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

Pogoplug Classic Media Sharing Device (P21 Black or B01 Pink) $17 + Free Shipping
 

Adorama via eBay has Pogoplug Classic Media Sharing Device (P21 Black or B01 Pink) for $17 with free shipping. Thanks DJ3xclusive

This post can and should be edited by users like you :)
 

Previous deals:

http://slickdeals.net/f/5155510-P...west-Price
http://slickdeals.net/permadeal/7...ce-pogop21

Installing ArchLinux on Pogoplug:

If you get a B01 or P21, follow this link
http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms...provideov3

Make sure the model number is correct. Go with the model number listed on the label at the bottom of the actual device (not the box).

If you get a E02 instead (which has more RAM), follow this link instead
http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms...2-pinkgray

********************************************************************************

Note: If you are a Windows user like me, use Putty [earth.li] to SSH into Pogo.
ArchLinux/ARM Installation [archlinuxarm.org]... steps are almost flawless, just make sure to insert the root USB stick in the back-bottom slot :)...!

Samba Installation [archlinuxarm.org]...Everything BEFORE "Starting the server" section is correct. For starting the server, run below command from Alarm prompt
systemctl start smbd nmbd

For auto-starting Samba service each time after Pogo is rebooted, run below command only once and then you'll never have to worry about starting Samba manually:-
systemctl enable smbd.service

For USB device/HDD mounting [archlinux.org].

For auto-mounting these devices each time after Pogo is rebooted, run below commands
nano /etc/fstab
Then paste this line ->
UUID="ABCD" /mnt/Songs ntfs defaults 0 0 # Put your device's UUID instead of ABCD. My HDDs are ntfs type. Put your own type if different. Add one line for each device with it's UUID and type (e.g. ntfs). If you don't know the UUID, run this command blkid -o list -c /dev/null
Now just save this file and exit.

Now power off/on Pogo and check if it boots properly in ALARM and if you can access the HDDs over LAN by \\ALARM or \\192.168.x.y where 192.168.x.y is the Pogo's IP address :).

Best of luck...!!! :)

********************************************************************************

Some Linux-Guru has written an article on how to install Plex Media Server (PMS) on PoGoPlug here [barbin.us] ...!!!

********************************************************************************
Edit: here are my notes on netconsole:
serverip is the IP that the boot messages will be SENT to
ipaddr will be the IP of your pogoplug OS (before it boots into the usb kernel)
Change those to fit your network topology.
Then use socat, netcat, nc, ncat or whatever to read that network traffic, being sure that firewalls aren't blocking the traffic:

Nice price but look at the reviews [amazon.com]

Not the same model number.

Thanks I added that in title :)

B01 reviews [newegg.com] or is it?..Looks like E02 is being sold as B01.

Is this a older model ?

They are all the same. Different model means different color.

These things are on SD all the time... too many bad reviews.. not worth the hassle

If you flash this device to Arch Linux ARM you can add programs such as sick beard and sabnzbd to make a great stand alone NAS. I have one and it works great.

The value in this product is not as is, but in the hackability of it which opens it up to so much more. You can search for a previous thread with a lot of valuable information.

Is there a way to use this device to put a folder on my computer that is essentially "the cloud" so that other computers can access it? I don't want to use Pogoplug's software if I can avoid it.

Which thread is that? Very interested to know. And perhaps use :)

You can start at the following threads...

http://slickdeals.net/f/5155510-P...west-Price

http://slickdeals.net/permadeal/7...ce-pogop21

These are amazing. I have one already. Getting another one. Add archlinux and you are all set.

FWIW, I get plenty of use out of mine and didn't modify it at all. I'd definitely recommend checking out the other threads and pick one up to tinker with if you have a few bucks burning a hole in your pocket.

Bad reviews are from carry over from when this was half way to the price range of a full fledge NAS box.

This has some limits over a NAS box, but its now only $17.

Here is the B01 version I just received (ordered 3 days ago):

~ # uname -a
Linux Pogoplug 2.6.31.6_SMP_820 #96 SMP Tue Feb 8 12:08:54 PST 2011 armv6l GNU/L inux

~ # cat /proc/cpuinfo
Processor : ARMv6-compatible processor rev 5 (v6l)
processor : 0
BogoMIPS : 279.34

processor : 1
BogoMIPS : 279.34

Features : swp half thumb fastmult edsp java
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture: 7
CPU variant : 0x0
CPU part : 0xb02
CPU revision : 5

Hardware : Oxsemi NAS
Revision : 0000
Serial : 0000000000000000

~ # cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal: 125768 kB
MemFree: 87256 kB
Buffers: 0 kB
Cached: 5232 kB
SwapCached: 0 kB
Active: 3264 kB
Inactive: 3504 kB
Active(anon): 1548 kB
Inactive(anon): 0 kB
Active(file): 1716 kB
Inactive(file): 3504 kB
Unevictable: 0 kB
Mlocked: 0 kB
SwapTotal: 0 kB
SwapFree: 0 kB
Dirty: 0 kB
Writeback: 0 kB
AnonPages: 1536 kB
Mapped: 2820 kB
Slab: 2788 kB
SReclaimable: 348 kB
SUnreclaim: 2440 kB
PageTables: 112 kB
NFS_Unstable: 0 kB
Bounce: 0 kB
WritebackTmp: 0 kB
CommitLimit: 88036 kB
Committed_AS: 4932 kB
VmallocTotal: 598016 kB
VmallocUsed: 768 kB
VmallocChunk: 596684 kB


It's not the E02 model so the ram is halved.

Thanks OP. Bought one :)

Got this on a BF sale and it was well worth it. You can install Arch Linux or Debian and use it as a mini-server.

I bought mine during the $18.50 deal...the one where if you ordered the P21, they sent you the E02. I got the E02, and haven't even bothered modding it yet.

I used the software included to create one (free) master account and to map my 3 TB external drive as a P: drive on my work laptop, my home laptop, and my Home Theater PC. I also connect to it through android on my and my wife's phone. There's a small lag when connecting sometimes (probably due to the power saving settings on my external drive), but other than that, it works fine. I'm able to pull up my photos, HD home videos, and some cartoon shorts I ripped from a DVD for my son from just about anywhere.

There's a bit of lag if I'm watching a video from an external network, but I'm mostly using it to stream in my house and to host my backup drive. Works great for that

Mine is great. You control your storage. I mainly use mine to have access to ALL my music.

How is this different from Pogoplug mobile ?

http://www.amazon.com/Pogoplug-Ba...B005GM1Q1O

Yeah...slapped on Debian ARM or ALARM and you got a power efficient NAS/DNLA/Torrent server.

I have a Raspberry Pi sitting on my desk being used in a home automation project.Wondering if I should buy this for a NAS...

Just wondering if this supports 3TB NTFS ? One i hook up my external drive does it reformat it ...do i have to back up my data first ? Thx

These are roughly comparable devices wrt computing power / memory. The Pi has more kinds of I/O while the Pogo has 4 USB ports and its own power supply for itself and the USB ports. If you're looking to make a small NAS, hacking one of the Pogo's is the way to go imho. But it won't do much more than disk server related activities. I'm not sure, though, if these have internal timers. Which could give this an edge in some ways over the Pi.

sorry, but i don't don't understand the point of this when I already have a main computer that has a HDD which all of my devices can connect to and share files. What benefit would I have using this for that purpose? If there is a benefit over my normal setup, $17 is worth it.

