Synology NAS — KDE Plasma 6 widget

A system-tray widget for KDE Plasma 6 that lets you browse and mount your Synology (or any SMB/CIFS) network shares the same way Plasma Vaults handles encrypted vaults: click the tray icon, and a popup lists each configured host with its shares — mount or unmount any of them with one click.

• Add multiple NAS / SMB hosts.
• Auto-discovers each host's shared folders with smbclient.
• Mounts real kernel CIFS mounts (visible to every app, not just Dolphin).
• Passwords are kept in KWallet, never in plain config.
• Privileged mounting is done through a tiny polkit-authorized helper — no passwordless-sudo hacks, no editing /etc/fstab.

Works with any SMB server. "Synology" is just the friendly name — point it at a Synology DSM, a Samba box, a Windows share, a TrueNAS, whatever speaks SMB.

Requirements

Install these with your distribution's package manager:

Tool	Provided by (Arch)	Purpose
kpackagetool6	plasma-workspace	install the widget
mount.cifs	cifs-utils	mount CIFS shares
smbclient	smbclient	list shares on a host
pkexec	polkit	authorize the mount helper
kwallet-query	kwallet (KF6)	store/read passwords in KWallet
findmnt	util-linux	detect mounted shares

On Debian/Ubuntu the equivalents are plasma-workspace, cifs-utils, smbclient, policykit-1, kwallet-bin/kf6-kwallet, util-linux.

Install

git clone https://git.houmeres.sk/Houmeres/Plasma-Addon-Synology-NAS.git
cd Plasma-Addon-Synology-NAS
./install.sh

install.sh copies the helper to /usr/lib/synology-nas/helper and the polkit policy to /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/ (via sudo), then installs the widget for your user with kpackagetool6. Re-run it any time to upgrade.

Then add Synology NAS to your panel or system tray (right-click → Add Widgets…), or try it standalone:

plasmawindowed sk.houmeres.synologynas

Usage

1. Open the widget's settings (right-click → Configure…).
2. Under NAS Hosts, add a host: display name, host/IP, username, password (saved to KWallet), and optionally a domain, a mount-folder override, or an SMB-version override.
3. Under General, optionally set the default mount folder (defaults to ~/NAS), SMB version, extra mount options and permission modes.
4. Click the tray icon → Refresh. Each host's shares appear; click a share to Mount it (you'll get a polkit prompt) or Unmount it. Use the row's menu to open a mounted share in your file manager.

Shares mount under <mount folder>/<host>/<share> (e.g. ~/NAS/HomeNAS/photos).

How it works

 Plasmoid (QML)                      Privileged helper (root, via pkexec)
 ─────────────                       ────────────────────────────────────
 smbclient -L   ── list shares       mount.cifs //host/share  <mountpoint>
 kwallet-query  ── read password           -o credentials=…,uid=…,forceuid,…
        │                            umount <mountpoint>
        ▼
 write 0600 cred file in            polkit action:
 $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR ───────────►      sk.houmeres.synologynas.manage
        │                            (auth_admin_keep)
        └── pkexec helper mount …

The QML never runs privileged operations directly. It builds a 0600 credentials file in your $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR (reading the password straight from KWallet, so it never lands in QML, argv or ps) and calls the helper through pkexec. The helper treats every argument as hostile: the mount point must resolve inside your $HOME or /run/media/<you>, the source must be //host/share, and the credentials file must be your own 0600 file under your runtime dir.

Security notes

• Passwords live in KWallet (folder Synology NAS). They are copied into a transient 0600 credentials file only for the moment of mounting, then removed.
• The one place a password briefly touches process arguments is when you first save it in the config page (kwallet-query -w), because the CLI has no other input channel here. The window is milliseconds and visible only to your own user (and root). Everything afterward reads from KWallet.
• The privileged helper is intentionally tiny and does no recursive deletion — on unmount it only rmdirs the now-empty mount/host directories.

Uninstall

./uninstall.sh

Mounted shares stay mounted (unmount them first) and KWallet passwords remain — remove them with kwalletmanager if desired.

Limitations / roadmap

• No mount-at-login persistence yet (planned; the config schema already leaves room for it).
• Share discovery is via smbclient -L only (no Synology DSM API).

License

MIT — see LICENSE.