NFS in Synology and XBMC (now Kodi)

Share This Article
Lentor Mansion Preview Starts on 1st March

Used to be really difficult to get NFS in Synology to work with XBMC. There was a need to go down to the Linux level and do some code changes.

NFS in Synology : The original way

Something like this:

10. On your computer, in a command line window (Terminal on a Mac, CMD on a Windows PC, etc), ssh into your Synology:
ssh root@<>
11. Type in cat /etc/exports to make sure your previous steps have created exported NFS directories. If no entries are found, go back to the previous steps and make sure you’ve followed them correctly.
12. Type vi /etc/exports to edit the /etc/exports file, and change all the “insecure_locks” entries to simply read “insecure”. If you don’t know vi: press the INS[SERT] key, use arrows to go to the line to edit, and delete/edit the line. Then press the ESC key, and type 😡 to ‘Save & Exit’.
13. Type cat /etc/exports again, and you should now see something like this (make sure it says “insecure” rather than “insecure_locks”):
14. Type exportfs -ra to initialize your newly exported directories, or reboot the NAS.
15. You should now be able to browse NFS and get to your exported Synology subfolders in XBMC.

NFS in Synology : The Easier Way

In the recent DSM (diskstation manager) OS of Synology, it is much easier. I tested and it worked really well. Only issue is in XBMC, you cannot browse for the folder and need to manually enter into the XBMC.

In Synology, there are two settings:

Setting one is to switch on NFS:
NFS in Synology

Setting two is to assign the NFS privileges to a specific folder you wanted to share. Take note of the mount folder name. You will need to enter that in XBMC:
NFS in Synology

And in XBMC, you then enter the NFS link (of the folder in your Synology NAS) in the Source:
NFS in Synology

Works nicely for me.

A great video here:

NFS in Synology : The more secure way

Read my 2023 article on setting up NFS on Kodi in a more secure way.

Share This Article

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.