Does anyone have any experience of using a network drive with Linux? Nearly all the reasonably priced ones I have seen advertised tell you all about how they appear as a 'local drive' on Windows systems but give no clue as to how/whether they will work with Linux. One actually appears to be running Samba but that still isn't ideal for Linux. While I'm asking, if I press an old system into service with a basic Linux OS installed on it how can I network its drives? Can one just mount drives across the local network or does one *have* to run something like NFS or Samba? -- Chris Green (chrisisbd@leary.csoft.net)
On Sun, May 21, 2006 at 08:36:26AM -0500, chrisisbd@leary.csoft.net <chrisisbd@leary.csoft.net> wrote:
Does anyone have any experience of using a network drive with Linux? Nearly all the reasonably priced ones I have seen advertised tell you all about how they appear as a 'local drive' on Windows systems but give no clue as to how/whether they will work with Linux.
One actually appears to be running Samba but that still isn't ideal for Linux.
While I'm asking, if I press an old system into service with a basic Linux OS installed on it how can I network its drives? Can one just mount drives across the local network or does one *have* to run something like NFS or Samba?
Depends on what you want to do, if you want to share it with more than one computer, then yes, something like NFS or Samba is the way to go, if you just want to export the block device to use on some other machine, then you might like to look at nbd, or enbd which provide network block devices. Having just googled a bit, I've also come across sfs (http://www.fs.net/) which looks interesting, but is probably well out of the scope of what you want to do! Might also be worth looking at Coda (http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/) and OpenAFS (http://www.openafs.org/). You might *also* be interested in sshfs and fuse, which I use personally to mount my home from my desktop box in to my home directory on my laptop as and when required. Anyway - in short, basically network drives (usually) just present themselves as NFS or Samba servers. Thanks, Brett.
On Sun, May 21, 2006 at 03:22:51PM +0100, Brett Parker wrote:
On Sun, May 21, 2006 at 08:36:26AM -0500, chrisisbd@leary.csoft.net <chrisisbd@leary.csoft.net> wrote:
Does anyone have any experience of using a network drive with Linux? Nearly all the reasonably priced ones I have seen advertised tell you all about how they appear as a 'local drive' on Windows systems but give no clue as to how/whether they will work with Linux.
One actually appears to be running Samba but that still isn't ideal for Linux.
While I'm asking, if I press an old system into service with a basic Linux OS installed on it how can I network its drives? Can one just mount drives across the local network or does one *have* to run something like NFS or Samba?
Depends on what you want to do, if you want to share it with more than one computer, then yes, something like NFS or Samba is the way to go, if you just want to export the block device to use on some other machine, then you might like to look at nbd, or enbd which provide network block devices.
I want to be able to see the drives from various systems. Samba is the obvious answer for Windows systems but I wondered if there was something simpler for a Linux to Linux connection as smbclient for Linux always strikes me as a bit of a bodge somehow.
Having just googled a bit, I've also come across sfs (http://www.fs.net/) which looks interesting, but is probably well out of the scope of what you want to do!
Might also be worth looking at Coda (http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/) and OpenAFS (http://www.openafs.org/). You might *also* be interested in sshfs and fuse, which I use personally to mount my home from my desktop box in to my home directory on my laptop as and when required.
I have used sshfs across the internet to a remote system, it works well, I suppose it would be OK across the local network and would work faster. -- Chris Green (chrisisbd@leary.csoft.net)
On Sun, May 21, 2006 at 12:11:36PM -0500, chrisisbd@leary.csoft.net <chrisisbd@leary.csoft.net> wrote:
I want to be able to see the drives from various systems. Samba is the obvious answer for Windows systems but I wondered if there was something simpler for a Linux to Linux connection as smbclient for Linux always strikes me as a bit of a bodge somehow.
