simplenet users guide v2.0

SimpleNET User’s Guide – Version 2.0 of 28

A Quick Start For The Impatient........................................................................................................................... 2 Supported USB Disk Formats ............................................................................................................................... 3 Performance Tips.................................................................................................................................................. 3 Useful Things To Know About SimpleNET.......................................................................................................... 3

No Network Presence Without Drives Plugged In............................................................................................. 3 Unique Device Names for Multiple SimpleNETs.............................................................................................. 4 Long Scans for Music Files............................................................................................................................... 4

Connecting Your Browser to the Admin Interface – First Contact......................................................................... 4 Macintosh: Connecting to SimpleNET Admin Interface with the Safari Web Browser...................................... 4 Windows: Connecting to SimpleNET Admin Interface with Internet Explorer .................................................. 5 All Operating Systems: Connecting to the SimpleNET Admin Interface Using the IP Address.......................... 5 Logging Into the SimpleNET Admin Interface.................................................................................................. 5 Connecting to The Admin Interface After Changing the Device Name.............................................................. 6

SimpleNET and Windows XP............................................................................................................................... 6 Setting the Workgroup...................................................................................................................................... 6 Locating SimpleNET in “My Network Places” ................................................................................................. 7

The Device Display .............................................................................................................................................. 8 The Status Display................................................................................................................................................ 9 The Setup Display .............................................................................................................................................. 11

System Settings Tab........................................................................................................................................ 11 SSH Service.................................................................................................................................................... 13 Firmware Upgrade .......................................................................................................................................... 14 Device Reboot ................................................................................................................................................ 15 Network Settings Tab ..................................................................................................................................... 16 Time/Date Settings Tab .................................................................................................................................. 17 Adjusting for Daylight Savings Time.............................................................................................................. 18

The Users Display .............................................................................................................................................. 19 Factory Reset and the Default Display ................................................................................................................ 21 Share Folder Display .......................................................................................................................................... 23 FTP Service Display ........................................................................................................................................... 25 Media Server Display ......................................................................................................................................... 27 Troubleshooting.................................................................................................................................................. 28


A Quick Start For The Impatient In its default configuration SimpleNET will allow you to put your USB drives on your network with a minimum of hassle.

1. Connect a USB drive to one of the USB ports on SimpleNET. 2. Connect SimpleNET to your router or switch with an Ethernet cable (not included). 3. Connect and plug in the SimpleNET power cable. 4. Wait about 90 seconds.

That's it, your drive should now be visible on your network. Here's how to find it. Windows Vista: Double click on the Network icon. You may need to right click your mouse in the Network window and choose "Refresh" from the pop-up menu. Windows XP: Automatic discovery of devices on Windows XP is not as sophisticated as on more recent operating systems. You will need to do some manual setup to see SimpleNET on your computer. See the section “SimpleNET and Windows XP” in the User’s Guide for detailed instructions. You will need to make sure that the SimpleNET Windows group name is the same as your computer’s group name. Once your group name is set correctly, you can find SimpleNET under your “My Network Places” icon. Mac OS X 10.5: Open a Finder window. Look for SimpleNET to show up under the "SHARED" section in the left hand pane. You may need to open Finder preferences and make the “SHARED” section visible in your Finder window. Mac OS X 10.4: Open Finder and click on Network, wait for network folders to show up and then open the folder marked “WORKGROUP”. A network share connection dialog will pop up allowing you to connect to SimpleNET. Ubuntu Linux 8.04 or Later: From the Places menu choose Network, then choose Windows Network, and finally WORKGROUP. SimpleNET should show up as a browsable folder. You’ll have a much better experience if you glance through the SimpleNET User’s Guide for performance tips and other advice. Trust us, there really is useful information here.


Supported USB Disk Formats SimpleNET supports USB disks formatted with the following formats:

• FAT32 • NTFS • Mac OS Extended • Mac OS Extended Journaled (the default Mac format) • Mac OS Extended Case Sensitive • Mac OS Extended Case Sensitive Journaled • ext3

SimpleNET provides read/write access to all of the above formats with the exception of the Mac OS Extended Case Sensitive Journaled files system, which is read only.

