Ubuntu 9.04 write problems with Network Accessible Storage Device

[Kirk Bridger]

I've just bought (around Christmas) the same unit and used to mount it 
via CIFS as well.  I found the permission thing to be very strange and 
unpredictable, often seeing strange read/write combinations.

The problem as I found it was that the mount command and the DNS-323 use 
different users/groups from one another.  So even though the local 
system looks to be mounted by a particular user the DNS-323 system is 
slightly different.  I'm assuming you're configuring the DNS-323 through 
the web interface which doesn't allow a lot of flexibility?

Here's the mount command I was using in fstab:

//192.168.0.2/pictures /media/Photos cifs 
auto,iocharset=utf8,noperm,uid=xxx,gid=yyy,credentials=/root/.cifscredentials 
0 0

The key was the noperm option.  I understand that this is a workaround 
for some samba versions to just ignore permissions whenever possible.  I 
believe this got rid of the perm problems, however I moved on to NFS 
since CIFS purports to support hard links but does not.  Remember that 
you're stuck with the samba server version running on the DNS-323.

NFS you say?  Did you know that your DNS-323 is running a linux kernel 
that allows hacking?  You can hack it with minimal to no risk to your 
device, and install a lot of additional software including an NFS 
server, ssh access, etc.

If you're interested, here's the wiki with the info (1) and the 
installation doc I followed to get it working (2).  It literally 
involves copying a few files to your device and rebooting it - no risk.  
Pretty awesome stuff.  NFS is a different beast than samba but allows 
hard links, making the NAS a much nicer incremental backup device.

Let me know if you have any questions about the fun_plug.  I've dabbled 
with it minimally, but am always willing to help.


Kirk

1 - http://wiki.dns323.info/howto:fun_plug
2 - http://nas-tweaks.net/CH3SNAS:Tutorials/fun_plug


Duffields wrote:
> I have been using a DNS-323 NAS device for the data files on my home network 
> for the past 3 years with no problem.  Each computer mounts the device 
> through an entry in fstab shown below
>
> //192.168.0.49/Volume_1 /media/RAID cifs 
> credentials=/home/xxxx/.smbcredentials,uid=xxxx,gid=users 0 0
>
> The system has been working very well with Ubuntu 7.10 and 8.04.
>
> I have started to play with Ubuntu 9.04 and I find that although I use the 
> same entries in fstab as with 8.04, and the drive mounts correctly, many of 
> the files, (perhaps all of them, but I have not checked them all) can be 
> opened as "read only".  Changes to images cannot be saved nor can changes to 
> documents.
>
> The odd thing is that some documents such as NoteCase Pro .ncd files CAN be 
> saved by that application.  Also, I can add new directories and put files 
> into them but then cannot edit those files.
>
> Has anyone encountered this?
>
> Mac
>
>