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[Her_Kitty_Daddy]

But there is still the same bug with the fan spin up

Yeah, I won't be loading random firmware on my system thanks.

However, you say that there's a bug with the fan spin up, can you point me/us to the topic about this? My unit is in the basement and I'm unaware of this issue and I'd like to make sure it isn't affecting me.

Thanks.

[Her_Kitty_Daddy]

Just as a stream of consciousness, I thought I'd mention here, for anyone who may be interested, that I'm having some very minor quirkiness (yes, that's the technical term ) with my DNS-325 and I'm planning on doing a backup to an external USB drive afterwhich I'll be spending some time experimenting with the system.

I have plenty of drives at my disposal but only one 325 to muck about in.

I'm going to try some things such as individual versions of firmware and see how some of the add-ons behave before upgrading to the next to see what happens. Sort of "try to break it" type testing (hopefully without catastrophic results of course.)

I'll try to post a summary here when I'm done.

[Andymaniac]

Guys, you don't have to load any firmware if you aware of it. But you can let the choice to the others. The source was from the official ftp site and has the label for all devices and english language. Yes, it wasn't american site, but europe ... 

[JavaLawyer]

Guys, you don't have to load any firmware if you aware of it. But you can let the choice to the others. The source was from the official ftp site and has the label for all devices and english language. Yes, it wasn't american site, but europe ...  

Again, thank you for your contribution. There are many members on this site that don't have a strong technical background or who may lack an understanding of regional associations, which may result in accidental uploading of firmware from the wrong region.  As a matter of policy, we must be mindful of the needs of the entire forum community, as these rules are in place to protect everyone. Members are free to send you a private PM if they want more information about the location of the unpublished firmware you previously raised.

Thank you for your understanding. 

[JavaLawyer]

Guys, you don't have to load any firmware if you aware of it. But you can let the choice to the others. The source was from the official ftp site and has the label for all devices and english language. Yes, it wasn't american site, but europe ... 

As a follow-up, we typically only publish firmware posted in one of the following locations:

• D-Link USA website
• D-Link USA FTP
• mydlink.com/support
• tsd.dlink.com (D-Link China, which is the HQ site and maintains most regional/ww fw)

Please see the following post for more information: ShareCenter - Important Posts & Information

[JavaLawyer]

Please see the following ShareCenter FAQ for adding newer model D-Link network cameras to the My Surveillance or Surveillance Center add-on applications:

DNS ShareCenter - Use My Surveillance / Surveillance Center with New D-Link Camera Models

Additional References: ShareCenter - Important Posts & Information

[Her_Kitty_Daddy]

So, today’s experiment was to see if I can reset the unit to a super clean condition.
(BTW, All this is in an effort to get the AjaxExplorer working properly again.)

I had previously done some configuration to the system so first step was, use the web interface on the DNS-325 and reset the unit to the default values. Shut it down and pulled out the drives.

Took the unit and pressed the "Reset" do-dad on the back until the power light blinked. (Without my note pad, I have to guess, I might have turned it on and pressed the reset or did it when it was off, can't remember.)

I took two drives and wipe them as clean as one can. (Wrote zeros on drive from one of my UNIX servers.)

Put one drive in (Left) and restarted system.

Went through the following steps:

• Logged in as admin through web interface.
• Configured as if I was putting it into service.

Under "System":

• Network
• Notifications.
• Time and Date

Under "Disk Management":

• Hard Drive Configuration

Under "Account Management":

• Delete the share "Volume_1"
• Create a user "media" and a group "g_media"
• I created a share "media" and attached it to the media user and group.
• Created a set of directories in media "video" and "audio".
• Create group "cats"
• Create user "kitty" and assigned password.
• Created share "meow" and assigned it to the user "kitty" the group "cats" both of those have the R/W permissions to the share.

I mounted the "meow" share and put a file in it. All worked as expected.

Then I went and created a photo album using the included photo tool and put a few photos in it.

I went searching for the photos and found *NOTHING* but I did see a bit of space used but I couldn't find the photos. I happened to be looking at one of the photos and when I touched a control I saw a hidden path appear. You can see it at the bottom of this photo:

We'll come back to discuss this part of things in a little bit.

Right now I want to talk about the drives and configuration.

I took my running system and I shut it down normally. I then pulled out the one drive and replaced it with another blank one. Fired it back up and took a look at what it knew.

