Hello!
Has anyone installed Backlight on a Synology? I can’t see why not, its Linuxish, has Apache and PHP 5.4. SQLite and PDO modules though? Are they part of Apache? Do I need them in addition?
I can run most things either natively on Synology (Apache etc) or via Containers (Apache again plus anything else).
Anyone been down this road?
Thanks!
It has been done and should work. Bear in mind that Backlight expects a well-managed server where PHP dependencies are met, default permissions allow writing to the right places without messing around and so on. You may have trouble getting a Synology environment up to that level.
I disagree with your last sentence, Ben. 
If you understand how to administer a Synology box (and it’s pretty easy), it’s easy to get Backlight running. I run a local testing copy of Backlight on my DS1815+, and it’s trouble free. It’s at PHP 7.2. You have to check the PHP options on the Synology, but if I remember all the needed modules were on by default.
I mirror my live site, so it contains about 40K images. The only problems I’ve had is that the Syno processor isn’t powerful enough to run a search before it times out.
Paul
Thanks Paul, that’s very helpful.
Being as you probably know more about Synology than I, can I ask a couple more questions?
For some reason (actually so I could run Nextclould) I’m using Docker containers, Nextclould, MariaDB and phpMyAdmin are all in their own containers. Do I need/want to run Backlight’s Apache in a container? Or just install in the default Apache? In which case, where is the SQLite database?
I’m kinda hoping the answer is, follow the usual install instructions, Docker containers can be a bit of a pain to get going…
Thanks again!
Docker containers are a headache, that’s for sure.
Backlight creates its SQLite databases in the /backlight/data folder. If your server is setup for SQLite, it should hopefully not be a thing you need to worry about. That’s why we opted to use SQLite in the first place.
I agree with Matt about the Docker containers.
Are you trying to create a local site or something that you want visible on the 'net?
I just setup Backlight as a local web site. I can’t give you the exact terminology right now, as we are in a hotel after a wildfire (house is OK, just can’t stay there) and I can’t fire up the Synology box. It’s sitting on the floor a few feet from me!
Going from memory, I think I just set it up in Web Station. It was super easy.
I don’t know anything about Nextcloud. Sorry.
Paul
Paul, because you know what you’re doing. We’re here to provide software support not guide people on becoming system administrators. My apologies if that sounds harsh but we’ve had many instances of being criticised for Backlight not working while it’s been an issue of the server setup, and worse, the admin console has been hidden behind a router giving us no way of identifying the issue.
A bit of both. First I’ll run it locally, get to know Backlight, then point some DNS at it and see how it works. Its going to be secondary site, my main website is currently hosted elsewhere but I’d like to make some less important pictures available without using my entire hosted quota!
I only used Docker to run Nextcloud - think of it as a self hosted Dropbox - as it can’t run directly on Synology DSM. Although I see the reasoning for Containers, if, as you say, I can drop Backlight into Web Station, I’ll try that. Anything for an easy life! Which you don’t sound to be having. Stay safe.
That’s fine by me. My original question was to see if a Synology box was able to run Backlight and how hard it may turn out to be if it could. So far it sounds possible. But I know this would be the wrong place to ask highly technical questions on Docker, for example. If I get stuck installing and it looks more like a Synology issue I’ll ask their community, but for obvious Backlight questions, I’ll be back!
Thanks to all.
@davidgordon, our support outside standard environments is on a best-effort basis. Depending on the issue, we may not be able to provide support at all if your environment is Synology or Docker containers. Just determining whether an issue is application or system level can be more time-consuming than providing application support.
Hey, Ben, my comment was not meant to be a criticism of you or what you’re doing. If it came off that way, I apologize.