Storage and appsEvery page

NAS

The NAS module shows the disks plugged into the machine and shares folders on them with your computers. It is off until you switch it on on the Modules page.

The page says how the disks are and who is using the shares — "Both disks are well, 1.2T free. anna and ben are using the shares." — then Shares, the disks the panel uses, and what is plugged in and not used.

Shares

A share is a folder on a disk, shared with the panel's accounts, each Read or Read and write. Nobody else, and no guest. People sign in with their panel name and password.

Each share's row says who is using it now, from which machine. How to open them says what to type on Windows, a Mac and Linux:

  • Windows: in the Explorer's address bar, \\panel.
  • Mac: in the Finder, Go, Connect to Server, smb://panel.
  • Linux: in Files, Other Locations, Connect to Server (or Dolphin's address bar), smb://panel.

The page uses the machine's own name in place of panel, with its address at home beside it, and a press copies it. Windows also finds the shares under Network, and a Mac in the Finder's sidebar.

The shares are reached at home. From anywhere else, connect with the VPN first: the relay carries the panel's pages, not the shares, so a share's address by the panel's name from outside is refused.

A disabled, deleted or re-passworded account loses what it has open. A share on an exFAT or NTFS disk is read only. Shares have no second factor: the password alone opens one.

Accounts for shares only

For a TV, a scanner or a guest: they open the shares they are given with a name and password of their own, and cannot sign in to the panel. They are made on the Accounts page, and belong to this machine only.

The disks

A disk's row opens a drawer with how full it is, its mirror, its monthly check, and Eject. The disk the system runs from is shown and never offered: its drawer shows its partitions and where they are mounted, with nothing to press.

  • Use as it is: a disk with btrfs, ext4, exFAT or NTFS on it is used with its files, at /srv/<name>. exFAT and NTFS can be read by apps, not written.
  • Format erases the whole disk once you type its device name (sdb), and makes it btrfs, compressed.
  • Eject before you unplug it. Not while an app keeps a folder or its data on it, or a folder on it is shared: the drawer lists what to do first.

A disk the panel uses is mounted again when it is plugged back in, and a missing one does not hold up the machine starting.

Mirrors

A btrfs disk becomes a mirror with a second disk, which is erased; the first keeps its files. The copy runs in the background, and the drawer follows it. The second disk may be smaller, if the data fits.

With a disk missing for three minutes, the panel goes on from the disk left, and says so here and on Home. It then offers to put another disk in its place, or to go on with one. It remembers which disk it went on with, and will not start from the other alone afterwards — the two would each go their own way — unless you say so.

The missing disk plugged in again is taken back at the next start. A mirror can also be stopped: back to one disk, the other emptied.

The monthly check

Every btrfs disk is checked on the first Sunday of the month, at night, at low priority — every file read back and compared with its checksum, and, on a mirror, repaired from the other half. The result is on the disk's drawer, and on Home when damage could not be repaired.