Performance Tips We've packed a lot of neat functionality into a small, affordable package with SimpleNET, but we freely admit it's not designed to be a speed demon. Here are some things you can do to maximize the performance of your device. For best disk read/write performance use either FAT32 or HFS+ formatted disks. Limit the number of simultaneous movie or music streams being served by SimpleNET. Scanning your USB drives for music will slow down SimpleNET. You'll get better performance when music scanning is turned off or after a scan is finished. See the "Media Server" section for details on controlling music scanning on SimpleNET. Too much network traffic or wireless network interference can slow down file transfers and media streaming in general, especially on older 10/100 Fast Ethernet or 802.11g wireless networks. For best results use a wired GigE network or a modern 802.11n wireless network to connect to SimpleNET.

Useful Things To Know About SimpleNET

No Network Presence Without Drives Plugged In If no USB drives are plugged into SimpleNET, the device will not show up as browsable on the network. However, you can still go to the Admin user interface and configure it.


Unique Device Names for Multiple SimpleNETs If you want to have more then one SimpleNET device on the network at the same time make sure that they all have unique names. If two SimpleNET devices with the same name are on the network at the same time you will get confusing results when trying to access files on the attached USB drives. Attach your devices to the network one at a time and give them unique names before you attach all of them at the same time.

Long Scans for Music Files A large drive with many music files will take a long time to scan and build up a database of all the music metadata. When you unplug the drive after it has been scanned the music database will be lost. You will have to rescan the drive again the next time you plug it in. Therefore, to avoid repeated long music scans avoid repeatedly plugging in and unplugging drives with many music files.

Connecting Your Browser to the Admin Interface – First Contact By default SimpleNET puts your USB drives on the network with a minimum of hassle. However you can configure more complex aspects of the device through a simple, browser-based Admin user interface. SimpleNET supports Apple's Bonjour technology, which allows you to always find the Admin web page without knowing either the device name or the device IP address. This section shows you how to connect to SimpleNET on both the Mac and on Windows.

Macintosh: Connecting to SimpleNET Admin Interface with the Safari Web Browser On the Mac simply start up the Safari browser. If the bookmarks bar is not visible go to the “View->Show Bookmarks Bar” menu to display it. Locate the "Bonjour" entry and click on it. You should now see entries for all the SimpleNET devices on your network. Click on one of them and you will be taken to the device Admin web page, which can also be found at the following URL – note the trailing dot after “local”: http://simplenet.local./


Windows: Connecting to SimpleNET Admin Interface with Internet Explorer In order to easily connect to the SimpleNET Admin interface on Windows Vista and Windows XP, you first need to install the free Bonjour plugin. The Bonjour installer is included on the CD-ROM which came with your SimpleNET. It can also be downloaded from this URL: http://developer.apple.com/networking/bonjour/download/ Choose Bonjour for Windows 32 or 64-bit according to which version of the operating system you are running. After Bonjour is installed you can open up Windows Explorer and access the Bonjour menu by clicking on the Bonjour icon in the upper right – you might need to click the little arrows next to the “Tools” menu item. If you cannot find the Bonjour icon or link, click on the browser View menu and select Explorer Bar->Bonjour from the drop down choices. You should now see entries for all the SimpleNET devices on your network in the left hand pane. Click on one of them to be taken to the device Admin web page. After installing Bonjour you can also go directly to your new SimpleNET device by visiting this URL – note the trailing dot after “local”: http://simplenet.local./

All Operating Systems: Connecting to the SimpleNET Admin Interface Using the IP Address A foolproof way to connect to the SimpleNET admin interface is to check your router and determine the IP address assigned to SimpleNET. Consult your router documentation for how to do this. Once you know the IP address you can use your web browser to visit the IP address URL. For example, if your SimpleNET assigned IP Address is 192.168.1.2 you would go to this URL: http://192.168.1.2/

Logging Into the SimpleNET Admin Interface When you visit the SimpleNET Admin interface you will be presented with a browser login dialog. Log in with the following credentials: Userid: admin Password: admin


The main device display will appear showing you the device IP address and information about the drives connected to SimpleNET.

