usb drive attached to router

[barrykw]

Hi
I have a Plusnet hub1 router with an attached usb drive.
I can access this from my Android tablet and my Windows10 laptop.

In Linux Mint 20 the network folder contains only an empty Windows Network folder and I'm not sure what to do next.

I'd be grateful for some simple advice please.

Thanks
Barry

[Grayfox]

If this router is any good(lets face it most ISP based ones are crap).
You should be able to enable some type of storage sharing services.

Here is my ISP based router which I am currently using(my main one died)
It has FTP and SAMBA type services.

But you will have to log in to the router by going to the web browser you use and in the address bar type in the gateway address which can be obtained by opening a terminal prompt and typing in route -n
Login details are normally
admin for username
admin for password

You will have to find the sharing, storage section which may be under "advanced"

I cant find much details on this router apart from its from Plusnet which is a UK based ISP
Like I said, ISP based routers are crap.
Basic documentation(most users dont do advanced things) and these routers also have locked down firmware as well.

Please note
If you do use this, speeds MAY BE SLOW.
I was getting 2Mb/s over ethernet with a USB3 flash drive which was not cheap connected to the USB 2 port on this HG659.
Yet I was getting 30Mb/s on an old Win2000 Machine with it.

These ports are more for Printers if anything

Setting up the router is the first step.

Then you will have to configure linux to use a SAMBA share.

[ralplpcr]

......
I can access this from my Android tablet and my Windows10 laptop.

In Linux Mint 20 the network folder contains only an empty Windows Network folder and I'm not sure what to do next.

How are you connecting to the shared USB folder?
As stated above, if the drive is being shared via SAMBA, then you'll need to *use* SAMBA in order to connect to the drive.

While Windows (and possibly Android) detect this protocol automatically, Linux does not. You need to tell it to use that protocol: otherwise you'd get blank results or a refusal to connect like what you've seen.

Let's assume that for example's sake, your router's interface is located at 192.168.0.254, and your USB is shared out with the folder name usb.
When you want to connect to it from linux, you'll need to open your file manager (Nemo, Caja, or Thunar) and enter the following into the address bar:

Code: Select all

smb://192.168.0.254/usb

You will likely get a popup window asking you to provide a username & password for access. This will be the SAMBA username & password - not necessarily your Linux Mint name & password. It *may* be the same as your name/pw for the router, or there may be a different set of credentials: it all depends on how that router is implementing SAMBA. It could also be blank, if "allow guest" is set within SAMBA.

Once you go through these steps, you'll hopefully see the content in your USB drive.

[barrykw]

Hi
my router is also known as BT hub1

I tried smb://192.168.1.254/usb1 but it returns "could not display smb://192.168.1.254/usb1/
error: Failed to mount windows share: software caused connection abort

[AndyMH]

Google how to access it. I've got an EE hub, similar - can connect a usb drive to it. You will find the file system on the drive has to be either fat32 or ntfs and I don't know if it will handle more than one partition.

Also check what the router uses, SMB1 or higher. Think the EE hub is SMB1 only and SMB1 is not enabled in LM20.
viewtopic.php?f=42&t=322404&p=1831297&h ... 0#p1831297

[ralplpcr]

Do you have SAMBA enabled on your router? And is usb1 the correct folder name that you've shared out?

What happens if you tried smb://192.168.1.254 - - without the folder name. Are you able to see the folder (without opening it)?

[Petermint]

Is it USB 2 or 3? That will limit your choice of disk. USB 3 is faster but the low power in those routers will make the disk access as slow as USB2. I have two better than basic routers and have not found a use for a disk in either.

Backup. A fast snapshot backup, like Backintime, cannot use the disks because they cannot be formatted as Ext4. I am currently adding a Raspberry Pi 4 as a cheap file server based on Ext4. The Pi 4 has two USB3 ports which means I can have dual backups for a little extra safety.

Video. Cheap routers seem to run fast enough to supply old low resolution video and struggle with full resolution 2K. Your feedback from any experiments could help other people decide to use that type of router or upgrade or use something else.

