network file system

humbert

Hi, I'm looking for people's opinions/advice on setting up a network file system for my home network. I've an old computer, connected to the wireless router, running gentoo acting as a simple server. currently it's mostly used for bittorrenting, I've azureus running on it with a http interface plugin. currently I download the files from it via ftp but I'd really like to hook my large external drive to it so I could access files wirelessly instead of hogging it around.

I'm wondering what options I have for a network file system that will be accessible from windows and linux, hosted on linux. I'd prefer to avoid windows file sharing/samba, also I tried nfs and services for unix and it worked but was slow and buggy, very buggy. I'm going to try OpenAfs I think because it's free third party software for windows(fucking hate windows networking in every shape, manner and form) however the howto for gentoo is pretty crap so I haven't gotten around to it yet.

I'd love something as simple as ftp, with a simple login, but that you could mount the drive and use the files as if they were local. A secure connection and compression would be great but I fear I'm dreaming.

Any thoughts?

SouperComputer

IIRC you can get FTP clients that will map an FTP source as a network drive within Windows. Other than that you have SAMBA and NFS tbh.

Compression I think is a waste of time. A lot of data these days is already compressed (JPG, MP3, OGG, MPG, etc etc) and I think the only thing you might achieve by comressing files on the fly is more heat! Unless you deal a lot with uncompressed text files!

What are your reservations agains SAMBA?

humbert

SouperComputer wrote:

IIRC you can get FTP clients that will map an FTP source as a network drive within Windows. Other than that you have SAMBA and NFS tbh.

Compression I think is a waste of time. A lot of data these days is already compressed (JPG, MP3, OGG, MPG, etc etc) and I think the only thing you might achieve by comressing files on the fly is more heat! Unless you deal a lot with uncompressed text files!

What are your reservations agains SAMBA?

that's a good point regarding compression. I attempted samba before and had awful difficulty getting windows to find the linux server on the network. Also I'd really just like to say here's you ip and port, the server's there, connect with this user/pass. Not fannying around making sure filesharing is enabled for the connection, services running etc. I'd also like to be able to access it from the internet when I'm not at home so it would have to be reasonably robust. Would love an independent program for window that I could configure completely, clearly and explicitly. When using windows filesharing I feel more like I'm trying to persuade the computer to do something rather that configuring it to do something

I'll look into the ftp client option.

oscarBravo

Heh - I feel your pain on the subject of Windows file sharing, but I find that it's more of a problem with Windows than samba. Make sure the server is set to the same workgroup as the Windows client, and use smbpasswd to set the server password the same as the Windows logon - that should help.

I use NFS to share files around my home network, because five out of the six computers in use here run Linux. I use samba to share with the one Windows PC, and it works pretty well.

As for accessing over the Internet, that's tricky to do securely. I'd be inclined to set up a DAV share on the server, protected by digest authentication and accessible only over SSL.

SouperComputer

SAMBA can be a pain to configure, but the guides are plentifuy.

When connecting to SAMBA from windows, the workgroup is irrelevant. You can connect to the share by opening explorer and typing //x.x.x.x/sharename where naturally enough, x is the IP address of the server. If your shares are "public" in the comba.conf, then you wont need the sharename part. If you need to map the drive, simply gight click and set it as a network drive, pick a drive letter and away you go.

TBH id still try SAMBA again, just to learn how to get it running, youll be glad you did! Theres nothing stopping you from using FTP for access to the same shares from the internet if you need too.

joe_chicken

I just got r/w passwordless windows access to a ubuntu share folder using SAMBA...
(not really bothered about security as it's on a local network and has nothing really that important in it)

It took me an age to wade through the sea of samba information out there, but finally got it working.

I can post some of my smb.conf file if you decide to go with it.

Snowbat

Another option is WebDAV, available for Apache2 as mod_dav. This can be encrypted (https) and compressed (mod_deflate) if you wish.

You can flag specific file extensions for no compression:
http://www.howtoforge.com/apache2_mod_deflate

humbert

Thanks for all the replies, I guess I'll give samba another shot. I was a bit of a noob, well more so anyway, when I tried it first and wasn't comfortable with networking in linux. I'll follow this guide.

I tried an ftp client called webdrive, not free, and it wasn't bad but you still had to download a whole file to use it. Is that the same for samba? For example if I was watching a movie(I've my laptop connected to the tv), would it play it "on the fly"? (over the wireless network I get about 1.2 megabytes per second which is adequate for a compressed video.)

