Use MS Exporer to browse OSD / Even Map a Windows Drive to OSD

[wkrik]

I will post the instructions later, I was just too excited this morning to see that this worked. For the tech savvy you'll know what I'm talking about:

The OSD from the on screen menu can attach itself to a Windows network share. Oh sure if you want to go the other way you can telnet, ftp with ?bftpd?, or use ssh with ?dropbear?.  But if your on a windows based computer you cannot browse the OSD with windows explorer or map the OSD to a windows drive, or can you?

Ready for some fun! Here is what we can do. We can run bftpd or dropbear on your OSD, then use FUSE (with curlFTP or SSHFS) on a linux computer to remotely mount it to the OSD. Now here is the part a lot of us may not have known could be done. On the linux computer run Samba and point it to the FUSE mount point. Yes, it works! Now all you have to do is browse or map to the Linux computer from windows. The power of Linux. It is simply playing the middle man and passing you through to the OSD.

[greyback]

There is a samba server for the OSD. Install it using Lpkg. It's not fast, but it works.

Guides would be very welcome
-G

[wkrik]

That's cool and yet a bummer  :'( at the same time. I didn't know it was available. Oh well it was fun finding out that it worked.

Anyways for those that want to do it the long way instead of just installing samba on the OSD here are the instructions:

This was written with Ubuntu in mind:

1) Decide if you want to use ftp or ssh to connect to the OSD. You will then need to install
the software on the OSD.
  * For FTP, see the following article: http://forums.neurostechnology.com/index.php?topic=8877.0
  * For ssh, see the following article: http://forums.neurostechnology.com/index.php?topic=9251.0

Once you can ssh or ftp to your OSD, it's time to set up the Linux computer that
will act as the middle-man:

2) Install a FUSE based filesystem (FTP or ssh):
   (FUSE is already in the Linux 2.6+ kernels)

     a) If you installed bftpd on your OSD, install CurlFtpFS on your linux computer:
          # apt-get install curlftpfs
     b) If you installed dropbear on your OSD, install SSHFS on your linux computer:
          # apt-get install sshfs

3) Make the mount point to the OSD:
     # mkdir /osd
     # chown 777 /osd

4) Create and set a password for a user that will connect (osduser):
     # adduser osduser fuse
     # passwd osduser

5) Allow fuse to let anyone mount. Edit /etc/fuse.conf and add the line:
     user_allow_other

6) Reboot the linux computer
     # reboot

7) Mount the filesystem.

     a) If using CurlFtpFS:
          # curlftpfs root@192.168.1.100:/ /osd
     b) If using SSHFS:
          # sshfs root@192.168.1.100:/ /osd -o allow_other

8 ) Install and configure Samba on the Linux computer.
     # apt-get install samba smbfs

Add the following to the /etc/samba/smb.conf file:

[osd]
comment = osd
path = /osd
public = yes
writable = yes
create mask = 0777
directory  mask = 0777
force user = nobody
force group = nogroup

9) Match the samba password for the user you created earlier:
     # smbpasswd osduser

10) I like to restart samba:
      # /etc/init.d/samba restart

11) Connect to the linux computer from the windows computer
     Start | Run | \\192.168.1.100

12) Enter your "osduser" and password. You should see the network share "osd" and your in.

13) Once your connected, in MS Explorer you can go to "Tools / Map Network Drive" and set
a drive letter.

Note: I've seen various permission issues in the past where I've had to do some of the following:
* chmod 666 /dev/fuse
* double check the /etc/samba/smb.conf for anything entered incorrectly.
* make sure you have the user_allow_other in /etc/fuse.conf