Synology Virtual DSM (vDSM) Setup

I recently purchased a Synology NAS ( model DS220+ ), check out my initial thoughts post for a background on why I got one.  When you purchase a DS220+, you get a free license to run a Virtual DSM.

As the name implies, the Virtual DiskStation Manager (vDSM) is a virtual DSM instance that you can run on your Synology NAS.  I will admit that I don't have a solid use case for a vDSM yet, so at this point I just want to set one up to try the process and have it available.  As a note, I have upgraded my DS220+ so I have a total of 10GB of RAM.

Here are the high level setup steps:

1. Install "Virtual Machine Manager" (VMM)
2. Run VMM, go through initial setup wizard.
3. In VMM, Create the image
1. Go to Image > DSM Image and click "Add" to create an image.
2. Click "Download Virtual DSM image" and download
3. Click Next, choose your host and click "Done"
4. The "Status" should start with "Downloading", wait until "Status" shows "Healthy"
4. In VMM, create the VM
1. Go to "Virtual Machine" > Create and choose "Synology Virtual DSM"
2. Recommend name it something like "vDSM", use 1 CPU and 2GB of ram.
3. For this test I just put 100GB for Virtual Disk 1 and use most of the defaults.
4. I left Autostart as "No", I am sure I can change it later.
5. Wait until "Status" shows "Powered off"
5. In VMM, start your VM
1. Click "Power on" for vDSM (or whatever you named it).
2. Choose "Use existing license" since your NAS includes 1 free license.
3. Once the status says "Running" wait until you see an IP assigned.
4. Go to ( http://<ip address>:5000/ )
5. Setup your new vDSM!

That is it.  You have a vDSM setup for whatever use case you come up with.  Some ideas I might try:

• Mirror my basic configuration to test production updates
• Test beta apps
• Isolate services that are open to the internet directly