Pogoplug Multimedia Sharing Device (Model B01 Pink or P21 Black) $17 + Free Shipping (Ebay Daily Deal)

Quote from crakarjax : I suspect that drives being read-only can be solved by doing the following: [Pogoplug:~$]# /usr/sbin/fw_setenv usb_init "run usb_scan; setenv usb_root LABEL=ROOTFS rw" instead of [Pogoplug:~$]# /usr/sbin/fw_setenv usb_init "run usb_scan; setenv usb_root LABEL=ROOTFS" But haven't been able to test it yet. If someone can test that and verify that it works I'll mod the original guide post. An alternative (and what I have done) is to add to fstab: LABEL=ROOTFS / ext2 rw,defaults 0 0 or something like that to force rw at boot time.

I remember I used to have my rootfs mounted as read-only because the system had problem booting and failed to mount in rw mode. Generally it's the corrupted files in /boot, kernel problem, recompiled driver required for boot process and mismatched kernels so the system refused to mount / normally to remind people it needs attention. Also if / is full (100% used) and no room for any logs it will also have that problem (or the system enters into single user mod - not sure).

thanks sooo soo much i feel like i should donaye to you or something nobody should get so much free advice! going to follow these steps tonight but ive gone through them and seems very straightforward.

SO i've just got some final recap questions....only the first one is critical...the rest i can figure out over time.

1-it seems unless my external 4 port usb enclosure is attached, as well as my 1gb system drive, the pogoplug doesnt want to boot. If i only leave the 1gb archlinux drive in, but remove the enclosure and startup, and try ssh'ing into the system it just keeps saying system is down. or i will just keep waiting for the system prompt and then it says operation timed out. I'm thinking maybe because the pogoplug keeps waiting for the drives mentioned in fstab? I will mess around with the file see what i get.

2- you mentioned in the instructions to cloning drive that the target should be larger than the original. Doesnt that mean i will have to use a 2 gb as target...and if i get an issue ,i will have to clone that 2 gb onto a 4gb to restore my system, and the 4gb onto the 8gb...and so on?

3-i set up user pcguest as part of the samba procedure. I am now going to set up a second user, say pcguest2...how do i control which user has what level access? say pcguest shold have rw access, while pcguest2 should only have r access.

Again, thanks so much ... i'm making a little cheat sheet/cliff notes for myself right now to make sure I can replicate the procedure, as well as help others if necessary.

thanks again.

Quote from teetee1 : The most ancient linux command will work just fine if you want to clone your current system drive to another thumb drive for backup: The backup thumb drive (say it's /dev/sdd) will have to be larger than the original and all existing data on that drive will be wiped after running this command.. You can imagine if the wrong target drive was accidentally used (like your 2TB drive) then all data on that drive will be gone. # dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdd // all content on /dev/sda will be cloned to /dev/sdd (sector to sector copy) More refined command parameters are stated in another archwiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index....sk_Cloning

Quote from Zank : 1-it seems unless my external 4 port usb enclosure is attached, as well as my 1gb system drive, the pogoplug doesnt want to boot. If i only leave the 1gb archlinux drive in, but remove the enclosure and startup, and try ssh'ing into the system it just keeps saying system is down. or i will just keep waiting for the system prompt and then it says operation timed out. I'm thinking maybe because the pogoplug keeps waiting for the drives mentioned in fstab? I will mess around with the file see what i get.

Post /etc/fstab please.

Quote from Zank : 2- you mentioned in the instructions to cloning drive that the target should be larger than the original. Doesnt that mean i will have to use a 2 gb as target...and if i get an issue ,i will have to clone that 2 gb onto a 4gb to restore my system, and the 4gb onto the 8gb...and so on?

My mistake, any drive that's in equal size or bigger is ok.
There is no restore process. When one fails, you simply power it down, swap the drive, and power it back on.

Quote from Zank : 3-i set up user pcguest as part of the samba procedure. I am now going to set up a second user, say pcguest2...how do i control which user has what level access? say pcguest shold have rw access, while pcguest2 should only have r access.