It's it's a full time share, and you want to keep the permissions across it, and want to mount for multiple users... NFS is the way forwards. At work we use an NFS root filesystem with LDAP authentication to keep the users in sync, works rather well until the network breaks - fortunately we don't have that often :)
I have used sshfs across the internet to a remote system, it works well, I suppose it would be OK across the local network and would work faster.
sshfs is good for single user access, and not too bad over a LAN or wireless connection - I use it because my laptop is on a wireless connection and I'd rather not use NFS over the wireless ;) Cheers, Brett.
On Sun, 2006-05-21 at 08:36 -0500, chrisisbd@leary.csoft.net wrote:
Does anyone have any experience of using a network drive with Linux? Nearly all the reasonably priced ones I have seen advertised tell you all about how they appear as a 'local drive' on Windows systems but give no clue as to how/whether they will work with Linux.
Not had much direct experience of them, But I'd imagine most of them are running Samba. If you went for one of the ones with a vibrant community driven alternative to the included Embedded OS (like the Linksys "Slug") then I'd imagine that NFS etc is a given.
One actually appears to be running Samba but that still isn't ideal for Linux.
While I'm asking, if I press an old system into service with a basic Linux OS installed on it how can I network its drives? Can one just mount drives across the local network or does one *have* to run something like NFS or Samba?
You make running NFS sound like a chore :-) Nope not really, you can transfer files by various methods but I'd say for Linux to Linux NFS is the way to go. NFS does just mount drives across the local network, you need something between the network and the filesystem to allow concurrent access etc. What I'd do is build a basic box plus NFS, plus Samba (if you have any Windows clients), perhaps put your printers through it and if you don't have a router then your internet connection as well. Later on you can have it processing your mail etc voila a simple home server for free (or at least much less money than a Nas appliance box) If command lines aren't your thing then install webmin and the appropriate plugins for what you want to manage. I just replaced my home server with a new MiniITX based 1U Rack server with half a terabyte. By buying carefully I built this for just over £350. It's my uPnP media server, VOIP gateway, File server (NFS and Samba), automated backup server for the girlfriends and my laptops (using BackupPC, which rocks), web server, print server and when I get round to setting it up my mail server. Every service is configurable via a browser using Webmin,FreePBX, BackupPC and Twonkyvision web control panels. Actually my old home server (which is a converted NAS appliance box built around a 700nsomething Mhz PIII) may be up for grabs soon, I'll post here when I decide to get rid of it.
On Sun, May 21, 2006 at 03:28:03PM +0100, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Sun, 2006-05-21 at 08:36 -0500, chrisisbd@leary.csoft.net wrote:
Does anyone have any experience of using a network drive with Linux? Nearly all the reasonably priced ones I have seen advertised tell you all about how they appear as a 'local drive' on Windows systems but give no clue as to how/whether they will work with Linux.
Not had much direct experience of them, But I'd imagine most of them are running Samba. If you went for one of the ones with a vibrant community driven alternative to the included Embedded OS (like the Linksys "Slug") then I'd imagine that NFS etc is a given.
One actually appears to be running Samba but that still isn't ideal for Linux.
While I'm asking, if I press an old system into service with a basic Linux OS installed on it how can I network its drives? Can one just mount drives across the local network or does one *have* to run something like NFS or Samba?
You make running NFS sound like a chore :-)
Well it is! :-)
Nope not really, you can transfer files by various methods but I'd say for Linux to Linux NFS is the way to go. NFS does just mount drives across the local network, you need something between the network and the filesystem to allow concurrent access etc.
What I'd do is build a basic box plus NFS, plus Samba (if you have any Windows clients), perhaps put your printers through it and if you don't have a router then your internet connection as well. Later on you can have it processing your mail etc voila a simple home server for free (or at least much less money than a Nas appliance box)
I already have a dedicated Linux (Slackware) system that is on all the time. It already processes mail (postfix) and has Samba running. What I'm after doing is putting a remote disk drive (or Linux box) in one of our garages as a backup system. The more distant of our two garages is thirty or forty yards from the house so in a disaster (fire, whatever) is most unlikely to be damaged as well as the house so it seems a good place to put a backup system. We run a small Ltd. company and have some other data which I would be very sad to lose.