I'll prob stick to using ftp over the internet, I do want to keep a tight ship and there's really no advantage in using a network filesystem over a crap connection I suppose.

WebDAV is an option but I think it's not the most suitable for what I want to do, thanks for the suggestion though!

I'm quite surprised there isn't a plethora of options as I would imagine it's a common requirement in networked environment.

oscarBravo

"ftp" and "security" rarely belong in the same sentence.

What kind of Internet access do you want? From random PCs, or your own laptop?

If I'm accessing my home systems from outside, ideally I'll tunnel over ssh, or failing that use SSL-encrypted http.

humbert

From my own laptop. I should set it up to be accessed via ssh but I'll have to do some reading first. I presume the biggest security flaw is that the login is unencrypted?

oscarBravo

That, and many ftp daemons have gaping security holes, although a well-chosen daemon would mitigate.

When I need stuff from a home machine, I use scp if I have my Linux laptop with me, or pscp if I'm using a random Windows PC. It has the advantage of being able to copy files to/from arbitrary locations on the server, rather than just an FTP directory - and it's as secure as you can reasonably get.

Blowfish

humbert wrote:

I presume the biggest security flaw is that the login is unencrypted?

sftp is encrypted - basically it uses ssh to do it. The disadvantage being that the encryption makes it slower than standard ftp.

I use sftp or fish for any critical stuff, but I also have my vids and mp3's accessible through apache (with authentication obviously).

I'm thinking of setting up a streaming server, but none of the main ones i've seen (icecast, darwin, vlc etc) have server side authentication.

SouperComputer

Blowfish wrote:

I'm thinking of setting up a streaming server, but none of the main ones i've seen (icecast, darwin, vlc etc) have server side authentication.

If its just audio, have a look at slimserver. I haven't bothered with much security measures with it myself though TBH.

Red Alert

Even for linux machines samba has less 'quirks' than NFS (on FreeBSD anyway). I gave up using NFS and switched to samba for all file sharing a while ago and am very happy with it.

I've thought about trying AFS but it is very involved to set it up right.

oscarBravo

Woo, AFS looks nice - might have a look at setting that up at home.

Red Alert

it does look like it could be secured well enough to access away from home too.

koloughlin

humbert wrote:

I tried an ftp client called webdrive, not free, and it wasn't bad but you still had to download a whole file to use it. Is that the same for samba? For example if I was watching a movie(I've my laptop connected to the tv), would it play it "on the fly"? (over the wireless network I get about 1.2 megabytes per second which is adequate for a compressed video.)

I've set up samba on my linksys router running openwrt http://www.openwrt.org/. The router has a USB port and I have a pretty big hard drive installed on it. When I map the drive from a windows box and attempt to watch movies or listen to music off it they run quite happily "on the fly". I found the samba security tricky, but now I've basically set it up to be read-only. When I do put stuff up on the drive I use ftp internally. I can sftp to it externally too if necessary.

humbert

I gave samba a go and got it up and running with only a silght headache. It only seems to work for me with security set to "share" and guest logins allowed. It's not the end of the world because I can restrict access to just my local ip quite easily but it is a bit crude. Has anyone got it working from window with better security?

I have to say though it is a hell of a lot better than nfs and I can watch movies across the wireless network, which is great.

That's kinda cool getting openwrt running on the router btw.

On a side note would it be bad to let an external harddrive run constantly. I've never heard of the motors on them burning out but I can't help feeling that it would shorten it's lifespan?

Blowfish

humbert wrote:

On a side note would it be bad to let an external harddrive run constantly. I've never heard of the motors on them burning out but I can't help feeling that it would shorten it's lifespan?

Do you already have the external? If you don't, i'd go for a seperate hdd and then buy the case, that way if the case goes it doesn't matter.

humbert

Ah yea, had it a fair while. I'm just in two minds whether to leave it connected to the old computer all the time.

Hobbes

In Samba if you set up a user on the machine that matches your other machines name and password you will find it easier to use.

If your setting it up to access externally you would be better off with a SSL FTP connection.

humbert

For external access I will use ftp. I've yet to switch to ssl but I don't think it will be too difficult. In windows xp, when you select map network drive it gives you the option to log in as a different user. I've also tried setting the network passwords info in account settings but no joy. the username in both computers is the same. It's not that important but it just annoys me that I can't get it working.

Red Alert

i hope you mean SFTP for external access - best of all you don't need another server as most distros have the SFTP server compiled into the SSH one.