Yet Another Cycling Forum

General Category => The Knowledge => Ctrl-Alt-Del => Topic started by: madamemugwump on 19 March, 2019, 01:39:45 pm

Title: Google IP addresses accessing my network storage
Post by: madamemugwump on 19 March, 2019, 01:39:45 pm
Hello all, long time lurker/reader here wanting to pick brains on matters techie - because there's come clever folk here.

I've a Buffalo NAS box that I have automate backups to. There's also a little script on it monitors network connections. All that works just fine and it has picked up 3 or 4 external IP addresses that resolve to google sites (some to Buffalo sites but that's understandable).

Maybe just search bots or somesuch but I am rather curious as to how they're getting there, through the routers firewall, and why. The NAS is off most of the time, it just fires up a couple of times a week and, hey presto, one of the following is in...

66.102.1.109
74.125.140.108
74.125.140.109
108.177.15.108

Thoughts?   
Title: Re: Google IP addresses accessing my network storage
Post by: Kim on 19 March, 2019, 01:44:06 pm
Does it tell you anything other than IP addresses?  Ports and protocols would be a start....as would whether they're inbound or outbound connections.
Title: Re: Google IP addresses accessing my network storage
Post by: ian on 19 March, 2019, 02:08:25 pm
I think and duly speculate, and I've not looked at mine for the while, that Buffalo NAS have an optional 'cloud' access option that may well be provided via Google Cloud Platform.
Title: Re: Google IP addresses accessing my network storage
Post by: madamemugwump on 19 March, 2019, 02:19:12 pm
Does it tell you anything other than IP addresses?  Ports and protocols would be a start....as would whether they're inbound or outbound connections.

No, I'd have to mod my script to give more info. I'm guessing inbound as there's nothing google related on the NAS to... ah, hang on, my scripts send emails with ssmtp and that's configured to google servers. Nah, can't be that can it? The scripts don't send email until job completion - these connections are on NAS wake up. Could they 'linger' across sleep / wake up?

I guess I could change the ssmtp config to other-than-google and see... or mod my script to report port & protocol (bit of a pfaff that)
Title: Re: Google IP addresses accessing my network storage
Post by: Kim on 19 March, 2019, 02:29:35 pm
I think and duly speculate, and I've not looked at mine for the while, that Buffalo NAS have an optional 'cloud' access option that may well be provided via Google Cloud Platform.

Would be my guess too.  Or google drive or something.  An outbound connection would normally be able to traverse the firewall, so no mystery there.
Title: Re: Google IP addresses accessing my network storage
Post by: madamemugwump on 19 March, 2019, 02:40:22 pm
An outbound connection would normally be able to traverse the firewall, so no mystery there.

Agreed. 'fing is, my NAS is a bit old, it doesn't have new fangled cloud access.

I'm going to have to mod my script if I want to be sure. Realistically speaking, it must be outbound. The firewall on the router is set to it's preconfigured 'high' mode so I'd be really disappointed if it were inbound.

There are accesses to Buffalo sites - I'm presuming for time sync, upgrade checks and such like - but they don't bother me obviously; they in and gone in no time. Initially, I had my script shutting down the NAS if it detected unknown access, but that became a bit of a pain so I've kind of had to accept that these google ips are, um, benevolent.
Title: Re: Google IP addresses accessing my network storage
Post by: ian on 19 March, 2019, 04:57:14 pm
My Buffalo NAS must be a decade or so old and has an access-via-the-internet feature. I've never tried it, but I recall seeing it in the nest of settings.
Title: Re: Google IP addresses accessing my network storage
Post by: madamemugwump on 21 March, 2019, 01:19:12 pm
My Buffalo NAS must be a decade or so old and has an access-via-the-internet feature. I've never tried it, but I recall seeing it in the nest of settings.

Yes mine has that too and, like yours, I've not got it set up. I did have several years back (I'm a pseudo-geek so I like to play with such things, just so as I know what it does, if nothing else) but, once working, I could see no practical purpose for me so I disabled it again.

I've not had an intrusion for a few days now so I'm less concerned than I was. I may never be any the wiser... hopefully.