Connecting to the Admin Interface After Changing the Device Name At some point you may wish to change the device name of your SimpleNET, for example if you want to put more then one of them on your network. On the Mac, or on a Windows computer with Bonjour installed, you can always connect to a specific device by using the device name in the URL. The admin user interface URL format is simply this; http://devicename.local./ where "devicename" is the device name you assigned in lower case letters. Don't forget the trailing dot after "local." - that's not a typo! The device name can be up to 20 characters in length and should not include spaces. The only allowed characters are letters (a-z) and numbers (0-9). The device name is case insensitive. For example, if you called your SimpleNET device "simplebob" you would connect to its admin user interface with the URL: http://simplebob.local./

SimpleNET and Windows XP SimpleNET is designed to work seamlessly with recent operating systems like Windows Vista and Mac OS X 10.5. You can easily configure your SimpleNET to work with Windows XP, although this does require some manual steps explained in this section.

Setting the Workgroup Windows uses workgroups to configure shared network devices such as file servers. The default workgroup name for Windows Vista and Windows XP Professional is “WORKGROUP”, the name configured by default on your SimpleNET. On the other hand, Windows XP Home edition is typically configured with the workgroup name of “MSHOME”. If you are running Windows XP Home edition, or if your default workgroup name is set to something other then “WORKGROUP” you will need to configure SimpleNET to use the correct workgroup.


Find Out Your Windows Workgroup Name

1. Right Click on the “My Computer” icon 2. Click on the “Computer Name” tab 3. Click the “Change” button at the bottom near “To rename this computer or join a domain, click Change”. 4. At the bottom you will see the current workgroup name, typically “MSHOME” or “WORKGROUP”

Configure SimpleNET to Use Your Workgroup Name

1. Access the SimpleNET Admin user interface. See the section “Connecting Your Browser to the Admin Interface – First Contact” for instructions.

2. Click on the “Setup” menu on the left hand pane. 3. Change the Group Name to the same value as your Windows workgroup name. 4. Click the “Apply” button and wait for SimpleNET to accept the change.

Locating SimpleNET in “My Network Places” After you’ve configured your workgroup correctly you can now locate SimpleNET under your “My Network Places” icon. You may need to make the “My Network Places” icon visible on your desktop. Right click on your desktop, choose Properties. Select the Desktop tab, and click on “Customize Desktop” button on the bottom. Select the “My Network Places” checkbox and click OK. To make SimpleNET visible click on the “My Network Places” icon, then click on “View workgroup computers” in the left hand pane.


The Device Display After you log into the Admin user interface you will see a display of the USB drives which are plugged into SimpleNET.

This display will show you the name of the disks, their size and amount of space used, and the format of the disk file system. Whenever you plug in a new disk, wait for about 10 seconds then press the "Refresh" button to update the display. You can always return to the Device display by clicking on the "Devices" menu item on the left or on the SimpleNET logo in the Admin user interface.


The Status Display The Status display shows an overview of SimpleNET and the services it provides.

The display is divided into three sections:


System Information tells you the device name, the Windows networking Group Name, the date and time on the device, and the version of the current firmware. Network Information gives you the IP address SimpleNET is using, as well as the devices MAC Ethernet address. This information is useful for locating the device on the network and for debugging network connectivity problems (see the Troubleshooting section below). Service Information allows you to tell at a glance which services are on or off.


The Setup Display The Setup display allows you to control the basic settings for SimpleNET. The display has three tabs: one for controlling general System settings and functions, one for networking settings, and one for time and date settings.