Photos. I used to use a router disk to share photographs but stopped when I upgraded to a camera with good 2K video as the router was too slow. I also had a file server with dual disks that let you load up your own Web site and other services but there was no way to upgrade it to modern versions of Web sever or anything else. Then the router fell out of date with no upgrade path because it lacked sufficient memory. I recycled an old notebook to replace both because the old notebook hand many times more memory and other resources. If you have an alternative to the router, the alternative might be a better investment of your time.

[barrykw]

Without usb1 folder result is the same.
I can't see the router or usb drive.
In Android I can see router PNHub1 and drive USB1and play the media stored on it.
As an aside if Linux distro s want to attract Windows users then surely access to network attached devices is an essential and shouldn't require any faffing with command line to achieve it.

[AndyMH]

And have you checked it is SMB1 only?

[altair4]

As an aside if Linux distro s want to attract Windows users then surely access to network attached devices is an essential and shouldn't require any faffing with command line to achieve it.

I did a quick search of your router and it appears it only supports the SMB1 dialect.

A Windows 10 machine in it's default new build state will never be able to discover then connect to this device or any other device that only has SMB1 enabled since it's either disabled or will uninstall it if not used after a period of time unless one of two conditions are met:

[1] The device has WS-DIscovery enabled like a Synology NAS has done.

If a server can only use SMB1 it is unlikely it has WS-Discovery capability.

[2] You go into the internal plumbing of Win10 and enable the smbv1 client.

Modern Linux desktops follow the same limitation as Win10 so you will have to enable the smb1 ( samba calls it NT1 ) client on your mint machine. Instructions for how to do that are in the link AndyMH provided above.

You can also just do a cifs mount which that link also talks about.

[barrykw]

But my Windows 10 machine connects perfectly well to the router and usb drive

[AndyMH]

But my Windows 10 machine connects perfectly well to the router and usb drive

Check your win settings from this and report back:
https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4155

You may also find this helpful:
https://community.plus.net/t5/My-Router ... -p/1686101

It suggests smb://pnhub1/usb1, but that is not going to work in LM20 unless you enable SMB1 in mint. Everything I've read suggests that the router connects with SMB1 and you have been given the link on how to enable SMB1 in LM20.

[barrykw]

Hi AndyMH
Thank you for your patience.
In Windows10 under Network I see my laptop, one media device and my Plusnet Hub 1 router.

To avoid confusion I am not running Linux as a dual boot, but as a stand-alone system on a laptop.

I guess I will have to enable SMB1 in mint. Some of the terms used don't mean much to me, I really need some sort of worked example.

[barrykw]

If it try the smbclient.... command I get protocol negotiation failed

[AndyMH]

Maybe I wasn't clear enough or you didn't read the whole of the link, what I wanted to see was what are your win10 settings for this:

Are they enabled or disabled (as in the screenshot)?

I am trying to confirm that your router only supports SMB1.

[barrykw]

Sorry Andy, probably my lack of understanding.

Yes, you are right SMB 1.0/CIFS server and client are both enabled.

[barrykw]

Ahhhhh! Thank you to everyone who tried to help this novice

Enabled SMB 1.0 and I can now access my media.

All I have to do now is work out how to share with my windows and Android devices

[Rew82]

Op... How did you enable Smb1 in mint? I can connect to my USB drive in other flavours of Linux but I usually have to edit the /etc/smb.conf file to get it to work. I've tried everything on mint with no luck

[AndyMH]

Op... How did you enable Smb1 in mint? I can connect to my USB drive in other flavours of Linux but I usually have to edit the /etc/smb.conf file to get it to work. I've tried everything on mint with no luck

Same with mint, edit smb.conf:
viewtopic.php?f=42&t=322404&p=1831297&h ... 0#p1831297

[Rew82]

Giving it a go now... I'll let you know how I get on. Weird thing is I didn't have the configuration file. Clean installed yesterday and now there is a configuration file