NASLite Network Attached Storage

Ok, it is possible...it just is not easy. Here is what I have found out:

In an effort to speed up file transfer from 1 HD to another I did the following:

1) Attached HD's to IDE on my XP system that I wanted to transfer to/from
2) Boot my XP system with the Knoppix Live CD
3) Transfer MP3 & DVD files (much much faster than trying to do it over the network)

Here's the issue with above:

1) Files transferred are given ownership by knoppix user and knoppix group
2) Which means that (once you put the HDs back into the NAS server) you can only read files off of the NAS server - you can not modify / delete the files or rearrange them.

I was able to fix the above issue. My work around was to install Knoppix to a partition on my XP machine and go in and change file permissions while using Knoppix. Get info on that procxedure from the http://www.knoppix.net forum.

Here's what I found out:

I booted into my HD version of Knoppix (Debian) and examined file permissions for a couple disks to see what was going on.

NASLite has 2 ownerships:

USERS
1) root
2) 98 (this is the NAS-user)

GROUPS
1) root
2) 98 (this is the NAS-user group)

I created a new user 98 and assigned that user a UID of 98. Knoppix then created a user group called 98 and auto assigned it GID 1002. I deleted the group entry it auto-made and created a new group 98 and assigned it a GID of 98. I then made user 98 a member of group 98. You still with me?

Then I went to my HDs and chown & chgrp all files except for lost+found.

# chown 98 -R directoryName
# chgrp 98 -R directoryName

After doing this, all files I transfered on my Knoppix system (XP system) were then read/write/execute ready once placed back into my NAS server.

So, based on my experimenting it looks like there is a way to create file permission settings...just not within NAS itself!! Boy, would that be a great feature...hint hint.

Based on what I have done, you can use Knoppix (I assume also any other Linux) and assign user privs. This is good if you want to make files available but don't want to risk having somone else write over them. This is nice for me, as I have video and MP3 files I don't want the other computer users in my house changing or accidentally deleting.

So for Example:

1) Disk 1 is all of my MP3s - read only (using Knoppix as above)
2) Disk 2 is all of my DVD video - read only (using Knoppix as above)
3) Disk 3 is a share for downloaded apps and files (files accumulate over time) so transfer of large amts of data not required and I don't care if users change data here.
4) Same as 3

Overall, the process is not easy and I spent a lot of hours to get where I am now (newbie linux user). One of the greatest finds with NAS was my exposure to Knoppix (Linux has come a long way but still is not idiot proof).

++NOTE - be careful to mount drives before transfer unmount when finished changing permissions and definitely unmount and turn off machine before removing HDs..even if you have a USB hot swap!!!

Is there a permissions scheme planned for future releases?

Thanks!

There is no need to pull the drives and change the UID on the drive. If you are in a Linux or Mac environment then just change the user id on the computer you are using to match the user id of NASlite . I have tried this on Mac and was successful! 100%. I needed to have read/write permission on the NAS Server.

I changed my UID (User ID) on my mac to reflect the server UID 98 so that I could update the info when using iTunes. It works great. Here is it....

http://lissot.net/netinfo/change_user.html

I am using NFS and it is much faster than SMB.
Hope this helps someone..

Wow, dragging up an old thread sorry. I just had this problem and wanted to add my solution using Puppy Linux.

As far as I can tell this permission problem only happens if you are dual booting after setting up the drives in naslite or maybe you have set up a drive via naslite and then remove it, write to it and put it back. The key problem is when you copy things to a naslite drive from another operating environment and the permissions are not what naslite expects. This problem creeps up when you try to move files around on a nfs or possibly ftp etc....exported drive but your client refuses and errors out with permissions problems or possibly tells you it is not possible to move the files.

Anyway, if you have these problems you can easily put them back with a bootable linux distro exactly as cgraham149 pointed out in his/her post. The key is the UID=98 and the GID=98 and then you can do anything with your files.

Here are instructions for using Puppy Linux Slacko 5.4.
This assumes you know what drive and directory/folder you are having the permission problems on and you have a bootable version of Pupply Linux Slacko 5.4 on a usb drive. It also assumes you know a little linux or at least some lingo and can follow instructions. It is easy, really.

1) Boot from usb Puppy Linux
2) Single click the drive with the problems in the lower left desktop and it will open in a window where you can see the problem directory or files.
3) Right click in an open space in the drive folder window and Menu>>Window>>Terminal Here click
4) In the terminal type >> adduser -D -H -u 98 98 and press enter
5) In the terminal type >> addgroup -g 98 98
6) chown -R 98:98 Directory_in_question
You can also specify a full path here /mnt/sdb1/music in the place of (Directory_in _question) as long as the directory is mounted it will work.

Thats all folks