Using the Linksys NSLU

Using the Linksys Network Storage Link 2 (NSLU) on a mixed Mac-Windows Home Network

By Fred Sandsmark, fred (at) marblepub.com, www.marblepub.com

The Need
Confused Software
The Often-Mentioned Disk Format Issue
Configuring the NSLU
Backing Up

Summary

The Linksys NSLU can be used on a mixed Mac-Windows home network. But there are challenges in configuring and using it. This is what I've learned.

The Need

After experiencing problems with both my Mac (iBook G3, 600 Mhz) and my wife's Windows XP machine (HP Pavilion 752N), I realized in the summer of 2004 that I needed to establish better backup procedures. I saw a 160-GB Maxtor One-Touch on sale at a nearby office supply and scooped it up, thinking I would use it directly attached to the Windows machine.

I got the drive home, set it up, and was happy enough with the solution. But I also noticed a piece of product literature in the Maxtor box: $20 off a Linksys Network Storage Link 2 with the Maxtor purchase. This sounded like a device that would solve a couple of problems for me: it would give me a form of network-attached storage that I could share between the computers on my network. It would also allow me to put that storage in another room in the house, which makes good sense for both disaster-recovery and theft-prevention purposes. (If someone broke into my home office -- known as the Pit of Despair -- and stole all of the computer stuff, a backup of my data would safely reside in another room.) I took the bait, purchasing the NSLU for $80 at Buy.com with free shipping. With the $20 Maxtor rebate, the net cost was $60.

The NSLU arrived a week or so later and I soon attempted to set it up. It was a frustrating experience -- one I hope others can avoid.

Confused Software

Physically, setting up the NSLU was a breeze. Attach the drive to the NSLU (via the USB2 cable that came with the drive), attach the NSLU to the network (via RJ45), and plug in the NSLU (which uses a small power brick). The device is small and silent.

Next I popped the Linksys CD into the Windows machine and attempted to run the configuration software. The software couldn't see the NSLU. Although my home network isn't complicated, I thought the problem might be my old Asante hub, so I simplified the network to where only the PC and the NSLU were attached to my Linksys Router (model BEFSR41 v.2). I even disconnected my Internet service. Still no go.

Fortunately, I found on the Linksys KnowledgeBase that that the NSLU's IP address was 192.168.1.77. On a hunch, I launched Safari on the Mac and pointed my browser to that IP address; voila! I reached virtually the same configuration screen as the Linksys software would have given me on the Windows machine. Neither the NSLU's IP address or the browser workaround are documented in the meager paperwork that comes with the device, which is a terrible shortcoming. Anyway, I was over Hurdle One.

Before I describe the second hurdle, here's why I think the Linksys software didn't work: because I had "Small/Home Office Networking" disabled on the Windows machine. More on this later.

The Often-Mentioned Disk Format Issue

If you've read anything online about the NSLU, you've found people grumbling that the NSLU requires reformatting of the drive before use. This fact is well-documented -- even in the printed documentation.

It wasn't an issue for me, since I had purchased a second Maxtor One-Touch to use with the NSLU, but it's an issue for a lot of other users. (((find links)))

To make it crystal clear: if you have a hard drive you intend to use with the NSLU, know that the NSLU uses a different disk format than most PCs or Macs. Why this is, I don't know; the NSLU runs a version of Linux, but certainly Linux isn't hamstrung by this disk format. Anyayw, if the disk you want to use with the NSLU is formatted in any other way than that the NSLU likes, you will need to reinitialize it (and lose all of your data) before you can use it. With name-brand disk drives routinely selling for less than a dollar a gigabyte, I don't think this is the end of the world.

Configuring the NSLU

After finding the NSLU on my network at the IP address of 192.168.1.77, and connecting to it via a browser (Safari on Mac OS X, in my case), I configured the device. I left the assigned server name, but changed the Comment field to reflect the unit's location. I also changed the Workgroup name (though I'm not sure what this does).

I clicked the Administration tab, then clicked Disk. Here I saw the drive and formatted it.

I downloaded new firmware from the Linksys website and upgraded the NSLU's firmware to 2.3R25. If I were planning to hack this device, there are reasons not to do this (((link))), but that wasn't my plan. Note that I was able to upgrade the firmware from the Mac, using Safari. Tip of the compatibility hat to Linksys.

I changed the admin password -- always something you should do promptly when putting in new network equipment (((link))) -- and created two users, one for the Windows machine and one for the Mac. (I later rethought this choice.) I also turned off guest logins.