First thing I did was check the screens to see what's changed. First one was the "Systems Management" screen, everything looked reasonable until I hit Notifications:

It seemed to have all been blanked by the disk change. So, I checked the "Disk Management" section and looked at the SMART tests to see that there's still tests scheduled to be performed (and therefore notifications to be sent).

Seems like a serious oversight.

Since we're on the subject, if I had my choices, I'd make the "Load a configuration" type of operation give the user choices of sections to include or exclude. Example, I can configure a unit, save the config and then use that same config to load just the users and notification settings into another NAS.

So, let's get back to discussing the photos.

I went looking for the photos and didn't find them for anything. After I pulled my drive out and popped it into my UNIX sysem, I looked at the contents of the device and was very surprised to find that all the files used for the audio and the photos were hidden away inside the "System" part of the hard drive, not any "accessable" part.

Here's what I actually found:

Code: [Select]

        4096 May  1 21:07 .!@$mmc/photo/This\ is\ a\ tet/
       178514 May  1 21:07 .!@$mmc/photo/This\ is\ a\ tet/1999-12-29_23-16-41.JPG
      4131605 May  1 21:07 .!@$mmc/photo/This\ is\ a\ tet/2010-02-07_19-41-02.JPG
      2667216 May  1 21:07 .!@$mmc/photo/This\ is\ a\ tet/2010-02-17_05-06-30-0.JPG
      2728954 May  1 21:07 .!@$mmc/photo/This\ is\ a\ tet/2010-02-14_20-00-29.JPG
         4096 May  1 21:08 .systemfile/.!@$mmc/photo/This\ is\ a\ tet/
       164248 May  1 21:08 .systemfile/.!@$mmc/photo/This\ is\ a\ tet/SM_1999-12-29_23-16-41.JPG.jpg
       190539 May  1 21:08 .systemfile/.!@$mmc/photo/This\ is\ a\ tet/SM_2010-02-17_05-06-30-0.JPG.jpg
       210323 May  1 21:08 .systemfile/.!@$mmc/photo/This\ is\ a\ tet/SM_2010-02-14_20-00-29.JPG.jpg
       237412 May  1 21:08 .systemfile/.!@$mmc/photo/This\ is\ a\ tet/SM_2010-02-07_19-41-02.JPG.jpg
        22648 May  1 21:08 .systemfile/.!@$mmc/photo/This\ is\ a\ tet/TN_2010-02-14_20-00-29.JPG.jpg
         8501 May  1 21:08 .systemfile/.!@$mmc/photo/This\ is\ a\ tet/TN_1999-12-29_23-16-41.JPG.jpg
        22932 May  1 21:08 .systemfile/.!@$mmc/photo/This\ is\ a\ tet/TN_2010-02-07_19-41-02.JPG.jpg
        21893 May  1 21:08 .systemfile/.!@$mmc/photo/This\ is\ a\ tet/TN_2010-02-17_05-06-30-0.JPG.jpg
The name of the photo album that I created was "This is a tet" (Okay, so I fat fingered the name!) and the original is about 9MB (top five lines) and the rest of it was copies of the photos set up as thumbnails and such. So, my 9MB set of photos had almost a 1MB of additional copies included.

I *personally* think this is a very poor choice of design. So, if you're wondering where your storage is diappearing to, that's a start.

[Her_Kitty_Daddy]

I know its poor form to follow one's own post with another like this.

Please excuse me.

[...]
So, let's get back to discussing the photos.

I went looking for the photos and didn't find them for anything. After I pulled my drive out and popped it into my UNIX sysem, I looked at the contents of the device and was very surprised to find that all the files used for the audio and the photos were hidden away inside the "System" part of the hard drive, not any "accessable" part.
[...]

Now that the blood/caffene ratio has returned to a much more appropriate level (< 1) something else just whacked me upside the head. If I backup the contents of my NAS using the "Local Backup" application provided, is this stuff that is magically hidden away from view backed up? I have NO idea!

[JavaLawyer]

I know its poor form to follow one's own post with another like this.

Please excuse me.

Now that the blood/caffene ratio has returned to a much more appropriate level (< 1) something else just whacked me upside the head. If I backup the contents of my NAS using the "Local Backup" application provided, is this stuff that is magically hidden away from view backed up? I have NO idea!

