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I want to recover deleted files from my Synology using extundelete directly from the network. As extundelete works only with /dev/sda physical drives, I would like to know how to mount my NFS directory in order to be viewed as a physical drive in /dev. I already configured my Synology with NFS access and mounted in Ubuntu (/mnt) but I'm not allowed to access it from extundelete as it doesn't work on network mounted drives. Thank you in advance for your feedback.

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    What is your question, exactly? Are you asking if there is some way other than physically removing the drive from the NAS enclosure? Feb 22, 2017 at 19:14
  • Yes, exactly !! I wondered if it was possible through the network.
    – Dhalsim
    Feb 23, 2017 at 8:44

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Extundelete works on the actual physical device. The devices found in the /dev/ directory are files with special characteristics. These character and block devices relate to raw, physical hardware.

While a special type of mount, like a bind mount of network drives make it appear to many programs treat them, there is a difference when it comes to a program such as format, fsck, and Extundelete that is accessing the raw hardware.

You would have to have access through a method such as ssh to the NFS server and run Extundelete on the physical partition using the /dev/[device] argument for the recovery.

The device should be un-mounted promptly to decrease the chances of the deleted data becoming overwritten.

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  • Thank you very much for your quick feedback. So I know what to do now : remove drives from the NAS and put them in a Ubuntu tower PC ;)
    – Dhalsim
    Feb 23, 2017 at 8:46
  • You're welcome. Why would you remove the drives? You only have to access the drives via their device name from the computer they are physically located. Just don't mount the drives or specific partition where the data is located. You don't even have to touch the physical computer that contains the drives. You can run the command remotely from any computer. Just run the command using /dev/sdxy from any computer. Feb 23, 2017 at 9:19
  • I need to remove drives as they are in a Synology NAS and I cannot access them from my Ubuntu laptop computer (through the network) with Extundelete (it works only with physical drives connected to the machine visible in the /dev directory) Am Iright ?
    – Dhalsim
    Feb 23, 2017 at 16:47
  • The physical device is /dev/[devicename]. If you have remote shell access to the server and you have root access via sudo, then you have access to the raw hardware. Taking the device out of a machine and putting it into a different machine isn't going to change the actual method needed for accessing the raw device. You would use the same commands whether the drive is in your current server or if you put it into a different machine. It is the raw access commands which is /dev/[device] that is needed to perform the task.... (continued) Feb 23, 2017 at 16:52
  • ... It wouldn't hurt to take the drive out of the computer and put it into a different one. But as far as time and convenience, it's not something that needs to be done, if you already have root access to the drive in the machine where it's at. I would be curious as to why you would prefer opening up the case to do a job that you can perform without opening up the case. Feb 23, 2017 at 16:54

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