How?
I bought one on BF at ~$18, but don't know what it's for.

When Adorama and J&R offered the same deal multiple times this summer, many (most?) people who ordered B01 or the "pink" model got B01, and many (most?) people who ordered P21 or the "black" model got E02. Things might have changed this time but you might try your luck.

The E02 model was considered more desirable than the B01 model in these ways:
* more RAM (256 MB vs. 128 MB)
* a faster CPU core (single core 1.2 GHz vs. dual core 700 MHz)
* much easier to install Debian on the E02

The Mobile model is similar to E02, but with an SD card slot. However, Mobile has only half the RAM (128 MB) and an under-clocked CPU (800 MHz).

One of the things that you can do with the Pogoplug is to run CrashPlan on it, i.e. have a PogoPlug run the CrashPlan program 24/7, and back up your computer(s), NAS, etc. to one CrashPlan subscription. Here are some articles about this idea.
http://www.opticality.com/blog/20...oplug-pro/
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=52448
http://www.jonrogers.co.uk/2012/0...pberry-pi/

In for one. Thanks OP.

Now let's see if I can get this Archlinux up & running.

I bought one for $19 from J&R a few weeks ago and promptly hacked it with arch linux. Man, it's a nice little machine. I needed a replacement for my NSLU2 (slug) since my new Mountain Lion based Mac Mini couldn't speak the same Samba authentication language that the Slug was talking. The Pogoplug is now sharing out two USB drives, and it also is my Time Machine backup repository.

I liked it so much that I bought another one. If you have a 2Gig+ usb flash drive lying around and don't mind getting your hands a little dirty, this is a pretty nice investment for less than $20.

The CPU may have a higher clock rating, but the other model is dual core from a different generation of ARM processor. And general gist from all the post I've seen until yours is that the 700 MHz dual core processor is the stronger processor.

But for most tasks, the bigger memory tends to be a better advantage anyway.

How exactly do you do that? Subsonic? Orb? Something else?

My main computer is a Macbook Pro with a 500gig drive. I want to replace it with a 256 SSD, but I'll need a way to offload a lot of my music to somewhere, but have it sync nicely with what's "local" and what's not on the SSD.

Obviously stuff like iPhone syncing would be nice too.

And I'd prefer to stay in iTunes. That's all!

But really, how'd you go about doing your music? I don't even need one of these things, I could buy a "real" NAS or set up a full-fledged server in my home, I just want something that works! (Oh, and reps for answers! =P)

Thank you so much!

If I run into any problems with this, is there someone here on SD that I can contact for help?

Better search arch linux forum first
https://bbs.archlinux.org/

btw the kernel used by uboot for B01/P21 (armv6) is still 2.6 and doesn't support systemd boot. It means you will have to use rc.sysinit/rc.d to control the services though it's not a big deal to many.

It's bad product. Bought extra licence for video stream,,,,, doesn't work well.It's POS.

So this is just for connecting to an external hard drive to access it??

For $17 will give it a shot

Can I attach a printer to it? Thus making my non-wireless printer a networked one.

Note the CPU is not actually faster. Even if you ignore the dual-core (which you shouldn't); the E02 has an ARMv5TE CPU, while the B01 has an ARMv6l CPU. The cpu clocks are not directly comparable. Generally the performance difference between different generations of ARM CPUs is very significant, up to some CPUs being equivalent to 2x a previous generation ARM CPU of the same clock speed.
But there are many applications where the double RAM helps a lot. And the E02 is mainline kernel while some of the others aren't.

so the pink B01 is better than the black p21?

Yes, you can hook a printer to it. Yes, you can hook a webcam to it.

http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms...provideov3
they are the same in terms of hardware spec.

This could be a low power consuming low end server which you can leave plugged in all the time.

With Arch Linux, yes. If you're an apple user, you can ven setup AirPrint. AirPlay and time machine backups.

in for 3. these things are great and work extremely well with the Crash Plan free software that allows you to create encrypted backups to the drive(s) attached to the pogoplug (shows up as a local drive wherever you have an internet connection). if you just use the regular pogoplug software, the backups are not encrypted and anyone on that pogoplug account can see your backups.

i have the Pro version with Wifi, but my parents and brother don't need wireless. 2 will be going to them. the 3rd to a friend.

For what it's worth, both Pogoplugs I bought from J&R said P21 on the package, but both units are E02.

# uname -a
Linux alarm 3.1.10-15-ARCH #1 PREEMPT Wed Dec 12 15:25:18 UTC 2012 armv5tel GNU/Linux

# cat /proc/cpuinfo
Processor : Feroceon 88FR131 rev 1 (v5l)
BogoMIPS : 1191.11
Features : swp half thumb fastmult edsp
CPU implementer : 0x56
CPU architecture: 5TE
CPU variant : 0x2
CPU part : 0x131
CPU revision : 1

Hardware : Marvell SheevaPlug Reference Board
Revision : 0000
Serial : 0000000000000000

# cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal: 252476 kB
MemFree: 8668 kB
Buffers: 32704 kB
Cached: 163684 kB
SwapCached: 0 kB
Active: 118216 kB
Inactive: 99872 kB
Active(anon): 21936 kB
Inactive(anon): 92 kB
Active(file): 96280 kB
Inactive(file): 99780 kB
Unevictable: 0 kB
Mlocked: 0 kB
SwapTotal: 0 kB
SwapFree: 0 kB
Dirty: 0 kB
Writeback: 0 kB
AnonPages: 21716 kB
Mapped: 10292 kB
Shmem: 328 kB
Slab: 22028 kB
SReclaimable: 18116 kB
SUnreclaim: 3912 kB
KernelStack: 512 kB
PageTables: 1240 kB
NFS_Unstable: 0 kB
Bounce: 0 kB
WritebackTmp: 0 kB
CommitLimit: 126236 kB
Committed_AS: 43572 kB
VmallocTotal: 753664 kB
VmallocUsed: 644 kB
VmallocChunk: 752928 kB

I setup one as an Xmas present for my brother with a 3TB (seagate) usb3 drive. It will work with NTFS, but the recommendation is to use ext2/ext3 because performance of NTFS sucks.

For the record, I get around 17-21MB (mega bytes) transfer rate over a gigabit LAN.

All with Archlinux of course.

using samba? I get 2 megabytes on ntfs.

I'm just going to ask a very dumb question - wired only, right? no wifi?

Performance-wise, how does this stack up against the Raspberry Pi? And what about storage, do I need to attach an external HDD?

correct

Yes. SAMBA over a gigabit wired LAN. 2MB with NTFS doesn't sound right.

I got one when j&r sold it some months ago and i got one from buy.com for $13 during blackfriday. And its cousins(pogoplug 4) were below $20 range during blackfriday as well. I installed Archlinux. I was able to use samba. But you start going on tangents off tangents of different issues. Setting up time server, password protection for one folder and keeping one folder open, quota...how do you tell how much space you have left, fat vs ntfs vs apple's "fat" system, openvpn, no ip dns domain, web site server....etc. The list goes on what you can attempt to do. But when you can succeed with all these add ons is the main question. It can eat up your time looking and looking for answers and each question.

