Administration Interface Part#2

Let's continue our tour through the Administration Interface with its many interesting options we ought to mention.

User and Group Authentication

The Users and Groups Authentication settings allow administrators to manage user access using different group policies. Admins can create, modify, or delete users, and they can also assign them to designated groups. ADS/NT Support also comes in handy when you have a Windows Active Directory Server (ADS) handle domain security. You simply enable the ADS/NT feature and the NAS will connect to the corresponding server for all the relevant information about domain users and groups.


Local User Configuration allows you to add, edit, and remove local users while the Local Group Configuration does the same for local groups.


This option allows you to add users or groups in batch modes, so you can easily add a huge number of users or groups automatically.


You can set the storage quota limitations per user here.


Because bad things can happen to an even extra-secure NAS, you should use this feature to backup your users and groups to another location, restoring them if needed. Once the restore takes place, all current users and groups will be replaced by the new data, so you had better be careful with the restore function.


The firmware also offers Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) support. LDAP is briefly, and according to Wikipedia, an application protocol for accessing and maintaining distributed directory information services over an Internet Protocol (IP) network. You can read more on LDAP here.

Network Service

These groups allow you to enable various network services, including Samba/CIFS, AFP (Apple Network Setup), NFS, FTP, TFTP, WebService, UPnP, Bonjour, SSH, DDNS, and WebDAV.


Most popular network services use FTP, which, in this case, makes the NAS act as an FTP server. WebService allows for HTTP (WebDisk Support) and UPnP allows users to play media files with a UPnP client since the N5550 can act as a UPnP Media server. DDNS provides the IP of the NAS if it uses a dynamic one, and Samba service will allow the NAS to integrate with a Windows Server domain. The NFS service then lets users access files over a network in a manner similar to how local storage is accessed.

Application Server

The N5550's operating system includes an iTunes server application. It allows you to play multimedia files stored on the NAS over your iTunes client.


You can make additional applications and modules you install to the NAS available at the login page by putting a tick into the "show in login" box.


This tab will display all on the Thecus offical website available system modules. If you don't have an internet connection, which would be pretty strange given you have a NAS, you can use the modules.zip file included on the installation CD. This zip file includes most popular, official modules for the NAS. You should, however, check the Thecus website for the most recent version of a module.

Back Up

The N5550 supports various backup types. DOM backup saves the system configuration at specified intervals.


Rsync Target Server allows you to back your data up to a remote server.


The ACL backup and restore feature allows the system Access Control List (ACL) to be backed up onto a RAID volume, and restored if needed.


Data Burn allows you to write files and folders to an optical disc, write an image to a disc, or write files and folders to an image. You must install a USB burning device in order to use this feature with the N5550.


Data Guard allows you to create backup tasks for easy and automatic data backup.


You can backup your data to a remote network location or NAS, a local location, or use the Amazon S3 service.

External Devices

You will only find options for UPS and USB printers under External Devices Options, which is pretty weird, and we hope Thecus will expand on this tab in the near future. They should at least add an option that allows you to format external disks since you currently have to format them in a PC before hooking them up to the NAS. That said, the first tab in this group of options refers to attached printers, while the second allows you to enable/disable UPS monitoring and configure some relevant settings.