System Settings Tab


The Device Name Using this field you can assign a unique name to your SimpleNET device. By default the device is called "SimpleNET", though in various networking contexts (e.g. in the admin interface URL) this may be shown in a case insensitive manner as "simplenet". The name chosen here will be displayed in file browsers (Windows Networking displays, the Mac Finder) as the location of your attached USB drives. It will also show up in iTunes as the name of your music server. The device name can be up to 20 characters in length and should not include spaces. The only allowed characters are letters (a-z), numbers (0-9), hyphens (-) and underscores (_). The device name is case insensitive. To change the device name enter the new name in the form field and click the "Apply" button. After a few seconds the device name will change. You can then connect back to the SimpleNET Admin web pages using its new name. See the section "Connecting to The Admin Interface After Changing the Device Name" above. Multiple Devices on the Network Must Have Unique Names The Device Name is particularly important if you plan on having multiple devices connected to your network at the same time. Two devices with the same name on a network will result in inconsistent access to your USB drives and other networking problems. So if you plan on connecting more then one SimpleNET to your network use the following procedure to avoid naming collisions.

1. Unplug all SimpleNET devices from your network 2. Attach one device to your network and log into the Admin page at the default URL:

http://simplenet.local./ 3. Go to the Status screen and change the device to another name and hit apply. For example change the

name to "SimpleNET1". 4. Hit the Apply button next to the Device Name field. 5. The device name is now changed and if you wish you can connect to its Admin page using the new URL.

For example, http://simplenet1.local./ 6. Attach the second SimpleNET to your network 7. The second SimpleNET' Admin page is now accessible by its default network name at

http://simplenet.local./ 8. If you wish you can rename the second device by going to the Status screen and changing its name there. 9. Repeat steps 6 through 8 for each SimpleNET you wish to add to your network.

Group Name File sharing under Windows uses what is called a "Group Name" to distinguish between different collections of file shares.


On Windows Vista and Windows XP Professional the default Group Name is "WORKGROUP". In most cases it is fine to leave this set to the default value, ensuring that your SimpleNET device will be visible on your network. If your network uses a different Group Name you may need to change this value. For example, the default group name on Windows XP Home is "MSHOME".

SSH Service WARNING: SSH access to SimpleNET command line is designed for expert Linux users only. Before turning SSH on you should thoroughly understand how to work with SSH and with embedded Linux systems. Hitachi does not provide any support for devices modified using SSH. The instructions below assume you are familiar with how SSH works. These SSH Service radio buttons on the Setup display allow you to enable and disable SSH access to the command line of your device. Your SimpleNET device runs a slimmed down version of Linux under the hood. SSH access to the command line allows you to radically customize its behavior. Instructions for how to do this are not within the scope of this document – search the Internet for how to work with embedded Linux devices. WARNING: Enabling SSH access on SimpleNET and altering the software running on SimpleNET can result in a non-functional device which may not be recoverable. Do NOT try to do this unless you really know what you are doing or you may brick your device. Really. We mean it. SSH Keys SimpleNET ships with SSH service disabled. The first time you enable SSH the device will generate a cryptographic key. This may take a large number of seconds during which you will not be able to log into the device. The SSH keys will be regenerated whenever the device is reset to factory defaults. Enabling SSH Service To enable the SSH service and set the login account password follow this procedure: 1. Go to the Setup screen and next to SSH Service click the "Enable" radio button. 2. If this is the first time you enable SSH after a reboot wait for the SSH key to be generated. 3. Once the key is generated you may log into the device using SSH with the following userid/password: Userid: sshadmin Password: simplenet


For example, from a Linux or Mac system you would type the following command in a terminal to log into SimpleNET (assuming your SimpleNET has IP address 192.168.1.2): ssh [email protected] Windows users will need an SSH client program, for example something like the open source PuTTY SSH client. Changing the Default SSH Password IMPORTANT: Make sure to change the default password after enabling SSH on SimpleNET. If you don't then anybody can have access to the contents of your USB drives and the operating system of your SimpleNET device. To change the default password SSH into your SimpleNET device as user sshadmin, type the following command: #: passwd You will be prompted to change your default password for the sshadmin user. Resetting the Default SSH Password If you forget your SSH "sshadmin" user password you will have to reset SimpleNETto factory defaults and lose any changes you made to the device software on the command line.