Can someone clarify some things for me, please?

1. Do you need an internal or external/enclosure for this?

2. Which model is this? Which one is more desirable?

3. No wifi?

4. It goes like this, right? Plug in HD, attach to router, and then the attached HD is a LOCAL drive, regardless of if you're on your local LAN or somewhere else with Internet connectivity. Is this correct? (Even if you have to install Arch to do this, that's fine).

5. Related to 4, when you mount these on a MAC, are they network shares? Samba? AFS? I'm looking for something as seamless as possible to offload my iTunes library from my laptop.

As anyone who's ever done it knows, iTunes sorta sucks when it thinks files are there but they aren't, so anything that streamlines this process would be great. Don't need super high bandwidth or video streaming (although I wouldn't mind).

Reps for good info (and let's put it in the wiki so everyone can find it!)

I've got it working in parallel--using the official software to connect to it remotely, but also set up as a samba server that I can map to my local computers.

I think this is the tutorial I used to set it up:
Install Samba on Pogoplug Tutorial [blogspot.com]

I initially installed Arch Linux on it, but every time I added a new module it would break other modules I had previously installed on it, so I ended up abandoning Arch Linux starting from scratch.

Hello,

Can an arch linux server be accessed from the internet?

Also, can you upload files to it as if it was a local server like at work?

in for 1! thanks op! i was on the fence about getting one when it was on sale earlier, but after reading the previous posts and tweakability of these things, i'm sold.

thanks SD, another gadget i'm going to spend all my time on...

Best Device Ever
 

I bought a pink unit for $25 more than a year ago, and I never had a problem with it. It is a great device, unlike what reviews you read. I for one do not understand what flaws it has. I hooked it up to my modem and attached an ethernet cable to it, and it worked like a charm.

You need to add a USB drive if you plan to add extra storage. Otherwise, you can rely on the 5GB storage that Pogoplug gives you when you join for free. I attached a USB 3.0 500 GB drive and the Pogoplug recognizes it immediately. No hassle.

I had the same question before I bought this. Then it dawned on me. My wife loves to take photos and videos with here iPhone. She can maxed out her phone every month. Every month I need to hook her phone to my laptop and transfer the photos to an external USB drive. Not too terrible, but attaching iPhone to my laptop is a hit or miss. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

So this little device became the perfect solution. I download the Pogoplug app. Launch it from my wife iPhone (it works with Android phones too) and the app automatically take new photos and upload to the USB drive that I attached to the Pogoplug drive. No PC required. Not once the photos were duplicated or lost during the upload process. Once the upload is completed, all I need to do is manually delete all the photos from my wife iPhone and she is ready for her next photo session.

This is a must device if you or your family use smartphones. It is quite indispensable and you can never go wrong with it. No membership fees are involved. All you have to pay is the $17.:woot:

Can you please provide more info. I would like to use one for backing up my mba too. thx

I've spent more on less. Worth a try. Might make my wired color laser printer useful again as well.

I don't think I found a single web page that I could point you at, but basically install netatalk (I used v3) on the Pogoplug to share a folder over AFP, and install avahi to advertise the AFP sharing.

You have to tweak your Mac so that it'll backup to a non-supported (read: non-Apple) drive by running this in a Terminal window:


defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

Some instructions tell you that you have to create a sparseimage in order for this to work, but on an OS X Mountain Lion setup, it is not necessary.

I kinda wish I would have paid more attention to how I did it and wrote up a page about it, since it sure would have saved me (and probably you) some trouble.

Can the iphone videos also be backed up? those take up lots of space. thanks in advance.

is this powerful enough to run ps3 media server on and do decent 1080p/720p transcodes ?

two questions...

1. My home pc has a few internal 2tb drives that I'd like to use + a couple external drives. I guess I'd have to use enclosures for the internals to get them working with the pogoplug? Can I use more than one external drive?

2. How much linux knowledge do I need to set up sabnzbd, sickbeard, etc? I have none. :(

you should be able to hook up a used hub and then attach more external drives... there should be a way to map internet drivers over the network within linux but keep in mind, the computer must be on and connected to home network in order for those drives to be accessed.

I have a 3tb I have all my video on and am using Ps3mediaserver in order to DLNA throughout the house. Again is this powerful enough to do 1080p mkv transcoding via Mencoder ?

i need some help, anyone got a minute?

i have the dockstar and i really hate it.

is the only way to access it is with the pogoplug interface?

how do i get the drive to show up on a wireless network, i can see it on my laptop but it keeps kicking out errors on a win xp netbook.


can i stream my movies to my bluray player? can i watch ripped dvd's and their corresponding .vob files?

I have 3 of these one of which I use as a development web server. To access from outside your home network you'll need to know your IP address, open ports on your router to allow the traffic you desire through and setup your router to direct that traffic to the computer you desire. For example I route traffic coming in on port 80 to my pogo web server while I route ssh traffic to another pogo device.

If you don't want to have to remember your IP address you can register a domain name and set it up to resolve to your IP address or you could use a dynamic dns service if you don't want to pay to register a domain name.

I just ordered my fourth pogo device. As mentioned before I use one as a development web server and then I use another as a development database server, another as a NAS streaming DVDs and music and this new one will be used as a headless crash plan device. I can't recommend these things enough. They work great as low powered server solutions using only around 5 watts I believe. I'd much rather leave one ( or four ) of these running rather than a multiple core, heat-producing, power-hungry desktop.

They're not super powerful - a single one was slow running both apache and MySQL serving non-cached Wordpress sites but after splitting the db onto a separate device they serve up the sites suite well. If I recall correctly my web and db servers are E02 models and the NAS is a B01 - all running arch arm.

Visit the link below for a quick overview of the difference. The pi and the plug both have their niche uses.

I'm currently using my pogos as servers and my pi as an xbmc device.

http://archlinuxarm.org/forum/vie...=18&t=2583

You don't have to connect an external hdd but you will need a flash drive to install the new OS on. I use one pogo as a web server and another as a db server running only with 8GB flash drives. The other I use as a NAS has 3 hdds attached.

May have been slow due to low memory, which is probably the biggest complaint with these as servers.

I picked up 4 even so. I plan to add more ARM based units because of superior power efficiency. I'm running out of power circuits...

I'd love to see your quick tutorial on putting this up as a web server and another as a database server after installing Arch Linux. I've gotten that far.

1) install arch arm according to the instructions on archlinuxarm.org. Be sure to choose the correct Arm version for you pogo device under the Platforms menu. Double check the model number on the bottom of the pogo - you can't go by color as I have two pink ones that are different models.

2) follow the directions for installing LAMP found here : https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/LAMP - just switch servers when you get to the part about installing MySQL.

3) configure your web apps to use the db server instead of localhost.

4) if you want to access it from outside your network, configure your router to route traffic coming in on ports 80 and 443 to your web server

5) find your Internet facing IP address by visiting whatismyip.com

6) setup a domain or dynamic dns service if you don't want to access your site via IP. If you want to access your site using the domain name from within your network rather than the web server's internal ip you'll need a loop back router or to modify the hosts file on the computer inside the network that you are trying to access the web server from.

That's it from a a high-level perspective - It is quite easy due to the arch Linux documentation.

