easy installing as it is explained in the Wiki.
I saw the encryption openwrt Wiki too and I can manage to install it, the only thing I’m worried is that I’m not sure if this will work becouse I haven’t seen many info about or step by step guide on youtube or forums as support material if something goes wrong, I think I’m going to try and I’ll write back if I succeed.
If you make it work , tell me too 
Update: (Can’t install cryptsetup as needed https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/disk.encryption)
Firstone was : opkg install cryptsetupDidn't try other packages as I need them all in order to make it work.
Help please
Collected errors: * satisfy_dependencies_for: Cannot satisfy the following dependencies for cryptsetup: * kernel (= 3.18.27-1-e5ed52b8a26964473b4e4d079fbf6f41) * * opkg_install_cmd: Cannot install package cryptsetup