(Solved)Importing/Loading files from USB (FAT Structured)

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1

Brief description of the problem

[Trying to discover how to copy/transfer my photos films books etc from usb external drives to the NAS device.
All the info I have found is to do with sharing stuff (exporting/sharing) to others (people/machines) external to the NAS.
There is a section in the docs that states the windows method of “Accessing Shares FROM Clients” But it will be coming soon?
I cannot be the only/first user wishing to do this from windows structured drives, so my question is how is it achieved.?
and/or
What am I not seeing/understanding?
(I have the main-pool and shares under control and ready to implement)
Thanks again
Mike]

Error Traceback provided on the Web-UI

[paste here]
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@Mike-B Hello again.
Re:

Not much, only that Rockstor is a btrfs only. The Web-UI only knows of btrfs and then in a slightly limited scope in order to help make the underlying magic a little more accessible.

To transfere files to and from the resulting NAS one uses the network predominantly. However it is entirely possible to do a local copy as underlying our bit is a generic JeOS like openSUSE Leap 15.2/15.2 appliance. So once can use the command line to mount and copy from all filesystems supported by that that base OS. Essentially all linux supported filesystems.

We have had a major re-write of the docs recently curtousy of @Flox and to a lesser extend myself. Likely we have a bug here somewhere.

Take a look at the following section re accessing a Rockstor share (btrfs subvolume) exported via samba:
https://rockstor.com/docs/interface/storage/file_sharing/samba_ops.html#samba

And let us know the location of the potentially miss-leading doc section you mention.

Note that many folks on the forum have done locally attached transfers but it does involve a linux command line and mount knowledge as we just don’t support that from the Web-UI.

And of particular interest is @Tex1954 recent post here:

Where they cunningly use a ye olde style file manager Midnight commander, a clone of early dos based norton commander, to lighten the load once they have already extablished the command line mount of the local non Rockstor native external media. Just be sure to create your target Rockstor shares first as they gen get their respective mount points under /mnt2/.

Hope that helps, and do take care when using the command line as there be dragons, most especially as the ‘root’ user. But if you are just connection via samba over the network then all is way more tame.

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Thanks Phillip
In reply to whereabouts the text was suggesting “Windows guidance will be added soon”, I have uploaded a couple of images to help with that.
I can now digest what you have said with the help of my trusty glossary of terms.

Rockstore%20Reply%20Pic
Rockstore%20Reply%20Pic1920×1080 183 KB
Rockstore%20Reply%20Pic2
Rockstore%20Reply%20Pic21920×1080 386 KB

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I have been perusing the story from Tex1954 with great interest as I felt it was pertinent to my quest in finding a suitable File Manager. I feel my problem is related to a preconceived vision of something resembling a Windows File Explorer, which I am beginning to understand does not exist in the Linux environment. I just have wait for my tired mind to accept the facts and expand ny visions.
Thanks again

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@Mike-B Hello again, and thanks for the pointer in the docs; fancy that. We can hopefully address that on in time as things calm down around the re-launch are currently busy with.

The Windows File Explorer definitely has parallels in the linux world, but they are, as the Windows File Explorer is, embeded in the linux desktop. We are a linux server setup designed to be accessed primarily via a Web-UI. And although there are web based file browsers they can be problematic from the point of view of security so we don’t yet offer a good one as far as I’m aware. But there are definitely extremely capable counterparts to Windows Explorer with the counterpart linux desktop arena. I.e. KDE for example has Dophin.

Also, once you have established a samba share, your can browse/manage it’s contents just like local files from such network aware file managers as Windoes File explorer and KDE’s dophin. Appologies if I’ve missed your meaning here but just wanted to jump in on this one re perspective. We are predominantly serving up network services, we don’t offer a linux desktop. But we are as compatible with linux desktops as with windows desktops, or MacOS desktops. We just server the network element really.

Hope that helps.

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Thanks Phillip
I have three topics for further discussion
Topic 1
Connecting to windows file system
I understand the design intent of the Rockstor server, however as mentioned before it seems that all the docs (that I have read so far) appear to deal with the exporting of files from the server to another person/place/device.
However
in order to do so, there has to be something on the server to export, what I am struggling to discover is how to get the stuff onto the server in order for it to serve.

I have set up a couple of shares and set up Samba,

Samba%20View%20with%20Security
Samba%20View%20with%20Security1915×779 153 KB

Fig–Samba Page-- Also shows Security Certificate Issue

but cannot see anything related to the Rockstor/User in the File Explorer.

Have tried with both Win 11 (Insider preview eval copy 22518.rs pre release 211203-1458) and Win 7 (Ultimate) laptops, the Win 7 both with WiFi and an ethernet cable to a Virgin Hub 3 router.