I have an E02 from a previous deal. Does anyone have experience installing Ubuntu on it? I couldn't find any tutorials if it's possible.

The default Pogo installation will serve video specifically to xbox 360's and PS3 as network UPnP devices. I think they may actually do limited transcoding in terms of making sure, if it already is technically in a readable format by the device, the video format complies with each devices's peculiarities. But otherwise it doesn't do transcoding.

By the same token, I've had it hang on me a few times with the only solution to fast forward through the part of the video that wants to hang.

You can also hack these to a standalone DLNA device. But I doubt they have real-time transcoding. The processor is just not powerful enough.

I believe pre-transcoding your files is probably the only solution.

I own the E02 for 4 months now. I run archlinux on it. Installed samba and transmission , its a solid device anyone looking for a standalone torrent client and samba server should consider this. Its worth every penny in my opinion.

Has anyone successfully installed "own cloud" on this?

Got a black one. waiting to mod it to see how it works.

So the advantage of this over letting my pc do sabnzbd/sickbeard/etc is just electricity savings or is there something else?

It can upload videos too. After you set the default folder over wi-fi, the app is smart enough to create us folders for the date taken. No action required on my part.

Owncloud working
 

I installed Owncloud on my E02 and it works pretty well. It's running Arch Linux and I chose to use lighttpd and sqllite since they're lighter weight but most people use apache and MySQL and it still works.

forget the reviews. Added Samba Server using Aaron Randall install techniques I now have a full NAS server for all my usb hard drives that can stream data to my WD tv live or other players.

To restart the unit without typing in commands use the following bat file,

You need to first follow Aaron Randall Instructions....read comments below he has a typo in one of his commands
Make sure each port is setup in the config file. get rid of main external drive....set up each drive with same config file...if anyone interested...I have a full config version..that way you can use windows to copy files and also your streaming device can see it also. a cheap but very effective USB NAS server

then create this bat file in folder with plink. use your own ip address and password. when ever you repower the unit.,..just have this run from windows

plink -v -ssh root@192.168.0.165 -pw yourpassword mount -o remount,rw
plink -v -ssh root@192.168.0.165 -pw yourpassword /dev/mtdblock3 /opt
plink -v -ssh root@192.168.0.165 -pw yourpassword /opt/etc/init.d/S80samba start

its great...I did the same....for me, I eliminated the main config file EXTERNAL which allows all drives to be mapped for streaming to create each hard drive HD1, HD2, mapped so that windows can see all 4 usb hard drives and can copy and delete files...and the WDTV live can just see the 4 hard drives as 4 distinct units.

do not alter the RCS file to have the unit auto boot....do it manually with my bat file in my other response. I bricked my unit that way....even though I followed the commands exactly...its not recommended

a very low power USB NAS server....and the USB drives by seagate will power down automatically...a super green unit

Snagged one of these for my XBMC setup. Thanks OP!

If I set up this as a NAS, dose it work with UPnP? Sorry, I do not know much about these. Thanks.

for the Samba server,,,this might be easier to setup and do if your confused under Aaron Randalls..Do Not Do the last section for autostart....do not modify the RCs file..section 7. It is not fun using vi or nano to edit the config file. get ready to type

http://pogomarvel.blogspot.com/20...r.html?m=1


Below is my config file. For each USB drive you need to duplicate the [sda1] section to sdb1...sdc1..etc. Dont do any typos below...make same exact section but add sdb1...and make sure the path is changed to have mnt_sdb1..do the same for sdc1. That means you duplicate the sda1 below section for each drive but you need to change the letters...for example:

[sdb1]
comment = sdb1 hard drive
path = /tmp/.cemnt/mnt_sdb1/
plus rest of same stuff for [sda1] section

HERE YA GO.....ONLY CHANGE OR ADD THE FOLLOWING...

#insert the following information into the smb.conf file***************
[global]
workgroup = workgroup
server string = Pogoplug Samba2 Server
hosts allow = 192. 127. # you may need to put 10. here
null passwords = yes
guest account = root
log file = /opt/var/log/samba/log.%m
max log size = 50
security = share
encrypt passwords = yes
smb passwd file = /opt/etc/samba/smbpasswd
dns proxy = no
preserve case = yes

[sda1]
comment = sda1 hard drive
path = /tmp/.cemnt/mnt_sda1/
available = yes
public = yes
writable = yes
printable = no
create mask = 0777
guest ok = yes
browseable = yes
[Root$]
comment = root
path = /
available = yes
public = yes
writable = yes
printable = no
create mask = 0777
guest ok = yes
browseable = yes
#end of smb.conf file*********************

Under Windows when mapping hard drive it will show as PogoPlug with each drive you mapped below..

you need to do the following every time you turn the power off unless you follow my instructions in prior posts in using plink bat file you can execute from windows


# restart manually*************************************************
# this is necessary each time the power is cycled
mount -o remount,rw /
mount /dev/mtdblock3 /opt
/opt/etc/init.d/S80samba start

I own 2 E02 for almost a year now and both of them have Arch Linux installed. Samba, no-ip's IP updater, Deluge (BT server) and SubSonic installed on 1st unit. Apache, mysql, python and other software development tools on 2nd unit. The E02 model is a great little device to learn linux and also a great device to make your own cloud storage. I can stream my music to iOS , Android device, my work PC and laptop at anywhere around the world (I was streaming music with SubSonic when I was traveling in Japan!). I paid $25 for these little device and well worth it. :)

Has anyone tried installing plugmyth [sourceforge.net] on this particular model. It looks like the project is not under active development right now. I would like to to use this device as a DVR backend (with the HDHomeRun tuner) and have all the recorded content accessible on the network.

This is still available and I'm thinking of biting.

Quick, dumb question: I have several external hard drives with media (music and video) on them. I can connect them to this (after third-party firmware upgrade) and access the entirety of the drive from my PC, phone, BR player, etc...right?

Yes you can...but this is not firmware, its software. If you dont run the samba server when its powered up...then the samba wont run. your just adding more software to the box stored on its internal flash memory. You can still do your pogoplug software and/or Samba server.

With samba server.....the drives are available to windows, wdtv live, or anyother device that can access drives on a network.

There is so much you can do with this device...for me...I just want a nice NAS USB server. I was using a space WDTV live as a NAS..but it only has 2 ports. This one has 4 ports and its a Gigabyte port.

These units are dirt cheap but they use to cost over 100 bucks. Your getting a fairly fast cpu to control data on USB drives...

In fact...I am trying to find a way to hook up USB webcams to make one of them into a security server to access cameras at home.

Hmmm.... I've got my old Pentuim II setup with FreeNAS to share out two old 3.5" EIDE 160GB drives with some USB 2.0 ports I added a couple years ago to plug in my USB hard drives I have here. Sound like the PogoPlugs would allow me to get rid of the Pentium II (except for the 160gb drives).

I use "Motion" to record snapshots from a wireless IP cam, but it should also work with a USB webcam. It's a little slow though (around 5fps max I think), but maybe it's also my setup (it's also an AP for the camera).

You can do some really nice things with it, but it can take a lot of work & scripting... I have mine send GTalk message to my phone + a UDP broadcast to my computers (picked up by EventGhost) when it detects movement. I also re-purposed my unused Nook Color + Tinycam Pro as a display for the camera.