Firmware Upgrade On the Setup screen you can upgrade the firmware for your device. The latest firmware can be found on the device support web page here: http://www.simpletech.com/products/storage/simplenet To update your firmware follow these steps:

1. IMPORTANT: Do not turn off the power to the device while an upgrade is in progress. Doing so may result in a non-functional and non-recoverable device, and will void the warranty.

2. Download the firmware update file from the support web page

http://www.simpletech.com/products/storage/simplenet 3. Copy the firmware update file to a USB drive

4. Plug the USB drive into your SimpleNET device 5. Go to the Setup screen and click the "Upgrade" button


6. A listing of files on your USB disk will appear. Navigate to the folder where your upgrade file is and click

once on the name of the upgrade file. 7. The upgrade will commence and progress will be displayed on the Admin web page. The device will finish

the upgrade and reboot. 8. Log into the Admin user interface for the device and check the updated Firmware Version on the Status

display.

Device Reboot On the Setup screen you can reboot the device by clicking the "Reboot" button. The device LED will blink while the reboot is in progress and will glow a steady blue when the reboot is finished. You can also reboot the device by removing and re-inserting the power plug.


Network Settings Tab The Network Settings tab allows you to change the way your SimpleNET obtains its IP address. By default, and for out of the box configuration, SimpleNET obtains its IP address automatically from your network’s DHCP server. NOTE: Do not change the network settings unless you know what you are doing. If you do change these settings you may not be able to re-connect to the device without doing a factory reset.


If you wish to assign a static IP address to your device click the "Static IP" radio button and fill in the form to assign an IP address, net mask, gateway IP address and DNS servers to the device. You can also assign a specific MAC Ethernet address to the device. Again, don’t change this setting unless you understand how MAC addresses are used on your network.

Time/Date Settings Tab This screen lets you control how SimpleNET obtains its time and date. By default SimpleNET obtains the date and time from time servers on the Internet.

On this screen you can manually set the time and date. To set the date click on the calendar icon next to the Date display. To manually set the time select the hour and minute next to the Time label. You can also select which time server SimpleNET uses to synchronize its time with. In general it's a good idea to choose one of the pool.ntp.com servers which is allocated to your continent.


You can also select the correct time zone for your device. After you've made your changes you can simply "Apply" them. You can also check connectivity to the NTP server you chose by clicking the "Check NTP" button.

Adjusting for Daylight Savings Time If the NTP server you choose does not correctly set SimpleNET to US Daylight Savings time you will need to set the device time manually. Select the hour and minute next to the Time Label on the Time/Date Settings tab and click “Apply”


The Users Display This display allows you to create user accounts which can be used to limit access to your SimpleNET device.

Click on "New" to create a new user and assign a User Name and Password.


After you've created a user you can edit their password by clicking on the user name. You can change the level of access for the user by checking the appropriate radio buttons. To allow users to log in and access your disks and FTP server click the "allow" button under the "Allow Login Access" column. To allow users to write to the USB disks click the "allow" radio button under the "Allow Disk Write Access" column. Click the "Delete" button next to the user name to remove the user.


Factory Reset and the Default Display You can return SimpleNET to factory defaults in one of two ways. On the Default screen simply click the "Reset to Defaults" button.

You can also reset the device to factory default settings by pushing the recessed button on the side near the power connector. Press and hold the button for 5 seconds to reset SimpleNET. A paper clip inserted into the small opening works well. Note: Resetting SimpleNET to factory defaults will delete any user accounts you may have created.


Support The support screen has a link to the SimpleNET support web page where you can find more information about support, firmware updates, open source software, and information about modding your device from the SSH command line.


Share Folder Display This display allows you to control the file sharing function of SimpleNET.