For each share section in /etc/samba/smb.conf you can specify a list of users have the permission to read and a list of users have the permission to write. You can also use @group. You can read all about it here
http://oreilly.com/openbook/samba...06_02.html
http://www.samba.org/samba/docs/u.../ch09.html

Just don't use guest access since the security is set to user in smb.conf. Any authentication is better than no authentication.

Quote from Zank : Again, thanks so much ... i'm making a little cheat sheet/cliff notes for myself right now to make sure I can replicate the procedure, as well as help others if necessary. .

Notes are great for me as they significantly reduce the configuration and troubleshooting time even it's outdated. I still have notes on floppy disks when I was messing around freebsd back in 98'.

First the great news. couldnt wait to try nfs. SUCCESS!

heres showmount -e output:

/mnt/Disk4 192.168.0.0/8
/mnt/Disk3 192.168.0.0/8
/mnt/Disk2 192.168.0.0/8
/mnt/Disk1 192.168.0.0/8
/mnt 192.168.0.0/8

(My pogoplug IP is 192.168.0.8. i'm assuming 192.168.0.0/8 is correct?)

Two littles notes for others following along (And maybe you could add it to your original post to me: I had to do pacman -Sy nfs-utils instead of pacman -sy nfs-utils

Also along with "systemctl start rpc-idmapd rpc-mountd" i also did "systemctl enable rpc-idmapd rpc-mountd" to ensure it starts on boot (See i'm learning!)

Also, does NFS use the same username/passwords i set up initially when doing samba ("adduser pcguest"), or there a different combination i use?

---

As per your post heres my fstab:

#
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
#
# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>

UUID="D60071C60071ADDD" /mnt/Disk1 ntfs defaults 0 0

UUID="24D89226D891F670" /mnt/Disk2 ntfs defaults 0 0

UUID="F8E841F4E841B224" /mnt/Disk3 ntfs defaults 0 0

UUID="101CE00C1CDFEAAC" /mnt/Disk4 ntfs defaults 0 0

(Just incase you're wondering i've consistently used Disk1,2,3,4 everywhere rather than DISK1,2,3,4 since i know with linux caps makes a difference)

Quote from teetee1 : Post /etc/fstab please. My mistake, any drive that's in equal size or bigger is ok. There is no restore process. When one fails, you simply power it down, swap the drive, and power it back on. For each share section in /etc/samba/smb.conf you can specify a list of users have the permission to read and a list of users have the permission to write. You can also use @group. You can read all about it here http://oreilly.com/openbook/samba...06_02.html http://www.samba.org/samba/docs/u.../ch09.html Just don't use guest access since the security is set to user in smb.conf. Any authentication is better than no authentication. Notes are great for me as they significantly reduce the configuration and troubleshooting time even it's outdated. I still have notes on floppy disks when I was messing around freebsd back in 98'.

Quote from Zank : First the great news. couldnt wait to try nfs. SUCCESS! heres showmount -e output: (My pogoplug IP is 192.168.0.8. i'm assuming 192.168.0.0/8 is correct?)

It depends on your router settings but most router use 24bit mask [wikipedia.org] so it's 192.168.0.0/24

Quote from Zank : Two littles notes for others following along (And maybe you could add it to your original post to me: I had to do pacman -Sy nfs-utils instead of pacman -sy nfs-utils Also along with "systemctl start rpc-idmapd rpc-mountd" i also did "systemctl enable rpc-idmapd rpc-mountd" to ensure it starts on boot (See i'm learning!) Also, does NFS use the same username/passwords i set up initially when doing samba ("adduser pcguest"), or there a different combination i use?

Unless idmapd is customized (configured), all access to the nfs share is treated as whoever runs the connection, in this case it's nobody.nobody (/etc/idmapd.conf says so).
If you are looking for access control list it's in /etc/exports [die.net].