Anyone with a guide on how to get Sa
b and SB and CouchPotato on this? Last one I tried to do fried my unit.

http://www.goewert.org/p/pogoplug...media.html

Two questions:

1- How does this compare to using an old MacMini PowerPC G4 setup as a server?
2- If this is better (performance wise), then which one is the best one to get-- B01 or P21?

thanks!!

+1
Would love to know whether to go for the black or pink unit too.

Would a pogoplug be better than sticking a hard drive onto my router's USB port and running a samba server? I know I only have one USB port but before I bought a file server, I used to plug a hdd onto my router's USB port.

EDIT:
Thanks. Didn't know both were similar. So they are both armv6? I read the entire thread and a few mentioned the difference between ARM5 and ARM6.

Which color comes with more RAM? TIA.

EDIT 2:

Do these things come with 4 USB 2.0 and gigabit ethernet? Would have been awesome to have USB 3.0. LOL.

They are very hackable! http://joepetruska.com/wordpress/?p=12

I bought both a pink B01 and a black P21 and they both turned out to be E02 with 256MB of RAM. I compared the two devices and the only difference I could see is that the pink had its processor built by ARM whereas the black's processor was from Marvell. However, they're the same processor design and I don't know of any differences between them.

I've tried sharing out data via my router and my pogoplug and I find the pogoplug has a faster transfer rate, probably because it has a faster processor. And yes, the four USB ports are only 2.0 but I'm not sure the processor could handle USB 3.0 speeds very well anyway.

Anyone know what the difference between the two models are from this?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pogoplug-...5d36d61f30

Question for you experienced...I bought one over the summer, but have not setup yet due to nature....
Can you run 2.5" drives off these? Is there enough power through the USB ports?
I have a WD Passport 1TB USB3/ USB2 I would like to use with this...
And if so, how many?

Thanks...

G4 would be more powerful and run stuff like an iTunes server. You would be able to run more services (4gb vs 128/256 mb ram).
You would have more headroom with the Mac running multiple servers like apache web, FTP, mail, dns,etc.

However, the pogos would take up less power and run more up to date binaries not available to PowerPC architecture on the g4.

I have 3 pogos and a 867mgz g4 mini.

I personally like the pogos over using a g4 mini.

It works fine with a WD Elements Portable 120GB, USB powered. I've only tried one though.

Got one! Thank you!

I have a Seagate Essential 2.0TB, WD Elements 2 TB, 500GB Passport (2.5) and another 750 WD black HD in external case connected. All have been working fine. The plug has been ON for almost 2 years now... Its a great setup if you can get your hands a little dirty with setting it up specially with ArchLinux...

In for (at least) one! Any good reason I should buy more than one?

:P

WD Live streaming media player has gigabit ethernet, as far as NAS performance goes, does pogo best the WD TV Live streaming device?

Each of my 4 routers on my home network has USB port/File Sharing/DLNA support/Media Server.
Makes a distributed NAS server.

Do I need this unit and if yes, what would be my benefits?
Thanks in advance guys.

Being a geek, I bought it anyway, btw :)

In 4 1......this is the very thing I was needing without having to spend big bucks on a full NAS. Looks like a very nice way to reuse some of those old flash drives laying around as network storage. Do you think there is a limit to how many you plug in if you also utilized a USB hub?

If you use a powered hub you don't have any limitations but you have to share the bandwidth of a single USB port.

I don't see the point of this, software can do all of this, use LogMeIn.com or Remote Desktop or UltraVNC or FTP or VPN or HomePipe. So many options out their. Even Pogo is now doing the same thing via software.

I think your missing the point. The idea is to have USB drives attached to a low power device that only purpose is to distribute content to other devices...i.e. computers, media players, etc.

Its very low power device and its dedicated.

While you can use a WDTV live as a NAS...which I have done...my WDTV live only allows 2 USB unless I hack it.

Lots of stuff to do with this device....consider it a fun toy.

Now..I use to have WDTV live and when using as NAS...I would get corrupted files on the drive...there are comments about that on the net. Files with 0 bytes. So far, the pogoplug samba server works nice.

I read that samba2 has 2GB file size limit. Can anybody confirm?

Unfortunately, all the samba installation & config instructions available for the Pogo are for samba2.

Mine was more of a honest question,I wanted to get some insight on NAS front, I get it Pogo can do a lot more. Thanks for your clarification,

It's not true for both count.

1. 2gb limit is from old FAT32 limit. Samba is a service not a filesystem. Even with smbfs or CIFS, there is no such limit (network filesystem protocols don't have limit like that).

2. Seriously where did you hear that? Stop spreading rumors before confirming it, or at least give some references to support your claim.
# yaourt -Qs samba
extra/libwbclient 3.6.10-1
Samba winbind client library
extra/samba 3.6.10-1
Tools to access a server's filespace and printers via SMB

WDTV live is a full featured media player and you can make it into linux box by installing debian (with some tweaking). Very few GUI apps would work because the nano-X (dmaosd) method.

Pogoplug has arch linux port and is a headless server. It's not intended for running X window app. You can try (either local with USB display or do the remote X/ssh tunnel) but it won't be fast.

Both device draw little power (~4W) and are good 24/7 servers. One has video output and one doesn't. Both have gigabit ethernet and the network transfer speed are suffered from USB, SoC chip architecture, and the CPU power. I'd say for file sharing as NAS both would be equal.

I'm not trying to spread rumors, just trying to get confirmation from someone that has already installed Samba2 on the Pogo, that Samba2 works with file size greater than 2GB.

I assume most will use Aaron Randall's guide here [blogspot.com] to install Samba, and the first user comment at the bottom states the 2GB limit.

I'd like to stay with Samba2 if possible, since I don't need the extra security and the bloat in Samba3.

So if someone that has actually installed Samba2 on the Pogo can confirm or refute the 2GB comment, that'd be very much appreciated.

Awesome, just what i wanted to know, great info, repped.

I'm pretty sure I want one, even without knowing exactly what I'm going to do with it. But I'm confused about the black/pink/b01/p21/e02 distinction.

Am I correct that with this deal, you have two choices: a black p21 or a pink b01, and in either case you just cross your fingers and hope you receive an E02? Or am I missing something?

Given that I'm new to this NAS/linux stuff (but have a fair bit of general hacking/rooting/jailbreaking exp), what should I do when placing this order to maximize the chance of getting the best model? Or should I just choose the color I'd prefer and live with what I get?

thanks

So archlinux supports GPT then? https://wiki.archlinux.org/index....tion_Table


You are confused. FAT32 is limited to 4Gb filesize. MBR formatted drives are limited to 2Tb in total size without some non-conformant hacks.

What you read is based on a single user's experience, and there could have been anything going on with their setup. 2Gb seems pretty arbitrary, and I have personally copied files > 2Gb via samba2, although not with this specific archlinux distro. I think the limitation is probably elsewhere in their system.

really ? how do you have it setup?

whats the point of gigabit if the only speeds you are going to get are limited by the USB interface? I have a seagate dockstar that is similar to the functionality this provides and my transfer speeds are pretty crappy..

Some usb devices can reach 20MB while 100Mb NIC cap you at 10MB.

You're right. I got confused between FAT32 and win9x era FAT16 limit. Haven't used either of those for a while now.