I logged into the NSLU via the Mac. In the finder, I hit (((Apple)))K, connect to server, and typed smb://192.168.1.77. A login window appeared, I entered my newly created user name and password, and the NSLU's disk appeared on my desktop. It worked!

I added the NSLU to my Favorite Servers, by clicking the plus sign next to the server's address.

Sidenote: Strangely, I cannot save my username or password for this device onto the Mac Keychain. Every time I connect to the NSLU, it gives me the same login window, and fills in the User Name with my Mac's user name. Not a big deal, but annoying.

Then I tried to attach to the NSLU from the Windows XP machine. I tried many different techniques and paths, but nothing worked. I eventually turned on Windows "Small/Home Office Networking" and ran the Wizard. I gave the machine the same Workgroup name as the NSLU. That made it work. Hurdle Two, crossed.

Sidenote: I suspect that having Small/Home Office Networking turned off explains why the Linksys configuration software wouldn't work, but I can't be sure. Other network services (Internet access with an IP address assigned by DHCP, a networked printer using an HP Jetdirect EX Plus Print Server, the Keyspan USB Server) worked fine with it turned off. It doesn't thrill me to have Small/Home Office Networking turned on -- I wonder if it exposes ports on the Windows machine.

Backing Up

The last hurdle to jump was backing up to the NSLU. This proved much more troublesome than I had expected.

My initial instinct was to mount the NSLU on the Mac desktop and run a backup program on the computer that would write directly to the NSLU. I tried this first on the Mac, using Qdea. My friend Kirk van Druten recommended Qdea because you can make a bootable disk with it. Although that wasn't needed in this case, Qdea is easy to use and seemed like a good choice. (Kirk now recommends Super Duper.)

But I ran into problems almost immediately. First, the NSLU wouldn't accept some of my Mac filenames and pathnames. Specifically, it didn't like files or paths with asterisks or forward slashes in them. That's because the NSLU runs Samba, file-server software made for Windows machines.

Well, I use asterisks in front of filenames all the time, to float important files to the top of alphabetical lists. (There's an old-school Mac trick for you.) And Mail.app, the Mac OS X email program, creates directories in the Library that have slashes (for example, Users:fredsand:Library:Mail:POP/fsandsmark@mail.earthlink.net, for example). Photoshop on the Mac creates at least one path with a slash (Import/Export).

Because it was unacceptable to have the backup skip these files, I tried a sneaky workaround: creating a Mac OS Disk Image on the NSLU disk using Disk Tools, and then writing to the Image. It worked, but was unreliable. I suspect that the layer of overhead that the Disk Image added was the problem, but I'm not sure.

A copy of Dantz Retrospect Express had come with the Maxtor drive, so I tried running it on the Mac and writing directly to the NSLU. I knew and liked Retrospect when I used it at a previous job. I also knew that its backup archives were compressed, so the actual Mac filenames weren't used on the disk. It set up just fine, and seemed to work. But over the next few days, I found that about two-thirds of the time it would fail, giving communication errors. Worse, because Retrospect's first step when doing an incremental backup is to open the old archive, when the communication errors happened and the backup aborted, I wound up with no backup at all. A good rule of thumb: an unreliable backup setup is worse than none, because it gives you a false sense of security.

The compromise I came up with was to back up to a local external hard disk using Retrospect; then, using the Finder, copy the Retrospect catalog and archive to the NSLU. It's a manual process, but it provides an extra layer of redundancy. (Is that tri-dundancy?) Even this fails about 10 percent of the time, with the same sort of communication errors; I find if I restart the computer (so no other applications are running) and connect to the NSLU afresh, it seems to behave better.

This copying is a manual operation, though I'd like to write a script for it eventually so it can happen at night when I'm not using the machine. It takes 45 minutes or so.

I do the same thing on the Windows machine: back up to a local disk, then copy the Retrospect archives to the NSLU. The difference here is that the Retrospect archives on Windows are broken into many little pieces, so you only have to copy the changed or new ones to the NSLU. Much faster.

Addenda: For the record, the Mac, the Windows machine, and the NSLU are all plugged directly into my router. There are no hubs or switches in between. It should be running at 100 mbps (the computers router, cabling, and NSLU all support 100 mbps) but I don't have the tools to confirm this. There are a number of RJ45 connectors between the router and the NSLU, but the wiring was done well (by me) and doesn't give problems in other applications. I think communication errors continue because the NSLU is just a bit fussy.

I hope you find this document helpful. Also, I'm very eager to hear from other NSLU users who've worked through some of the issues mentioned here. Please contact me.

Return to Marblepub.com Home Technology