Quote from Zank : As per your post heres my fstab: UUID="D60071C60071ADDD" /mnt/Disk1 ntfs defaults 0 0 UUID="24D89226D891F670" /mnt/Disk2 ntfs defaults 0 0 UUID="F8E841F4E841B224" /mnt/Disk3 ntfs defaults 0 0 UUID="101CE00C1CDFEAAC" /mnt/Disk4 ntfs defaults 0 0 (Just incase you're wondering i've consistently used Disk1,2,3,4 everywhere rather than DISK1,2,3,4 since i know with linux caps makes a difference)

try "defaults,noauto" option instead of just "defaults" for each and every partition in fstab file and see if it boots without the enclosure connected.

Just looking at the wiki link, wouldnt 192.168.0.0 be 16 bit mask since we're in the 192.168.0.0 range? 24 bit mask would be 10.0.0.0? Or maybe im not loki at it the right way.

Im using a ubiquiti power ap n atheros based router set up with dd wrt. My router address is 192.168.0.1. I havent changed anything in regards to " bit mask". (Admittedly i have no ideA to even do that change).

In regards to the fstab change, would default, noauto mean my disks wont mount automatically? Or does that men something else? (Iremember a post a few pages back arguing with the defaukt vs auto option in regards to auto mount so im guessing this is related.

Quote from teetee1 : It depends on your router settings but most router use 24bit mask [wikipedia.org] so it's 192.168.0.0/24 Unless idmapd is customized (configured), all access to the nfs share is treated as whoever runs the connection, in this case it's nobody.nobody (/etc/idmapd.conf says so). If you are looking for access control list it's in /etc/exports [die.net]. try "defaults,noauto" option instead of just "defaults" for each and every partition in fstab file and see if it boots without the enclosure connected.

What speeds are you all getting when copying files over to the USB drives connected to the pogoplug? I am getting between 300 to 700 Kbps which seems very slow and takes long for bigger files to copy over wondering if I am doing something wrong.

Quote from newmark : What speeds are you all getting when copying files over to the USB drives connected to the pogoplug? I am getting between 300 to 700 Kbps which seems very slow and takes long for bigger files to copy over wondering if I am doing something wrong.

I am getting 80Mbps via samba.

Quote from Zank : Just looking at the wiki link, wouldnt 192.168.0.0 be 16 bit mask since we're in the 192.168.0.0 range? 24 bit mask would be 10.0.0.0? Or maybe im not loki at it the right way.

The 24 denotes the number of bits that CANNOT change, starting from the left. So, 192.168.0.0/24 has an IP range of 192.168.0.0 - 192.168.0.255. You can use the "ipcalc" linux util to see some nifty info for a subnet in cidr notation like 'ipcalc -mnp 192.168.0.0/24'.

Quote from Zank : In regards to the fstab change, would default, noauto mean my disks wont mount automatically? Or does that men something else? (Iremember a post a few pages back arguing with the defaukt vs auto option in regards to auto mount so im guessing this is related.

You should probably use the "nofail" option. I highly recommend to you and everyone else to read the arch linux wiki. It is actually one of the more useful linux resources in general that I have found. Check out the fstab one : https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fstab

From the page:

I added my netconsole post on page 6 to the wiki. You guys with boot problems *need* to be using netconsole to debug your problems. It is unreasonable to ask us to guess what your problem might be if you can't even see the error messages!

Quote from teetee1 : ... Set up a samba user account by using smbpasswd command, # smbpasswd -h will show you what parameters to use. I would use -a and -n to create a user account to access those drives without having to put in passwords. You probably will need to use the existing system user account (one of the users in /etc/passwd) as your samba user account. The default samba password database files are stored in /etc/samba/private/ Restart samba and try to access the shared folders from one of your samba clients. The share path would be something like smb://username@alarm/DISK1 Permission and security warning: 1. one should never use root as a user to access shared files/folders 2. better to have password (or have open doors for crawler malware / viruses) 3. since the mounted drives are originally owned by root.root, you probably need to either set the folders(/mnt/DISK1) world-writable (777) or change ownership (chown command) of the folder to your samba user account (I never tried it on ntfs filesystems drive) to allow the user accessing samba has the permission to write data on the drives through samba.

I'm confused about samba users/passwords vs linux users/passwords ... I'm half-way through my second attempt to set up my pogo (samba is working, haven't done anything with Apache etc), and I'd like to do things right before I create a big tangled mess.

