How safe is XPEnology?

[JanHoedt]

Hi,

 

I love your project XPEnology. I might run some XPENology vm's or even a bare metal.
I wonder though how safe XPENology is. How can I be sure there is no malware in it?

 

J.

[sbv3000]

Have a read of the FAQ to understand what XPE/DSM is and how it works.

Its unlikely that there is any 'malware' in DSM itself - but like any O/S it has vulnerabilities.

I think its also unlikely that the XPE boot loader has any 'hidden' malware,  I don't think thats what the DEVs that have made it work are about, and I think its bound to have been noticed by now. 

There are probably more risks in 'day to day' use of a running system (ie people getting sent malware links), rather than XPE/DSM, you need to have A/V malware in place for that if you are worried. 

[IG-88]

the loader comes from one person (you can use his mega link) and the dsm (OS) is the original you download directly from synology so you have to trust jun about the loader and maybe the person doing extra drivers you might add (or you compile drivers yourself, i did a howto for this)

 

true there is no checksum by jun to verify the *.img files after getting them, maybe polanskiman can add sha256 checksums in his faq or loader links?

if that gets the new standard i will add them to my extra.lzma's too

 

[Polanskiman]

The major problem with XPEnology is really not a malware issue but rather a support/compatibility issue. We always have to be careful when updating an XPEnology box as it always has the potential of bricking it. That is why we have a forum and a dedicated section to updates called 'Critical Update'. Search and you shall find. The rest has been clearly said in the above two posts and I will not elaborate on it.

 

MD5 checksums have been provided for a long time for all loaders. See here:

I rechecked them with Jun's provided loader link and they still match. So no worries there.

[JanHoedt]

Thanks!  Id really like to know what each file is for, I see image files and iso. So the ISO is to write to usb, then boot and install, right?  What about the image file then? 

[Polanskiman]

On 1/12/2018 at 1:13 AM, JanHoedt said:

Thanks!  Id really like to know what each file is for, I see image files and iso. So the ISO is to write to usb, then boot and install, right?  What about the image file then? 

 

They are the same just in a different format. Usually .iso is used for VMs. Use the img file and burn it on a USB drive. See my tutorial on how to.