topic Re: Plus One Router USB port in My Router

Plus One Router USB port

Charliecat — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:03:46 GMT

What can the USB port be used for on the Plus One Router.

Re: Plus One Router USB port

Baldrick1 — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 21:03:02 GMT

@Charliecat Welcome to the forum.

It can be used for attaching network memory. However it uses the SMB1 network protocol, which is not recommended any more because of security concerns.

Re: Plus One Router USB port

Charliecat — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 22:57:09 GMT

In other words it can't be used for anything.😀

Re: Plus One Router USB port

Baldrick1 — Tue, 05 Nov 2019 08:57:21 GMT

It can with some devices if you ignore the security warnings and install SMB1. Would I use it? No.

Re: Plus One Router USB port

PigeonPete — Sat, 23 Nov 2019 16:53:53 GMT

I just read the old chestnut thread:

https://community.plus.net/t5/My-Router/Probably-an-old-chestnut-Connecting-to-Plusnet-Hub-One-USB-port/m-p/1616386

There is concern that the router uses SMB1.

I'm having difficulty trying to work out what protocol is being used. How do I discern this. The server is listed as Samba 3.0.28 upon connection.

I just plugged in a USB stick I was wanting to share at home. I tried gpt partitioning with fat32 and ext4 file sytems. It only seemed to work with an msdos partition sheme with a fat32 file system for me.

I was quite happy to have the drive as read only, just loading it up with some songs, to share on the home network. But I do seem to be able to write to the usb stick remotely via samba.

The key to getting to the drive seems to be this share path:

//pnhub1/usb1/

I can use the smbclient utility on my system like:

smbclient //pnhub1/usb1 -U GUEST -I 192.168.1.254

and hitting return on the password prompt.

Not sure if I trust it enough to put any data on there that I care about. But could be a useful feature. I'm reluctant to have a dedicated always on machine such as a NAS, for files that are rarely accessed. Makes sense to try and use this port as the router is being used anyway.

But having a writable filesystem might be a vulnerability if the router is comprimised. It's such a black box, and used to reboot frequently. I've relegated it to the role of a second access point now. Wish it were easier to swap out the firmware on this for something more open. I don't have much trust in such a critical piece of my network infrastructure.

I'm accessing via a Linux host, and through VLC on Android.

Is this broken on Windows 10 assuming there that SMB1 is disabled?

Re: Plus One Router USB port

PigeonPete — Sun, 24 Nov 2019 11:24:34 GMT

Sorry that last comment was overly verbose and probably misplaced.

But the short answer is that you can use it for file sharing (but there are caveats).

I can use Android's VLC on a smartphone/tablet to browse the USB stick on the router.

I have a Raspberry Pi 0 also, that plugs into the tv that runs Kodi (libreelec), that can use that share.