Setting up icloudpd on Synology NAS

In this article I document how I setup backups for iCloud library in a Synology NAS (ds923+ to be precise).

Out of all the solutions out there, I opted to have a copy in my NAS rather than moving everything to it. And I wanted a way that needs minimal recurring effort.

So went with icloudpd docker container which would directly download stuff from iCloud. I don't have to keep originals on my phone and wait to get home to have the backed up. This was a lot figure out. The repo - https://github.com/boredazfcuk/docker-icloudpd

Setting up the filesystem

Initially, we need to create 2 directories. One for the container settings and one for the location of downloads. In /docker, the default directory Container Manager creates, I create icloudpd/config directory so that the container can create the settings. For the download path, I use volume1/homes/<user>/Photos/icloud so Synology Photos has access to the downloaded media.

Setting up the docker image

We need to create a new project with the path as the /docker/icloudpd and the following docker-compose

version: '3.3'
services:
    icloudpd:
        container_name: icloudpd
        restart: always
        environment:
            - user=username
            - user_id=1026 # default
            - group=users # default
            - group_id=100 #default
            - apple_id=[e-mail]
            - authentication_type=2FA
            - 'folder_structure={:%Y/%m}'
            - notification_days=3
            - synchronisation_interval=21600
            - TZ=Asia/Calcutta
            - 'download_path=/icloud'
            - skip_check=false
        network_mode: host
        healthcheck:
            test: ["CMD", "/usr/local/bin/healthcheck.sh"]
            interval: 10m
            timeout: 10s
            retries: 3
            start_period: 2m
        volumes:
            - '/volume1/docker/icloudpd/config:/config'
            - '/volume1/homes/user/Photos/icloud:/icloud'
        image: boredazfcuk/icloudpd:latest

Figuring out user_id and group details was a chore. It would not get proper permissions to download without this. After some debugging here's what worked

• SSH into your NAS
• Run id username

As soon as, you setup the docker container, you would need to setup a few things like the failsafe file and authentication. This was convenient to setup from the terminal as I was ssh-ed into it already.

• SSH into your NAS (if you already haven't)
• touch <download-path>/.mounted - this is the failsafe file
• docker exec -it icloudpd sync-icloud.sh --Initialise - this would initiate the iCloud authentication

Ran into few issues and one of the error messages suggested I login in icloud.com and see if there are any popups on screen. After clicking them away and re-running the container, it seems to download the icloud library.