If command lines aren't your thing then install webmin and the appropriate plugins for what you want to manage.
Command lines most definitely are my thing, that's why I run Slackware. -- Chris Green (chrisisbd@leary.csoft.net)
On Sunday 21 May 2006 14:36, chrisisbd@leary.csoft.net wrote:
While I'm asking, if I press an old system into service with a basic Linux OS installed on it how can I network its drives? Can one just mount drives across the local network or does one *have* to run something like NFS or Samba?
Have you considered using fish? IE file sharing over ssh? You know how you can type fish://sshuser@sshserver.com into konqueror and browse/search/edit in-place/write to your ssh server's file system from your desktop? Well, make sure sshd is running on the "storage server", then just run knetattach on client and choose "ssh account" to map a folder on the server to the equivalent of a "network drive". The directory named will be accessed using fish by the DE. If wanted, transparent autologin is quickly sorted using kwallet, this will provide completely manageable shared storage as simply as you like, or you can make it as secure as you like, all of the standard dialogs in KDE will allow you to save to/open from the network resource without hassle, and account management is friendly because your managing ssh accounts. Of course you'll want to be using KDE apps to best achieve this because of said support - I'm not sure how this works on gnome, so I'll tread carefully - but I imagine fish must be supported as it's pretty darn standard fare and one of the most Useful Things out there. There's also the issue that fish really is something mainly for the gui apps, and I don't think windows can do it (I'd be happy if someone could correct me on this) - although scripting and stuff is not that hard with this setup as you can imagine and you can always access ssh storage if you have to (unlike your samba) and can open it up to the outside world a little more safely if you need to share to a remote location. Might not be the thing for you, but check it out in case it is. As far as I'm concerned fish is the best thing since sliced bread. Cheers, Ten. -- There are 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary, and those who don't.
On Sun, May 21, 2006 at 04:14:52PM +0100, Ten wrote:
On Sunday 21 May 2006 14:36, chrisisbd@leary.csoft.net wrote:
While I'm asking, if I press an old system into service with a basic Linux OS installed on it how can I network its drives? Can one just mount drives across the local network or does one *have* to run something like NFS or Samba?
Have you considered using fish? IE file sharing over ssh?
You know how you can type fish://sshuser@sshserver.com into konqueror and browse/search/edit in-place/write to your ssh server's file system from your desktop?
Well, make sure sshd is running on the "storage server", then just run knetattach on client and choose "ssh account" to map a folder on the server to the equivalent of a "network drive". The directory named will be accessed using fish by the DE.
If wanted, transparent autologin is quickly sorted using kwallet, this will provide completely manageable shared storage as simply as you like, or you can make it as secure as you like, all of the standard dialogs in KDE will allow you to save to/open from the network resource without hassle, and account management is friendly because your managing ssh accounts.
Of course you'll want to be using KDE apps to best achieve this because of said support - I'm not sure how this works on gnome, so I'll tread carefully - but I imagine fish must be supported as it's pretty darn standard fare and one of the most Useful Things out there.
There's also the issue that fish really is something mainly for the gui apps, and I don't think windows can do it (I'd be happy if someone could correct me on this) - although scripting and stuff is not that hard with this setup as you can imagine and you can always access ssh storage if you have to (unlike your samba) and can open it up to the outside world a little more safely if you need to share to a remote location.
I've already used sshfs (which I assume is what fish is based on) so I could use that 'locally' I guess. I don't use either KDE or Gnome although I have some of their libraries installed. -- Chris Green (chrisisbd@leary.csoft.net)
participants (4)
-
Brett Parker -
chrisisbd＠leary.csoft.net -
Ten -
Wayne Stallwood