Plus One Router USB port

[#1]

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

[#2]

@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.

[#3]

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

[#4]

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

[#5]

I just read the old chestnut thread:

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

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?

[#6]

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.