topic Re: USB Sharing on Hub 2 in My Router

USB Sharing on Hub 2

ksaro1 — Sun, 11 Sep 2022 16:13:49 GMT

See attached screenshot. This shows a USB storage device that I've attached to my Hub 2 router. (I know the advice against using SMB 1.0, but I'm not that worried about the security on my home network).

Anyway, the named device doesn't allow me to connect using SMB ver 1.0 from any of my home devices. The error messages all indicate that the IP address 192.168.1.254 isn't an SMB server. What is the correct syntax to attach using SMB?

e.g. mount attempt on Linux results in the below error (I also tried with user=admin and get same error)

mount.cifs kernel mount options: ip=192.168.1.254,unc=\\192.168.1.254\Kingston,vers=1.0,user=root,pass=********

mount error(111): could not connect to 192.168.1.254Unable to find suitable address

Re: USB Sharing on Hub 2

Dan_the_Van — Sun, 11 Sep 2022 17:09:37 GMT

Personally I wouldn't bother sharing from the Hub Two, why not from your pi, plenty of online help

Follow me - sharing on a pi is an example

Dan.

Re: USB Sharing on Hub 2

RPMozley — Sun, 11 Sep 2022 21:52:24 GMT

Doesn’t smb://192.168.1.254 work for you?
Depending upon the file manager in Linux there should be an option to “connect to server” or something equivalent.

Re: USB Sharing on Hub 2

ksaro1 — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 08:46:45 GMT

@RPMozley wrote:
Doesn’t smb://192.168.1.254 work for you?

Short answer is no.

From my Mac I get the following

And on my RPI4 when I use the PCman file manager it can see all other shares on my home network but nothing shows for the Hub2. Also on my iPad I get a failure to find server error as well.

What do you see using smb://192.168.1.254?

Re: USB Sharing on Hub 2

Champnet — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 08:55:30 GMT

No point in trying to connect to the router, you need to find a way to declare the USB device as a share.

Then the access would be 192.168.1.254/'share name'

Re: USB Sharing on Hub 2

ksaro1 — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 09:05:02 GMT

@Champnet wrote:

...you need to find a way to declare the USB device as a share.

And how do I do that please?

Re: USB Sharing on Hub 2

Champnet — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 09:11:42 GMT

It should be in the router settings, someone with a hub two maybe able to help.

Re: USB Sharing on Hub 2

pvmb — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 10:43:11 GMT

..."in the settings" - perhaps not! At least not in any settings I can access, the Plusnet Hub Two is pretty well locked down to the ordinary user.

The USB port certainly works, I can plug things in and immediately see them correctly recognised:

Kingston, Data Traveller USB memory stick
HP Deskjet printer
StoreJet Transcent USB HD

I can 'Safely Disconnect' all of these via the Hub Two web page but, when installed, I have no idea how to access or use any of them.

Re: USB Sharing on Hub 2

Dan_the_Van — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 10:54:55 GMT

I think you would need a USB drive connected first to be able to see the share, have you looked at the Event Log

selecting category USB to see what is might be called.

The format of the USB drive might be important the Hub One only supported FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS

Re: USB Sharing on Hub 2

Champnet — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 11:05:09 GMT

Comment from @PigeonPete back in 2019 using a plus one router :

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

//pnhub1/usb1/"

So /usb1/ just might be the usb share name on the hub two................

Re: USB Sharing on Hub 2

ksaro1 — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 11:10:02 GMT

@Dan_the_Van wrote:

I think you would need a USB drive connected first to be able to see the share, have you looked at the Event Log

selecting category USB to see what is might be called.

The format of the USB drive might be important the Hub One only supported FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS

Good points....

These are the only events for USB. Should I see any reference to sharing or SMB?

I've formatted the USB as FAT32.

Re: USB Sharing on Hub 2

ksaro1 — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 11:13:25 GMT

@Champnet wrote:

Comment from @PigeonPete back in 2019 using a plus one router :

Mine is a Hub 2 - completely different kit.

Re: USB Sharing on Hub 2

Champnet — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 11:18:01 GMT

Agreed, but have tried 192.168.1.254/usb1/ or just 192.168.1.254/usb/ ?

Re: USB Sharing on Hub 2

ksaro1 — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 11:20:35 GMT

DOH! Solved... I finally found an older BT post and it mentioned connecting as guest... BINGO... that does the trick on my iMac. Now to research how to mount SMB as guest on Raspberrys.... Thanks all for your replies.

Re: USB Sharing on Hub 2

Champnet — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 11:26:06 GMT

Should have included the rest of @PigeonPete 's post :

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.

Re: USB Sharing on Hub 2

ksaro1 — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 11:30:45 GMT

FWIW - the option -o guest works for Linux/Raspberry pi SMB mount

Re: USB Sharing on Hub 2

ksaro1 — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 11:37:50 GMT

@Dan_the_Van wrote:

The format of the USB drive might be important the Hub One only supported FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS

Actually, I've found that it does NOT support NTFS. When I format my USB drive as NTFS, then the Hub2 fails any access attempts. When I format the same USB drive FAT32 then the access works.... Hmmm... seems I'm limited to <2Gb file sizes then, which is OK as I just store old photos anyway.

Re: USB Sharing on Hub 2

Dan_the_Van — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 12:01:00 GMT

I've found that it does NOT support NTFS

Thats nice to know for others who might wish to do share a USB drive. 2Gb file limit is a feature of FAT32.

Re: USB Sharing on Hub 2

pvmb — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 12:54:01 GMT

Meanwhile, in Windows...

With a USB Memory stick plugged in to the Hub Two, looking at the Windows Command Prompt:

> net view hub
Shared resources at hub
Plusnet Hub Two File Server
Share name  Type  Used as  Comment
------------------------------------------
usb1        Disk           created by auto-share

So it is definitely there and ready to share, just need to sort it all out in Windows!