The router recognises all connected devices and pinging ops have been completed to check validity of coms, all returned +ve.
Questions now arise:
Should I be thinking of transferring to a stable version? I feel I’m taking up your valuable time when “commercial support” might be more appropriate. I rather like the Rockstore philosophy but am also aware of the value of your time.
Topic 2
The SSL certificate is not recognised by windows.

Update%20SSL%20Image%201
Update%20SSL%20Image%2011391×811 128 KB

When the “Update Certificate” section is accessed from the system page there is a form that seems to need completing. Is there any guidance as to how to complete the form, is the greyed out text a “dummy” input needing to be over typed with something new? What would be an appropriate name?

Topic 3
Further text issues

text%20repeat%20error%201
text%20repeat%20error%201831×437 70.7 KB
text%20repeat%20error%202
text%20repeat%20error%2021567×602 166 KB
Shouldn’t the two blue boxes in step 2 refer to windows?

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@Mike-B Hello again.
Re:

This is probably just an overloading of the term “exporting” When you successfully setup for example a samba export of a btrfs share, if you have set it up to be read write then you can use the same export (read access) method to populate the associated share. Incidentally our ‘shares’ are actually btrfs sub-volumes.

Try referencing the rockstor box within windows file explorer via it’s IP address. But others are better to advise on this front as I have no windows machines here myself to do screen grab etc. Another point that my be affecting this is to ensure you use the same workgroup name in you samba config as your windows system is configured for. Again we need some of the regular windows folks to chip in on this one really. But once established, and you have granted read-write via the samba export config then you can both populate (upload) and retrieve (download) via the same connection.

That’s not really required here. You are learning the ropes of NAS, with a bit of patience and some other folks chipping in here on the forum you will have this off pat in no time. Plus you are giving back here on the forum (helping others) and giving our docs a work out, which they are apparently in need of more that I had appreciated in the corners you are finding :slight_smile: .

This one is easy. We use a self signed certificate. That is why it is not recognised. But if you trust it, i.e. it’s unlikely to be anyone else’s Rockstor instance on your network with the exact same login credientials then you can add an exception to your browser. If all folks accessed their Rockstor instances through say a web portal that say I controlled then we could arrange a proper certificate. But that’s not in keeping with the self hosting concept and is actually quite complex. Plus all instances would have to share a domain name etc. Self signing means we get end-to-end encryption between you client machine and the Rockstor install. That’s better, even given the self signed woes, than doing it in the open via http which is what we used to do and what many projects do to avoid these messages.

Just add an exception in your browser and all should be OK. Generating and adding a cert of your own (the page you found) is frankly a little overkill for a home setup, plus you have more pressing issues to address re actually populating the NAS :).

The should indeed. Nice find. That’s actually a very old Howto that may well now be redundant. I’ve created the following doc issue to address this, or remove that howto all together. We can see which way this goes depending on how ends up taking that issue on. Doocracy style.

Thanks again for weeding out these doc issues. Much appreciated.

Now could someone help @Mike-B with their windows client access, i.e with some screen grabs of their own config or the like, as I believe we almost at the end of the beginning here.

Hope that helps.

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To provide a view on the windows connection. I am using wsdd to support the WS-Discovery, since SMBv1 has been disabled in Windows 10/11 for some time now. That way Rockstor is recognized on my network by windows machines without an issue. I have submitted a Rockon for that (still in review) on GitHub, focused on Workgroup based networks:
https://github.com/rockstor/rockon-registry/pull/294,

But, of course, you can also directly install it on your Rockstor instance. See here for some information I put into a feature request but it does require to add another repository:

Feature Request - make wsdd for windows network discovery part of the core · Issue #2322 · rockstor/rockstor-core · GitHub.

The way I’ve set up my Samba service is based on a lot of past fiddling, so some of the settings might not be necessary anymore (like the os level, domain master, etc.), but I didn’t want to mess with a working system :slight_smile: :

image
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The key inputs for the wsdd service are the HOST_NAME (name of your rockstor appliance) and the WORKGROUP (if you use Active Directory, there is another parameter) the appliance belongs to in the windows network. Once that’s taken care of, I can easily access all Samba “exports” I have created (in this screenshot I set up shares for all of the config directories of Rockons so I can take a look at them when necessary:
image

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@Hooverdan Nice; but are we not over-complicating this for an initial connection.

Does our current doc section here:
https://rockstor.com/docs/interface/storage/file_sharing/samba_ops.html#how-to-access-a-share
no longer allow for initiating a list of available shares accessible by say the samba admin user. Sorry I’m a little out of touch on the windows side.

Cheers.