GPT support (being able to recognize >2TB single partition) has been included and enabled in the kernel for a while now regardless of the linux distro.

EFI bootloader support (being able to boot from a partition >2TB) depends on the bootloader version. So far I haven't noticed any uboot version (the default bootloader for Arch ARM) that includes GPT/EFI for ARM-based systems. Not that many people care since it's considered unnecessary luxury for a embedded ARM system to even have a system drive bigger than 4GB.

Thx for the info, I bit! After spending a ton of hours setting my dd-wrt router up to use as a wireless backup node, only to realize that the kernel doesn't have GPT support I'll gladly shell out $17 for a middleman solution, even if it does cost me an extra 4watts.

you dont 'get it'. this is a linux machine that you can do whatever you want with. you can run almost all of those services directly on the pogoplug itself.

this is probably an odd question. but is there an easy way to restore the pogoplug to factory specs? (remove optware, and .etc)

Can this be used to share pictures/videos from external HDD
 

I am still trying to understand this. Lets say I have external HDD with family pictures/videos - can I hook this up to POGO device and somehow my family back in India (obviously not on the same network) can see whats there in the HDD?, Is this possible?

If I can interject, I have a variety of devices (Android phones / HP TouchPad / Apple MBPs and iPhones) and I stream to ALL of my devices via Subsonic. My morning commute would be atrocious if I didn't get to stream my old school Howard Stern MP3s. :bounce:

I've covered it in detail via my website, http://www.twobitcoder.com/?p=278, which, coincidentally, is powered by a PogoPlug.

With the stock pogoplug website UI, out of the box, you can share pictures, videos, and an y files. It's similar to any other cloud based storage solution in that the shares are accessed using the browser, with the exception that the data is on your hard drive. it gets the job done but it's not the prettiest.

What are the hw specs on these? Are these better than the PogoPlug Series 4 with 2x USB3.0 and mSATA support?

Thanks (and repped)! I'm interested in the Time Machine stuff too. I may have to pull the trigger on one of these guys. Just need to get some time to tinker.

My goal, of course, is to use iTunes. I don't even really need (although it would be nice) WAN access to my library. I'd settle for iTunes playing nice between files that are local to my macbook and are located on a NAS.

It's really been a struggle to figure out how to somehow isolate local music -- or remote music -- so, for example, you can still use Genius when you're not connected to a NAS, or the like. I've thought about using a combination of check marks and playlists and blah blah blah, but nothing really seems like it'll work to well.

I guess the alternative is to not use a NAS, specifically, but to stream via Apple Sharing/Firefly, but that doesn't seem particularly elegant either, as then you have Sync issues between the laptop, the NAS and and other iDevices.

Y'know what I mean?

I have one of these that I use without hacking and its great. Access to 2TB of my data via iphone app.

Just beginning to set my black E02 up with ArchlinuxARM on a $5 8gb PNY flash drive from Best Buy. Plan to connect a 3TB external Seagate HD to it for videos, pictures, and music content. Trying to set it up with SAMBA and MiniDLNA. Seems like ArchLinux updated a few things recently. I found that /etc/rc.conf is no longer used, as systemd and systemctrl is used for services. Getting Arch installed was pretty straight forward but the rest is a bit tough for a linux n00b.

i got this all set up and working, but the problem im facing is that every time i reboot or power off the pogoplug, it refuses to boot back up into arch from the the usb drive. i've done this a few times already, and every time i re-install arch, it seems to work just fine again - until i decide to reboot/power off. i do a clean reboot and poweroff from the terminal.

not really sure why it's doing this, and i havent found a solution.

Are you booting Arch off a single USB disk drive or do you have Arch booting off an usb flash drive and another usb disk drive for your data? If you have two drives, try booting with just your boot flash drive connected, then connect the hard drive.

i have a separate usb drive with arch on it.

i just re-installed again, and it seems to work as long as there is no external drive plugged in when it is rebooting or turning on.

is that how it is for everyone?

also, what is the default mount point? i tried copy/pasting backforwardback's smb.conf but it doesn't mount the data drive there by default, so i think i need to modify the path.

what can i do with this if not so techi ? lol

I think it has to do with which usb drive gets mounted first. If it mounts the data drive, then it can't find the system to boot. I was digging around on archlinux forum and they seem to indicate to use fstab to label your root drive and media drive.

use fstab even for the / drive? i'm normally used to adding external drives with fstab, but not sure how to edit fstab for the usb stick with arch on it.

http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms...provideov3
In "Installation" tab:

the /dev/sda1 is determined at boot process (before any services are started or rootfs is mounted). I don't think pointing the / to the correct UUID in fstab will be helpful (well I have tried but failed). Unplugging all but the system drive before reboot is the only way I can get my pogoplugs to boot properly. In other words no automount at boot, the nfs, sabnzbd, sickbeard, and any other services that requires the large-to-huge external storage drives will have to be manually started after the drives are all plugged in and recognized.

and this is not just for ARMv6 pogo (oxnas kernel) but also ARMv5 (e02 pogo) behaves the same. Actually lack of BIOS to assign which drive to be the 1st boot drive is the cause of the problem but as a always on server as long as it's reliable, chance for having to reboot remotely frequently is slim.

For P21 and B01 (oxnas) I guess the best way is to provide a SATA drive (and the SATA power) and tinker with u-boot code to boot from SATA first.

wow, thanks. and all this time i've been pulling my hair out trying to figure out why this thing kept dying on me after rebooting.

EDIT: got another question about miniDLNA. has anyone been able to install this successfully? i've got it installed and it's streaming to the PCs in my house, but for some reason none of my android phones can see the dlna server. my ps3 can see it, my logitech revue can see it, but i cant find an app that can see it on my phone. anyone have a suggestion?

I haven't tried this yet but these writeups might help:
http://forum.doozan.com/read.php?2,5233,5957

http://mouhassan.wordpress.com/20...-usb-disk/

interesting. i'll give it a try in a few hours.

Got mine today and the box indicated model P21 but the tag on the unit indicates model E02

Same here.
I tried to install arch on it yesterday and got an error. Can't install on an E02?

Not sure I'm not a techie at all. Will try to pay someone to mod them.
Here is the link from the wiki though:

If you get a E02 instead (which has more RAM), follow this link instead
http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms...2-pinkgray

FYI the pink B01 is actually a B01 oxnas (not an E02 like the black P21 commonly is)

If you get an E02 the install instructions are here: http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms...2-pinkgray

tried this. killed my arch install. gave me all sorts of permission problems after rebooting. for some reason sda and sdb got switched, so / became sdb and the data drive became sda...which ended up making the filesystem read-only, even for root.

tried to make it writable with:

which worked, but the system would go back to read-only after every reboot - something is wrong with it.

looked around to see if a simple kernel name swap could fix it, i.e. making it think sda was sdb and vice versa. made a 10-local.rules in /etc/udev/rules.d

which killed the system upon reboot.

had to re-install the whole thing.

i won't be doing it again, but someone else could give it a shot.

received mine. The box says P21, but the unit inside is an E02. Odd thing is that the macs match (the address printed on the box label and the actual address of the unit). I'll take it - 256MB :-).

I received mine. The box says E02 and the RAM count confirms it. I really want to get another one now but the ebay listing has ended. Anyone know another place where I can get it for this price?

