I was intending to write a guide explaining how to set up a web server running kiki on a Synology NAS. But after several lacklustre attempts I realised I'm not knowledgeable enough to do the subject justice. Instead I'll link to the same resources I found helpful. Sadly, Synology's own documentation on this is little more than a joke. If you already know how to set up a webserver then it may be of some use. But if you're learning as you go it's a waste of time.

And trying to get useful information on the wider internet is a thankless task. AI generated click farmers have flooded the SEO for tech help websites. If anyone knows of any really good, text based, resources aimed at novice web site hosters then please, please let me know of them.

Anyhow, I used these guides to walk me through the setting up process. Yes, yes, I know, they're youtube videos and this would work so much better as text and static images, but it's the internet in 2025 so this is as good as I could find.

All of the below is dependant on you having a website name registered, with DNS set up to direct traffic to your home/office.

Port Forwarding

Firstly, a guide to port forwarding. You need to know this so that your home/office router can listen to incoming traffic looking for your website and pass it to your Synology NAS. Watch BEFORE Port Forwarding - The Complete Guide to Port Forwarding

Web Server

Next up, how to set up your Synology NAS to act as a web server. The video guide is specifically for hosting a wordpress website but the process will work for a kiki instance as well. There's a bunch of options that can probably be ignored or skipped here as they are specific to Wordpress only. But if you follow this closely it should work. How to self host a Wordpress website on Synology NAS (updated for 2024)

SSL Certificates

And finally, here's how to get rid of the security warnings that browser throw up sometimes if it thinks it's looking at an unsecured website. NO MORE HTTPS WARNINGS - How to Generate Signed SSL Certificates on Synology NAS

Install kiki

Once you've done all this you should have a folder in File Station called 'web'. Inside that should be a folder with the same name as your website, only with dashes instead of dots, ie yoursitename-com. Simply take the files you've downloaded from the kiki purchase page and drop them as they are into that folder. And voila, your site should be up and working.

Part of the reason behind writing this is as an aide-memoir for myself, so I can refer back to it if (when) I forget how I achieved this. Hopefully it may prove useful to someone else as well. If so, please let me know. And if you have any other tips or resources to help set up a self-hosted kiki website then please I'd love to hear those too.