Just looking for improvement for getting folks off the ground as simply as possible. And we need to take a fresh look at that Rock-on you posted. Apologies for not getting around to that one. But it should surely be a nice to have not a critical component. Am I missing something here on the new fangled windows side. Is it really now this difficult to find and connect to a NAS running a modern SAMBA, as they mostly all do. We do have what I believe to be a working avahi setup currently. Maybe we need to tweak that some?

Thanks for any schooling in advance.

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@phillxnet, yeah, yeah, you’re of course right :slight_smile: I read too much into the “connecting” piece of server name vs. ip address.
As for the documentation, I realize that for the windows portion, one backslash is missing.

image
image900×414 48.5 KB

so it should be \\192.168.1.21 instead.

My understanding is that Windows does not recognize the avahi based registration (yet/still/never, I don’t know), hence the need for wsdd - if you want to address Rockstor not by its ip address, but its appliance/server name. that’s how that seemed to work out for me, I could only see the server name, once i installed wsdd … but like you, I’m ready to be schooled in this area :slight_smile:

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@Hooverdan Thanks.
And:

Nice. Fancy creating a doc issue for that one :slight_smile:.

This is all good. Weeding out a few paper cuts along the way.

It is looking like we should probably look to getting that rock-on in as a quick start for folks that are less familiar with using direct ip addresses and the like. But we should also have less buggy docs on an out-of-the-box client connection.

Cheers.

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@phillxnet, Done:

Feel free to augment/change as you see fit.

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Thanks to All for adding their bit :slight_smile:
It seems that windows users are in the minority at the moment, so how long will it be for a Rockon to be available in the Rockon downloads as I don’t think my tired brain could handle all those switches and variations listed (for goodness knows what reasons) in the GitHub - christgau/wsdd: A Web Service Discovery host daemon.
If the lead time is months away I might try the FreeNAS version as it seems it has wsdd already included in the distro, but could wait a few days whilst the box heat soaks (doing-- not a lot) and I can get in the garden or even fix up the festive lights.
The introduction of a second \ to the File Explorer address still hasn’t revealed the goods.
If Microsoft has removed recognition of the avahi based registration, what would be the point of pursuing ways to improve use of it, why not just add the workaround (wsdd) to the installation remove all the old stuff from the docs (its no longer relevant) and move on. Wouldn’t this improve the situation for windows users and possibly increase the patronage.
But then hey what would I know, I’ve only been here 5 nanoseconds :face_with_monocle:
Thanks again

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Am I missing something here? All I have ever done to connect to my Rockstor instance is to map a drive in Windows File Explorer, using the IP address of the NAS, together with the share name. This has always worked as I need, but I’m not a heavy windows user.

Agreed, the windows share discovery in the explorer would be nice, but for a simple fully functional connection to my shares this works fine for me. Network share discovery works fine with my Linux devices.

Each share needs to be mapped individually. However this will work to enable the population of the empty shares with data from the backup (assuming it is a USB drive plugged in to the Windows machine).

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@Mike-B Re:

I know this might be a silly question, but did you try this with your Rockstor’s IP address. I.e. via the:

myip

program executed on the rockstor machine. See the following installer how-to sub-section:

https://rockstor.com/docs/installation/installer-howto.html#login-as-the-root-user

Because as @GeoffA indicates and also from the wsdd upstream GtiHub repo we have:

… using Samba as file sharing service is still possible even if the host running Samba is not listed in the Network Neighborhood. You can still connect using the host name (given that name resolution works) or IP address. So you can have network drives and use shared folders as well.

However for the nice-to-have network appearance via wsdd regarding @Hooverdan’s Rock-on submission,

I’m testing the Rock-on as we speak. And will post progress here shortly hopefully.

Hope that helps and again apologies if I’m pitching way too low here. It’s always difficult to know folks knowledge and not everyone has a base handle on ip stuff, even when setting up a DIY nas. Plus a particular aim in Rockstor, shared by all the main contributors currently, is to have it be an easy on-boarding process. You are currently subject, hopefully willing, to that aim. Hence me having a quick look at @Hooverdan’s Rock-on. It may well be as you say a blocker for many. Plus @Flox is considering again our client docs on an issue that I unfortunately closed by accident and our major work on getting the v4 Stable ready go lost in all the other things going on code and doc wise.

Again you involvement and pointed questions are helping us to prioritise.

Avahi is used by many other systems, pretty much all other systems actually. I.e. TV all other OS’s etc. Microsoft has their own ways of doing things and has a long history of being antogonistic to all but their won systems. We play against this ‘flow’. But times are a-changing.

We don’t only serve microsoft clients OS’s and linux is pretty good at using standards that are across the board, unlike many elements in the history of Windows. And we like to stick to standards.

The wsdd is a hack of sorts, hence the Rock-on approach. It may be we end up implementing it as say a service, we will have to see.