Adorama [adorama.com] currently has the Pogo-P21 for $18.99 shipped.

Here [adorama.com] or set up a deal alert because they are always being sold around that price.

why would you want two?

Ordered pink. Got B01. Thanks. Will try Linux now.

I ordered the P21. The box says P21 but the device says E02.
The device is right (it's E02), because there's no eSATA and 256 MB of RAM:

OMG I think I went over my head on this one.. Linux has confused me for years. I thought I can follow some simple instructions here... http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms...2-pinkgray

I thought everything went well although the end result seems meaningless to me. I had to go somewhere so I decided to power down everything but when I turned it on again, I doesn't even show up on the router. To make it short, I can't even SSH it.

What am I doing wrong? If I screwed it up, can someone PLEASE tell me how I can restore it back so I can start again?

I too got the P21 box / E02 device.

Please help. :(

Restore your Pogoplug back to stock
 

I was in a similar pickle myself, but got back to stock following the second post on cmadooly's thread here [archlinuxarm.org] Hope this helps someone.

Thank you for replying. I will try it as soon as I get home. I'm still interested in modifying it but I need to learn about it more before I try it again. If anybody has a link to a more concise way of putting Arch Linux ARM to the Pogoplug, it would be very much appreciated.

My aim is to use it to serve my files, both movies (I converted my blus to .mkv) and photos (I'm a photographer) from a single location on the network.

Okay, I'm such a total Linux klutz. I see this will be a loooong project for me. I don't even understand what to do with the codes.

Here is what I did... I opened a Terminal (i'm using a MBP)

Entered the first code. Good. Entered the second code.. Got this message. Ugh.

mount: exec /System/Library/Filesystems/jffs2.fs/Contents/Resources/mount_jffs2 for /private/tmp/pogoroot: No such file or directory

I can't SSH on the Pogoplug.

What am I supposed to do.

Okay, update, I took off the USB drive where the Linux is supposed to be and restarted the Pogoplug and lo and behold, I can see the device on the network again. But none of the USB storage drives can be seen.

Finally restored it!

I learned a little bit about Linux today.

1. Learn Vi commands! The usual texedit/word commands won't work. :P
2. mount -o remount,rw / will make the file editable.

Back to square one with some knowledge gained.

Thanks jbcollins!
\

I was about to reply to your earlier posts when I saw your latest post. Glad you were able to fix it and glad that I could help. I was pretty sure you were able to SSH into the device even though you thought otherwise.

Best,

This was my quick intro and guide to VI Editor [washington.edu] for anyone who is Linux illiterate like me.

When the USB drive where I installed Linux was inserted, the device would not appear on the network. Only after I powered down, removed the USB drive, then turned it on again, did the device appear on the network and I was able to SSH into the device.

Thanks again for the help and for this helpful link!

Just keep in mind, during your install you have installed a different bootloader.
If there will be OTA update, your device might not survive it.

Well folks, it took me a few hours to install ArchLinux and Samba on this little cutie and now it is my NAS server w/3.5TB of storage.
Not bad at all for $16.99 and few hours of entertaining myself w/new toy, I must say :)

OK - couple of n00b questions:

1. I plan on using this to share audio and video (avi / mp4) at home. Want to be able to run from this on XBOX as well as in iTunes on Macbook Pro and iPads. Is that possible? I'm thinking NO since I want to be able to share iTunes library on a single drive so it can be accessed from all macs (update as well) so drive would need to be a file format that macs an read and write to, but exFAT is not supported.
2. Any better way of sharing all media on one external drive, and share among all Windows / Apple / XBox devices?
3. Do I "have" to install ArchLinux?

Thanks in advance.

To all these NAS experts above, why should we go for this instead of a just plug-n-play device like this [amazon.com] for just $15?
I mean this Pogoplug device indeed needs some Unix/hacking stuff correct? Whereas this one mentioned here doesn't seem to need any hacking.

Also,
any idea if this one [amazon.com] and this one [amazon.com] also serve the same purpose i.e. make USB device a NAS one?

1. if the devices on your list can access (browse, read, and write) a windows share folder, you can make pogoplug+arch linux to share files to all those devices since windows share and samba share use the same network protocol (SMB [wikipedia.org]). exFAT is not the issue here since to the clients, the shared files are treated as network filesystem (SMB/CIFS) instead of local filesystem (ext2/3/4, ntfs, exFAT) so the OS vs. filesystem compatibility is not the issue here (as long as they can access the shared files, there is no filesystem problem except the character coding system).

2. Put all media files under a folder on one external drive and share that folder.

3. You don't have to install archlinux but IMO the pogoplug with its stock firmware priced for $18 isn't such a good deal.

I think this is your answer... (in bold)

Features faster-than-wireless speeds and easy connectivity. The Plugable USB 2.0 to 10/100 Network Adapter adds a Fast Ethernet (RJ45) capable port to any supported system. It uses the ASIX AX88772 chipset for widest possible compatibility. Note the adapter is not for network enabling USB devices, rather it's the other way around - it's a USB device that adds a fast wired network interface to supported computers, consoles, and mobile devices running network-capable operating systems. The unit features a compact external design. Two LEDs montior power and link activity. Powered by USB (no external power adapter needed).

Can you please provide a link on how to install both Arch Linux and Samba? Many thanks.

The reason why pogoplug can be such a great device is it's open for people to install a fully functional linux (arch linux) on it and make it into a head-less (no video output) linux server with ethernet and 3x USB ports connection that allows you to connect to any USB devices (printers, scanners, webcam, wifi-USB adapter, etc). You can also install pretty much any services you can think of: DNS, DHCP, NTP, FTP, HTTP, Rsync, NFS, several different databases, e-mail server, and more. It also has almost-complete developer platform (I use "almost" here because there are hardware spec. limitation and also the ARM architecture) including PHP, Perl, Ruby, C/C++, etc.

On the other hand, the adapter in the link above is a USB-to-Ethernet adapter which adds a network interface to a computer through a USB port. I doubt you can use it for a device like a USB external hard drive because those USB enclosures are the peripheral USB devices, not the USB host.

In other words, pogoplug+arch linux is general-purpose computer without video output or graphical interface and you can do a lot with it for free. The USB-to-Ethernet adapter is not remotely comparable because it only has one function. You can actually get it for $3 [ebay.com] if you want it to work under windows and linux.

I've posted something similar before and here it is.

Cool...!!!
So which articles have you followed?
So now you can access your USB hard drives (which are connected to this pogoplug unit) over home LAN using ip address (e.g. \\192.168.x.x) correct?
Also, do you think there is any way to play your movies from these HDDs directly to Roku (using some Roku app)?

In order of questions asked:

- http://archlinuxarm.org/support/g...ions/samba
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index....ge_Devices

- yes, or just using Windows Explorer :) Device shows up on my network


- thru Plex channel, yes.

ArchLinux install:

http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms...2-pinkgray

Samba install:

http://archlinuxarm.org/support/g...ions/samba

USB devices article:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index....ge_Devices

Enjoy, camrades!

Damn...:)
I am a s/w developer and even I am confused with this first article (ArchLinux install) as I never worked on Linux...lol
So from a normal Windows PC, how do I SSH into this device?