File Sharing On/Off Click the "Disable" button next to the "Samba Service" label to turn file sharing off entirely. When you do this you will not be able to connect to SimpleNET using your file browser. File Sharing Security Options There are two types of file sharing access which SimpleNET supports. In Guest Mode anybody on your network can access any USB drive connected to your device without a password.


In User Mode only users with accounts on SimpleNET can access your USB drives, and only with the correct password. In addition users only have the type of access which you granted to them when you created the user account on the Users screen. By default SimpleNET ships with Guest Mode enabled. You can switch to "User mode" by clicking on the corresponding radio button on the Share Folder display.


FTP Service Display This section assumes you know how FTP access works. SimpleNET has an embedded FTP server which allows you to access files on your USB drives remotely using the FTP protocol. On this display you can control your FTP server. You can enable and disable the FTP server by clicking the appropriate radio button next to the FTP Status label.

Assigning FTP Port Numbers You can assign a port number to your FTP server by selecting the FTP Port. The port must be an integer with a value of 21 (the default) or between 50000 and 60000. You will be able to access the FTP server on your local network on


this port. If you wish to access your FTP server from the Internet you will have to configure your router to forward traffic on this port to your SimpleNET device. Consult your router manual for how to do this. Controlling FTP Anonymous Access Anonymous access to your FTP server can be controlled using the "Anonymous Configuration" section. You can enable and disable anonymous access and you can control whether anonymous users have read only or read/write access to your files. In order to access files through non-anonymous FTP you must create a user account on the Users display. Additionally, the "admin" user can always log in through FTP using the Admin password you set on the Setup display - the same password you use to log into the Admin user interface.


Media Server Display You can use the Media Server display to configure your iTunes music server. The display shows the status of your music server and allows you to choose the folder where your music is located.

To stream music from your SimpleNET start by inserting a USB drive with music into the device. Now go to the Media Server display and you will see your drive listed under iTunes Setup. You can use this section to select where SimpleNET will look for music. You can select the entire drive by clicking on the checkbox next to the drive name. Alternatively you can browse the folders on the drive by clicking on the drive name. A list of the folders on the drive will be displayed and you can select one of them by clicking on the checkbox next to the folder name. SimpleNET will now begin scanning your drive for music.


NOTE: If your music folder contains many files the scan may take a long time. SimpleNET will not show up in iTunes as a music server until the scan is complete. You can always stop a scan by hitting the “Stop Scan” button. While the music scan is running SimpleNET may be a bit slow so avoid transferring large files through SimpleNET while a music scan is in progress. When the music scan is finished you can open iTunes and find SimpleNET listed in the “SHARED” section of the left sidebar.

Troubleshooting We've tried hard to make SimpleNET simple to use, but sometimes things go wrong. Auto-discovery and network connections can be tricky to work with, particularly on older operating systems like Windows XP and Mac OS X 10.4 and earlier. Here are some things you can do when things go wrong.

1. If you have trouble locating your device on the network try rebooting your SimpleNET device.

2. Make sure that your SimpleNET’s work group name matches that of your other devices.

3. Operating systems tend to cache network settings so often restarting the file browser (Internet Explorer or Mac Finder), or refreshing the current file view can help SimpleNET show up on the network.

4. If you have problems seeing updates in the Admin interface try clearing your browser cache. Refer to your

browser documentation for how to do this.

5. As a last resort you can also try rebooting your computer to clear its networking settings.

6. Factory Reset of your SimpleNET device can frequently be useful, for example if you forget your admin passwords or you rename your SimpleNET device and can no longer connect to it.

7. If you have multiple SimpleNET devices on your network ensure that no two of them have the same name.

8. Only formatted drives can be detected by SimpleNET. Make sure that any drive you plug into the device is

already formatted in one of the supported formats.

9. Last but not least, there's the classic piece of networking advice: check your cables. Make sure your power, Ethernet and USB connections to and from SimpleNET are good.

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