So far I've been doing everything as root, using SSH(Putty). I'm not sure at what point I should stop logging in as root and create a less privileged user. Do I need to be root in order to install packages (sorry, I'm a linux noob)? It certainly seems like I should not be root when I'm cruising around my file system in Samba.

And then Samba users/passwords ... whenever I create a new smbpasswd, does the user have to be a valid linux user? Should I just create one standard linux user & add a Samba password? Or do I need to do more than that?

Quote from lhughes : So far I've been doing everything as root, using SSH(Putty). I'm not sure at what point I should stop logging in as root and create a less privileged user. Do I need to be root in order to install packages (sorry, I'm a linux noob)? It certainly seems like I should not be root when I'm cruising around my file system in Samba.

I'd say it's time to
1. add a normal user account (for ssh into pogo):
# useradd -h
I would recommend "-d /home/<your user name>" switch to create the user's home directory with all the /etc/skel/* stuff (files for default user environment)
and then give user the password
# passwd <username>
Test and see if you can ssh log in as the newly created user.

Then edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config to change "PermitRootLogin" from yes to no.
Then restart sshd service to make the new settings active:
# systemctl restart sshd
and from this point on you can no longer log into pogo with root account.

It's one of the system security measurement to prevent any script kiddie using scripts and a dictionary file to brute force their way into the system as root.

it's also safer for the system administrator to use normal user account and sudo stuff that requires root privileges (yes, like installing software packages). The extremely short version of linux software installation is simple(from user point of view) and contains three major stages: 1. configure the environment for the source; 2. build and link (make and ld - or compile) to create binaries; 3. the real installation (copy binary, library, and misc files into the usual locations where all other binaries go ex. /usr or /usr/local, etc) and post processing (run one-time-only script or clean-up, etc). And you only need the root privilege at stage. 3. Configuration (step.1) and compilation (step.2) can be done as a normal user account.

The default Arch package repositories(core, alarm, etc) store all pre-compiled binaries so there are no stage 1 and 2 involved. When you install the binary package with "pacman -Sy <package name>" or "pacman -U <local package file ending with .xz>, you basically tell the pacman to do stage. 3 installation that's why you need root privilege to do it.

You can always install software from the source in any linux system including Arch and go through all three stages mentioned above (fun read: gentoo and arch [ycombinator.com]) and take total control of the software you use but it's not going to be pleasant for people just want to get things working (like me most of the time).

Quote from lhughes : And then Samba users/passwords ... whenever I create a new smbpasswd, does the user have to be a valid linux user? Should I just create one standard linux user & add a Samba password? Or do I need to do more than that?

Well I just tried to add a samba user whose name is not on the system through `smbpasswd -a` and couldn't. I guess it makes sense since samba file sharing ownership is tied to the system file ownership (major difference between samba and nfs?) another advantage for this design is so that when users want to change their samba/system password (think of this as in a small business or enterprise environment), there is a script that can sync passwords on both (smb and the system) to keep their login (telnet/ssh/whatever services use /etc/passwd for authentication) and samba sharing passwords the same. But the initial setup the password can be different between the two.

Does anyone have a safe way to shutdown the pogoplug? I have unexpected power outages a lot so as much as id love to have this on all the time i know sometimyes ill get a power outsge to shut down the device. Cant help that situation. But sometimes i know it will happen so would be nice to just shutdown muself. Or is it basically turn off the power socket kind of situation?

Quote from Zank : Does anyone have a safe way to shutdown the pogoplug? I have unexpected power outages a lot so as much as id love to have this on all the time i know sometimyes ill get a power outsge to shut down the device. Cant help that situation. But sometimes i know it will happen so would be nice to just shutdown muself. Or is it basically turn off the power socket kind of situation?

# poweroff
or
# shutdown -h now
or
get a UPS and not have to worry about data corruption due to power outage.

Quote from crakarjax : I am getting 80Mbps via samba. [/CODE]

That is amazing! Is that wireless speeds ? What internet speeds are you getting? Anyone faced issues with speed ?.. Wondering where i should start looking to resolve this issue.