[PLUG] NAS System suggestions

[Tomas Kuchta]

On Friday, June 24, 2016 02:52:10 PM John Jason Jordan wrote:
> On Fri, 24 Jun 2016 13:38:47 -0700
> 
> wes <plug at the-wes.com> dijo:
> >On Fri, Jun 24, 2016 at 12:25 PM, John Jason Jordan
> >
> ><johnxj at comcast.net> wrote:
> >> On Thu, 23 Jun 2016 15:23:02 -0700
> >> 
> >> wes <plug at the-wes.com> dijo:
> >> >Most NAS devices support multiple protocols. NFS is relatively rare
> >> >these days. I would expect it to support SMB (Windows-style file
> >> >sharing) which is supported fairly ubiquitously.
> >> >
> >> >From the Synology description/features sheet:
> >>         The Most Compatible Sharing
> >>         Enjoy seamless files sharing across Windows, Mac, and Linux
> >>         platforms as DS216j offers comprehensive network protocol
> >>         support including FTP, SMB2, AFP, NFS and WebDAV.
> >> 
> >> Whichever of these is the easiest is the one I want. :)
> >> 
> >> Ideally the contents of the drive would be visible in a Thunar window
> >> so I can just drag and drop files the same as I do with my current
> >> USB 3.0 external drive. It would make my life a lot easier if I
> >> don't have to access the drive from a separate FTP program or web
> >> browser.
> >
> >This is exactly how SMB works. Thunar probably has a "connect to
> >another computer" or similarly-worded option somewhere. This is what
> >you'll use the first time. Then you can create a shortcut on your
> >desktop and just not worry about it any more. At least, not til your
> >router assigns the device a new IP address.
> 
> Assuming the Synology NAS enclosure has a Mac address or some other
> way that my router can identify it, I can just assign it an IP address
> in the router. I have already done that for all the computers, printers,
> and other paraphernalia on my home ethernet. Each device also has a
> label on it displaying its IP address. I discovered a long time ago
> that labels are more reliable than the mysterious functions of my
> hippocampus.
> 
> >From my limited experience with NFS, that is also how it is supposed to
> 
> work, except I could never get it fully working. The problem was
> getting my desktop computer to mount an external USB drive connected to
> the laptop. I could mount /media/jjj on the laptop, but nothing
> further. Considering my failure with NFS, I'm ready to try SMB2.

I smell what might be your NFS problem:

On the Server:
You cannot export "double" mount with NFS v3 or v4 anymore and you need to use 
NFS name space correctly. What you need to do is to exprort '/' or '/media' 
which exist in your '/' mount and then also export '/media/jjj' separately.

On the Client:
You mount your /media/jjj and you should be good.

Words of wisdom:
Sharing USB drive over NFS or SMB is not really great idea unless you have the 
drive and its connectivity welded together. It is data loss disaster waiting 
to happen unless you are really good at being 150% right at unmounting the 
NFS/SMB shares everywhere and also unmounting that USB drive before unplugging 
it. One mistake and you could really be sorry, even if you make sure NOT to 
use async mode.

That being said - you new NAS will have the drive inside, so I guess your 
'double mount' export problem should not exist anymore.

For all the SMB lovers:
How do you intend to share/mount it in multi-user setup?
  a) If you mount it for everyone as root, then you end up with all files being 
owned by single user = no access control.
  b) If you do not mount it, then you have to hand out root/sudo access to 
everyone to be able to mount the SMB share.
  c) If you work around through gui smd://.... clients, then you have to make 
a local file copy before editing a file ... and other nasties.

I do not see too many positives for using SMB on linux, without real samba 
user space mount option available.



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