Sharing a external drive over local network in Ubuntu

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Ockie

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Hi guys. I am trying to share the 2TB external drive that is connected to my HP Micro Server so that I can watch movies etc from there on my laptop if I am in bed etc instead of having to copy it to my little portable drive to copy it over to the network.

I get the drive shared, that is no problem, but I cant change the permissions. When I try it just defaults back to "None"

I can do it with normal folders that is on the local drive, but not the external drive itself.

Can you guys help?
 
What filesystem is the 2TB drive using?
What type of share? NFS, SMB?
 
Which permissions are you referring to? The file/folder permissions or the allowed users on the share?

If the disk is NTFS you can't change the permissions.
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
Which permissions are you referring to? The file/folder permissions or the allowed users on the share?

If the disk is NTFS you can't change the permissions.
Click to expand...

Oh no!!! For realzies???? It is NTFS and I dont have enough space to move everything so that I can format the drive into ext3/4 :(
 
Have you tried installing Samba and using that?

Is your server running Ubuntu or your laptop. (My understanding is your server is running Linux)
 
Cameronkk said:
Have you tried installing Samba and using that?

Is your server running Ubuntu or your laptop. (My understanding is your server is running Linux)
Click to expand...

Yip. Everything is running Ubuntu. It asked if it must install Sharing services (samba was part of this I think) when I selected the share option on the drive. But seems I cant change permissions on it cause it is NTFS :(
 
Ockie said:
Oh no!!! For realzies???? It is NTFS and I dont have enough space to move everything so that I can format the drive into ext3/4 :(
Click to expand...

I think you misunderstand what I mean. You cannot change the permissions to be like Linux permissions, as it's not a linux file system.

All you need to do is something like this:

Code: 
sudo mkdir -p /media/external
sudo chmod -R 0777 /media/external
sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdaX /media/external

* replace /dev/sdaX with your partition descriptor.

That's it. The drive is now fully read/writeable. I think Ubuntu comes preinstalled with the ntfs libraries to allow writing, if not you need to install:

Code: 
sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MountingWindowsPartitions

Then you can share it like any other folder.
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
I think you misunderstand what I mean. You cannot change the permissions to be like Linux permissions, as it's not a linux file system.

All you need to do is something like this:

Code: 
sudo mkdir -p /media/external
sudo chmod -R 0777 /media/external
sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdaX /media/external

* replace /dev/sdaX with your partition descriptor.

That's it. The drive is now fully read/writeable. I think Ubuntu comes preinstalled with the ntfs libraries to allow writing, if not you need to install:

Code: 
sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MountingWindowsPartitions

Then you can share it like any other folder.
Click to expand...

Ok....I am going to give this a try just now. Thank you so much. :)

Just need to get something in my belly first .... starving. Will let you know if it works.
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
I think you misunderstand what I mean. You cannot change the permissions to be like Linux permissions, as it's not a linux file system.

All you need to do is something like this:

Code: 
sudo mkdir -p /media/external
sudo chmod -R 0777 /media/external
sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdaX /media/external

* replace /dev/sdaX with your partition descriptor.

That's it. The drive is now fully read/writeable. I think Ubuntu comes preinstalled with the ntfs libraries to allow writing, if not you need to install:

Code: 
sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MountingWindowsPartitions

Then you can share it like any other folder.
Click to expand...

On the last step I get this:

Mount is denied because the NTFS volume is already exclusively opened.
The volume may be already mounted, or another software may use it which
could be identified for example by the help of the 'fuser' command.
Click to expand...

I have unmounted the drive in the "discs" app
 
Ockie said:
On the last step I get this:



I have unmounted the drive in the "discs" app
Click to expand...

Add an entry into your fstab file rather and restart.

See "Configuring /etc/fstab -> Manual Configuration" on the link I posted earlier.
 
Ockie said:
Now it is not working anymore. Must I redo those steps everytime I switch the server on? :(
Click to expand...

No, that's why you put the fstab entry there.

If you disconnected the drive then just try:

Code: 
sudo mount -a

This will try to mount all drives in your fstab file that aren't mounted already.
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
No, that's why you put the fstab entry there.

If you disconnected the drive then just try:

Code: 
sudo mount -a

This will try to mount all drives in your fstab file that aren't mounted already.
Click to expand...

ok....will give that a go. Sorry to be a pain like this. I love linux....but I really am not very technical with it. Browse porn and watch movies is pretty much what I do with it lol
 
Also why I hate linux (although there seems to be so much to love).
 
Ockie said:
Yip. Everything is running Ubuntu. It asked if it must install Sharing services (samba was part of this I think) when I selected the share option on the drive. But seems I cant change permissions on it cause it is NTFS :(
Click to expand...

Install/enable openssh on both machines, set the nas ssh config up for server mode. After that you can accaess the nas via your file manager app and create a shortcut to it. It's really simple and it works well, no need to worry about file systems or any of that stuff. I access my desktops storage like that from my notebook to watch movies/series & a bunch of other stuff, ssh is the dogs bollocks.
 
ponder said:
Install/enable openssh on both machines, set the nas ssh config up for server mode. After that you can accaess the nas via your file manager app and create a shortcut to it. It's really simple and it works well, no need to worry about file systems or any of that stuff. I access my desktops storage like that from my notebook to watch movies/series & a bunch of other stuff, ssh is the dogs bollocks.
Click to expand...

It is cool but it's noticeably slower than smb.
 
ponder said:
Install/enable openssh on both machines, set the nas ssh config up for server mode. After that you can accaess the nas via your file manager app and create a shortcut to it. It's really simple and it works well, no need to worry about file systems or any of that stuff. I access my desktops storage like that from my notebook to watch movies/series & a bunch of other stuff, ssh is the dogs bollocks.
Click to expand...

Oh lord .... sounds complicated. If i pay for your flight and provide a free nights accomodation will you come and do it for me?

:D

Still need to do what the Dr told me to do. Something about adding a line to some script thingy so that it does this mounting business on its own everytime I start up the server.
 
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