I hope so. Again we aim to be an easy to use and configure NAS. But we are still in the DIY realm where folks strongly expect an ability to customise or go their won way completely.

I’ve only been around for a fraction of the projects like myself. About half of it so far I think.

I’ll get back to looking at that Rock-on as you may be an ideal candidate for it’s field testing.

Given Windows is on around 90% + of client systems, I doubt that. But we collect no metrics so simply can’t say. But we definitely have a mix of Windows, OSX (mac), linux (pretty much all variants I suspect). And all over many years now.

Hope that helps.

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Hi @Mike-B,

As @phillxnet mentioned, we’re currently working on updating that very part of the documentation as it is indeed a very important one.

To clarify things, everybody above is correct, it’s just that Windows has a few ways to achieve this and its own peculiarities at the same time. You can setup a Samba export and access it from your Windows machine in a very simple way without having to install any Rock-on, though. Very briefly:

  1. Set up a share on Rockstor that would be then exported (if you haven’t already created it). The only thing to which you need to pay attention, though, is access control. You indeed need to ensure you have a Rockstor user that has access to this share. For instance, in my test case, I created a share called test_share01, and set up the access control of this share to “owner”: my rockstor user, “group”: users.

  2. Configure your Samba service. Go to “System” > “Services”, and click on the little wrench icon next to the Samba service. For the Workgroup field, make sure to put in the same workgroup as your Windows machine. The default in Windows is WORKGROUP, so unless you changed it, you can simply enter WORKGROUP in this field; the rest is only optional. See screenshot below:
    image

  3. Turn ON the Samba service.

  4. Set up a Samba export for this share. Make sure to set up that Rockstor user used above as “admin user”. See screenshot below, for instance:

    image
    image1007×632 25.9 KB

  5. In your Windows machine, you can then access your samba export. This is where things can be done in a variety of ways. The easiest in my opinion is the following: enter the path to the samba export in Windows Explorer address bar. The convention here is:

\\<rockstor-machine-ip>\<name-of-share>

So in my example, for instance, it would be as follows:

image
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Once you press enter, you should see a Windows dialog window pop up, asking for login and password: simply enter the login and password you set for the Rockstor user that was set as “admin_user” and owner of the share. In my example, the login was radmin and the password was the password for that user.

That should be it.

Note that the wsdd service and Rock-on that @Hooverdan worked on will make it so that your Rockstor machine and samba exports will be visible in the “Network” section of Windows Explorer without you having to manually enter the path of the samba export, but it won’t affect your ability to access these shares, only their initial visibility/discovery by Windows.

Let us know how this goes and then we can adjust things as/if needed.

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Thanks Flox
I have rechecked the share settings as suggested for WORKGROUP and User.
All are correct
Group is: “users”, Admin Users is: “Mike” The Share is: “Photos”
This is the result.

Win11%20Network%20Address
Win11%20Network%20Address1243×504 77 KB

I would be more than happy to test anything that can help.
As far as level of understanding low is good.

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Delete the ‘Network’ bit in the address, it should be just

\\192.168.0.22\Photos

That should work, and will bring up the login credentials dialog for the share.

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Thanks phillxnet
Re the “myip” section, not having used the system shell before, I have just tried and can’t seem to get past the password stage, tried all possibilities to no avail. Hope it isn’t important, if so, I can always reinstall the system and record any that crop up during the process.
I got the ip from the initial install text whilst still on the monitor.
Nice to hear your testing a potential rockon and would like to be involved however it might be more painful for yourselves than me considering my level of understanding all things in the Linux arena.
Point taken re the “avahi” topic.
Just seen your reply GeoffA, went to try it and hey presto before I had chance the Rockstore hostname popped up with the two shares.
Unfortunately the image wont upload.

I hope its still there in the morning :slight_smile:

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Thanks Flox
Shut it down and restarted, yep can still be seen, the next problem is to get around this:

File%20Explorer%20result%202
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You mentioned
Once you press enter, you should see a Windows dialog window pop up, asking for login and password: simply enter the login and password you set for the Rockstor user that was set as “admin_user” and owner of the share. In my example, the login was “ radmin” `` and the password was the password for that user.

I didn’t get that but permission is required and Windows seems to be not allowing me to make changes in permissions for the Network.
Unsure about the next step, the Rockstor Hostname is MjB but Logging in is completed in the name of the user (Mike) and a password, I hadn’t realised that somewhere along the journey I have used two sets of credentials, one for the Hostname another for the user.
If there is no way out, discovering the password or making changes to get around it, a reinstall could be achieved. (Still got the USB)
At least we have moved on, trouble is I really don’t know why or how it was achieved as I haven’t changed anything.