Ever heard of putty? http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk...nload.html

Well, to be honest, never...!!!
But there is always the first time...:)

thanks man...:)
Already repped so can't rep you again :)

Works like a charm..

Good luck man :) It is always an adventure to hack a device to your liking..:)

Thanks :).

So half of the battle seems to be complete...;)
The ArcLinux is installation done and in the new SSH window the prompt is now Pogoplug:~s :)

So for that Samba installation I use the same (putty) technique correct ?,
Also, which config file should I use? The one mentioned on this page?
http://archlinuxarm.org/support/g...ions/samba

My requirement is only for sharing my standard/USB HDDs on local/home LAN for media sharing and nothing else. So do I need to edit the sample config file they have provided?

Pogoplug prompt is wrong..u r not booting from your ArchLinux..it should be something like root/alarm..otherwise u r still in Pogoplug Linux, not in ArchLinux..

Yes, you do need to edit smb.conf file to make sure your Samba mounts are accessible thru the network.

Thanks buddy for all the help :)
FINALLY I managed to get this whole thing working... (OMG, it took almost 4 hrs of tonight to learn these damn linux commands and concepts...lol)
Anyway,

Here are the tips for others...

1. Installing ArchLinux is straight forward...:) Just follow (copy-paste) each step here [archlinuxarm.org]

2. The messy part is that bloody Samba installation...lol
Just follow this article [archlinuxarm.org]
In that config file, use the path = /mnt/ (if you use xyz instead of mnt, use xyz instead of mnt in the below commands in step 3)
Once you reach "Starting the Server" section. To start the Samba server you need to run /etc/rc.d/samba restart and not rc.d [start|stop|restart] samba as it says...!!!

3. Mounting the USB storage devices like flash drives/HDDs etc
- attach the storage device
- run blkid -o list -c /dev/null command
Now you should see a list all the USB devices attached. From the label field/column identify the one which is your storage device. let's say it's /dev/sdb1
- Finally just run these commands for mounting it
mkdir /mnt/usbstick
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usbstick
That's it...!!!
Now if you go to any other computer on your home LAN and type Pogo's ip e.g. \\192.168.x.x, you should see the devices... :)

PS: Hi Bagira, pls correct me if I did/said something wrong... :)

Hi Bagira,
By any chance do you know how to get the Plex Media Server installed/running on this Pogo/ARM ? This way I want to stream local media on my Roku :)

thanks again for everything.

try the Linux server, if u wish so.
I have never tried it though.
It is a headless machine, with no input except SSH and no video.
It might work, Plex team has Linux app, look for it.


But I use PMS on Windows and use Pogo drives for media.


P.S. Actually there is no support for PMS on ArchLinux. only Ubuntu, Fedora and CentOS.

To stream your local media to Roku you need to install Plex channel on your Roku.
http://plexapp.com/roku/

If you see the computer named "ALARM" from your Windows machine in the Network window, can double-click on it and access attached to Pogo USB drives - congratulations, you have done it!

By PMS do you mean
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index....ediaserver

No, Plex Media Server - http://www.plexapp.com/getplex/

So even though I got my whole Arch Linux + Samba thing working, I can't get this PMS working. If I want to run PMS, I need to get rid of this whole thing and install Linux server?

Or do I just keep the whole thing as it is and install Linux server on top of existing setup?
Edit: Sorry, I see that you already mentioned "no PMS on Arch Linux, only Ubantu"
Do you think this [archlinux.org] or this [archlinux.org] will work?

Interesting stuff. I might try it and buy another Pogo just for this.

But as of now,
Pogoplug w/ArchLinux is nothing but poor mans NAS - at least in my case.
Plex Media Server is running on Windows machine, just an old m1210 Dell.
Plex channel is installed on my Roku XS, so I can watch all my media on the screen w/Roku attached.

But if Pogo can run Plex server, it would be great.

I'll investigate.

Thanks for the write up, I am stuck at starting samba, /etc/rc.d/samba restart gave me a lot of errors:
/etc/rc.d/samba: line 3: /etc/rc.conf: No such file or directory
/etc/rc.d/samba: line 4: /etc/rc.d/functions: No such file or directory
/etc/rc.d/samba: line 3: /etc/rc.conf: No such file or directory
/etc/rc.d/samba: line 4: /etc/rc.d/functions: No such file or directory
/etc/rc.d/samba: line 30: stat_busy: command not found
/etc/rc.d/samba: line 42: rm_daemon: command not found
/etc/rc.d/samba: line 43: stat_done: command not found
/etc/rc.d/samba: line 3: /etc/rc.conf: No such file or directory
/etc/rc.d/samba: line 4: /etc/rc.d/functions: No such file or directory
/etc/rc.d/samba: line 12: stat_busy: command not found
/etc/rc.d/samba: line 24: add_daemon: command not found
/etc/rc.d/samba: line 25: stat_done: command not found


The samba install itself went fine.

Sure... thanks in adv:).
I am also going to use more or less same like your setup, except that I don't want to keep my Windows machine running only for this...:) :). That's why I wanted to leave the PMS running (if possible) all the time on Pogo.
But unless there is a "idiot man's guide" for PMS installation from ArchLinux prompt (same like Arch Linux Installation article we all are referring) I can't do anything as my Linux knowledge is below "zero"...lol.
Damn...!!! even Jailbreaking/unlocking iPhone is easier than these linux commands...lmao

try
systemctl restart smbd

Yeah... even I got those... I feel these are due to upates in the installation script or something...!!!

But the thing is, even after these errors, the Samba seems to be working (at least my USB sticks are accessible from \\192.168.1.x path)... :) :)
But you are right, someone (who knows linux) has to fix the server start script to avoid these errors.

Hi Bagira, any idea why are we all getting these errors above when we run /etc/rc.d/samba restart ? Should we be worried? :)

One more thing, once a drive is mounted and is working fine, if you remove/disconnect that drive from Pogo, it gets unmounted (which is expected :)). But if you put it back again, it doesn't get auto-mounted again...!!! You have to run the mount command again...!!!
Which means, I think, if you power off your external USB HDDs (which is what I do when I am not using them) and then power those on again when you actually need those, you need to mount all of them back again...!!!
Not so cool but again "beggars are not choosers"... <wink>.
ArchLinux/Samba should automatically detect as soon as a new device is connected to Pogo and mount it back based on the UUID (The way Windows detects a USB device and mounts it automatically).

But you learn on the way, don't forget. This is a value by itself.
I am sure now you can do it in your sleep :)

The problem with Linux / Unix is there are too many flavors of it. And instructions mostly incomplete. And some commands work in one distro, but don't work in another etc. etc. etc.
But once you know basic concepts of Unix, you can figure the rest easily.
Learning curve is tough, I admit.

ran that followed by /etc/rc.d/samba restart and still got the same errors

You should be able to see ALARM computer from your Windows machine, no need to go thru IP.

you should not run /etc/rc.d/samba restart.
After systemctl command Samba is already up and running.

Ok, thats prob why, this must be some pruned distro that doesn't have the additional options

Because it is not supported in the latest ArchLinux distro, LOL.:)

So is there any command to confirm/check if Samba is already running or not?
And when we reboot the Pogo device, will Samba start automatically or do we always have to start it manually?

Thanks for the clarifications - off I go !