A few days ago I connected the Raidsonic Icybox IB-NAS4220-B with my WLAN router and DSL modem Siemens Gigaset SX550 Wlan (which is also working as a DHCP server for my little home network). However, the web interface of my Icybox was not accessible by “http://IB-NAS4220-B“, as mentioned in the manual.
In this case Raidsonic offers a tool on the cd, to find the Icybox NAS, when connected to a network. Unfortunately this tools is for Windows only. I tried to use it via Wine. The application started but did not find anything. So I had to start Windows to find the IP that my DHCP server had assigned to the Icybox. Once I have found this IP address I could access the web interface, which is available in several languages (e.g. English, German).
I would like to find a tool, or a way to allocate the IP of the Icybox 4220 without having to start Windows. I am sure there is an easy way, so I will do some research in the next few days. If someone has a solutions for Ubuntu/Linux, please let me know, preferably in the comments (UPDATE: I found a way to allocate servers, computers and NAS devices in your network under Linux).
My set up of the Icybox is a Raid1. This means that two 500GB hard discs are mirrored: files saved to the Icybox are copied to both hard discs, which protects files during a hard disk crash. However, it can not protect data from human mistakes. 😉 Therefore you will need an additional back up process.
Setting up the raid1 is fairly easy. Go to “Maintenance” -> “RAID Settings” and follow the instructions their. Establishing the raid takes a few minutes. You should not interrupt this process. Well, and that’s it, basically. You should then create a “Share”, where you can save your files.
To connect from my notebook to the Icybox via LAN and WLAN I am using NFS. The process to connect is very straight forward, but as a Linux beginner I had to do some research.
If you just want to use your desktop to access NFS shares (e.g. for accessing the Icybox) you need to install “nfs-common” and “portmap”, if you want to share files or directories on your computer via NFS, then you also need to install “nfs-kernel-server”. Just go to Synaptic an install the packages you need (This paragraph was added thanks to a comment by Simon).
Let’s assume the share is called “xyz”, the IP address of the Icybox is “192.168.2.???” and we call the share “icybox1”. To mount the Icybox on Ubuntu you will have todo the following:
- Open the terminal
- Change to the directory “media”:
cd /media - Make a directory for the share on the icybox:
sudo mkdir icybox1 - Mount the share with the following code:
sudo mount 192.168.2.???:/mnt/md1/icybox1 /media/icybox1
Now you should be available to access your share on the icybox.
However, it is quite annoying, when you have to mount the share each time by hand. So I decided to include the share in the “fstab”, then the Icybox share is available automatically when I am at home and connected to my home network.
For this you will have to add a line to /etc/fstab for each share:
192.168.2.???:/mnt/md1/icybox1 /media/icybox1 nfs rw,rsize=8192,wsize=8192 0 0
That’s it. You will now have to mount your share:
sudo mount -a
Now you should have a folder on your desktop to access your share using NFS.
Thanks for the article it was excellent. I have just purchased a IB-NAS4220-B and I was trying to mount shares with Ubuntu 8.04. However I followed your guide and had the following problems.
I manually tried to mount the shares on my icybox and received the following error message.
“mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on 192.168.X.X:/mnt/md1/icybox, missing codepage or helper program, or other error (for several filesystems (e.g. nfs, cifs) you might need a /sbin/mount. helper program) In some cases useful info is found in syslog – try dmesg | tail or so”
After a little googling I realised I had to add “nfs-common” (which is the NFS client) from the snaptics package manager. This fixed the problem and allowed the shares to mount error free. I thought you might want to update your blog and explain how to correct the error.
Thanks again Simon
Thank you for your comment, Simon. You are totally right, NFS support must be installed and I should have mentioned that in this post.
I will update it as soon as possible. I even had the same problem as you, when I followed my own post (!) to set up my new Ubuntu 8.04 a few weeks ago.
Hi, I realise I’m very late to this party, and I am pretty new with Linux generally. I followed your guide and it workes perfectly after 2 days strugling with the apparently incorrect method int he manual.
One question, the
“That’s it. You will now have to mount your share:
* sudo mount -a”
Bit, what is that bit for? It mounts on restart as expected, with me never entering that command. I appreciate it’s irrelevant really, but I can’t help but wonder. Thanks again.
Hi Alex!
The “mount” part is not really necessary. Once you’ve included the share correctly in the fstab, it will be mounted automatically, whenever you start your computer. However, when you do the whole process and include the share in the fstab, but not restart, the share will not be mounted during this session. That’s what the mounting at this point was for. Not really necessary. You could just restart your computer or maybe there is the possibility to “reload” the fstab. Who knows? 😉
If it works well for you: congratulations!
Hi Holger,
Thanks for replying. I did a little digging and found that as you say, it basicaly executes the fstab to save rebooting, which I had already done. Running in a VM for now so no big deal.
I’m new to Linux having flirted with it in the past, and must say it’s a breath of fresh mainly due to how enthusiastic the community are, and how willing people like you are to help. I’d have given up already otherwise. All I need to do now is get Myth TV working and I can consider dropping Windows.
Many thanks again. 🙂
P.S. If you get a sec, what does the rsize and wsize do?
To be honest: I have no clue! I picked that up from a tutorial or forum where I asked and it seems to be necessary, somehow.
I would have to look that up, too. While I use Ubuntu for quite a while now, I am not that “console savy” yet. 😉
Just did a quick googling (because now I wanted to know what it does too). Maybe this helps:
http://unixfoo.blogspot.com/2008/06/nfs-client-rsize-wsize.html
Everything is very open with a precise description of the issues.
It was definitely informative. Your website is extremely
helpful. Many thanks for sharing!