Papa's Got a Brand New NAS: the Software

Kyle Rankin — Mon, 29 Oct 2018 12:00:00 +0000

Who needs a custom NAS OS or a web-based GUI when command-line NAS software is so easy to configure?

In a recent letter to the editor, I was contacted by a reader who enjoyed my "Papa's Got a Brand New NAS" article, but wished I had spent more time describing the software I used. When I wrote the article, I decided not to dive into the software too much, because it all was pretty standard for serving files under Linux. But on second thought, if you want to re-create what I made, I imagine it would be nice to know the software side as well, so this article describes the software I use in my home NAS.

The OS

My NAS uses the ODROID-XU4 as the main computing platform, and so far, I've found its octo-core ARM CPU and the rest of its resources to be adequate for a home NAS. When I first set it up, I visited the official wiki page for the computer, which provides a number of OS images, including Ubuntu and Android images that you can copy onto a microSD card. Those images are geared more toward desktop use, however, and I wanted a minimal server image. After some searching, I found a minimal image for what was the current Debian stable release at the time (Jessie).

Although this minimal image worked okay for me, I don't necessarily recommend just going with whatever OS some volunteer on a forum creates. Since I first set up the computer, the Armbian project has been released, and it supports a number of standardized OS images for quite a few ARM platforms including the ODROID-XU4. So if you want to follow in my footsteps, you may want to start with the minimal Armbian Debian image.

If you've ever used a Raspberry Pi before, the process of setting up an alternative ARM board shouldn't be too different. Use another computer to write an OS image to a microSD card, boot the ARM board, and at boot, the image will expand to fill the existing filesystem. Then reboot and connect to the network, so you can log in with the default credentials your particular image sets up. Like with Raspbian builds, the first step you should perform with Armbian or any other OS image is to change the default password to something else. Even better, you should consider setting up proper user accounts instead of relying on the default.

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smbclient Security for Windows Printing and File Transfer

Charles Fisher — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 12:53:56 +0000

by Charles Fisher

Microsoft Windows is usually a presence in most computing environments, and UNIX administrators likely will be forced to use resources in Windows networks from time to time. Although many are familiar with the Samba server software, the matching smbclient utility often escapes notice.

The "map network drive" function of Windows relies upon the Server Message Block network protocol that has evolved chiefly within the descendents of NT. The smbclient utility presents an interface reminiscent of FTP that allows file transfer to and from disk directories and printers on an NT server over SMB where sharing is enabled.

In this article, I present connection examples for Windows services, then develop a general script for pushing content to Windows shares. I discuss when the SMB protocols should be used and, more important, when they should not.

Connection Examples

Samba for UNIX is well known for server software that interoperates with clients on Windows networks. However, it also includes the smbclient program that can manipulate any SMB server. The smbclient program will be immediately familiar to those experienced with command-line FTP.

The smbclient program can query SMB servers for a list of visible shares using the -L option:


$ smbclient -L dc.somecompany.com -U nt_username -W nt_domain

Enter nt_username's password:

Domain=[NT_DOMAIN]
OS=[Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard 7601 Service Pack 1]
Server=[Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard 6.1]

     Sharename       Type      Comment
     ---------       ----      -------
     C$              Disk      Default share
     file_stash      Disk
     Fancy_laser     Printer   Really Expensive
     Cheap_laser     Printer   What a deal!

After cataloging the file and printer shares on a server, you can connect to a specific share and manipulate it. Below are examples of several types of transfers:

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