Did you select "Volume_1" to backup or named subdirectories (e.g. Volume_1/data). I would presume that a comparison of the used vs. free space between the source and destination HDDs would provide an answer.

I am personally only backing up specific directory trees and haven't tested as to whether system/add-on created directories are backed up.   

[Her_Kitty_Daddy]

So, I decided to play with the "Import Users" feature.

I created a small file with the users I wanted created. The "template" that the feature offers (after you choose "Import Users") looks like this:

Code: [Select]

#user name/user password/user groups/ shared folder(rw)/ shared folder(ro)/ shared folder(deny)/user quota
#user/pw/g1:g2/folder1:folder2/folder3:folder4/folder5:folder6/0:0:0:0
So, being the UNIX guy I am, I created the file leaving in the first of those lines so that I had something to work against. It's safe afterall because the "#" is well known as the "Comment" flag meaning that the line is just that, a comment to be ignored.

I attempted to import the file into a system I'd cleared.

Here's what I got:

• The "#" comment operator is ignored and it read "user name" as the first user I wanted to create! -BUG-
• The blank line I left in the file was treated as an error and not simply ignored! -BUG-
• The user groups passed in were rejected as errors because they didn't already exist.  -BUG-
• The option for "User quota" shows four values (separated by colons ":") but there is only one folder that the user has permission to write into (or should I say only one collection of folders who's space is aggregated against your single quota.) So what's the other zero values for?
• Lastly, the shared folder specified in the only username line that was accepted wasn't instantiated. I created a user named 'media' to own the share 'media' which already exists but the share wasn't connected to the user. -BUG-

My personal opinion about this is that the feature/function should be scratched out and the larger feature of being able to selectively save and/or restore sections of the configuration would be much better and more useful.

[JavaLawyer]

So, I decided to play with the "Import Users" feature.

I created a small file with the users I wanted created. The "template" that the feature offers (after you choose "Import Users") looks like this:

Code: [Select]

#user name/user password/user groups/ shared folder(rw)/ shared folder(ro)/ shared folder(deny)/user quota
#user/pw/g1:g2/folder1:folder2/folder3:folder4/folder5:folder6/0:0:0:0
So, being the UNIX guy I am, I created the file leaving in the first of those lines so that I had something to work against. It's safe afterall because the "#" is well known as the "Comment" flag meaning that the line is just that, a comment to be ignored.

I attempted to import the file into a system I'd cleared.

Here's what I got:

• The "#" comment operator is ignored and it read "user name" as the first user I wanted to create! -BUG-
• The blank line I left in the file was treated as an error and not simply ignored! -BUG-
• The user groups passed in were rejected as errors because they didn't already exist.  -BUG-
• The option for "User quota" shows four values (separated by colons ":") but there is only one folder that the user has permission to write into (or should I say only one collection of folders who's space is aggregated against your single quota.) So what's the other zero values for?
• Lastly, the shared folder specified in the only username line that was accepted wasn't instantiated. I created a user named 'media' to own the share 'media' which already exists but the share wasn't connected to the user. -BUG-

My personal opinion about this is that the feature/function should be scratched out and the larger feature of being able to selectively save and/or restore sections of the configuration would be much better and more useful.

Referring back to your Wishlist Post. . . how about the following modification:

Configuration Settings - Option to export user information to a separate file (i.e. the DNS-325 has an "Import" function in "Account Management" with no means of creating an "import" file) and similar option for importing/exporting shares. Create a robust import file format (current template seems bug-laden) with support for selective inclusion of specific user/share attributes for export

(I also posted this as a reply to your wishlist post. . .  )

[Her_Kitty_Daddy]

(I also posted this as a reply to your wishlist post. . .  )

I'll concentrate on the process here instead of the other forum. You can tell me if something needs to be posted there too. This way it's all in one place and the "decision" can go in that forum.

I'd thought about doing it the way you mention but I think, from a system development (thinking D-Link) perspective it's adding crap on to a system/process that already exists.

If you do a "Save Configuration" from the system menu, all of the information we're talking about is already saved so, insted of reinventiing the wheel, just use that configuration file but allow the user to selectively choose which parts to restore.

If I replace my NAS (or buy a second), I'd want to use the same core of the configuration file without loading all of the other config.

[JavaLawyer]

I'll concentrate on the process here instead of the other forum. You can tell me if something needs to be posted there too. This way it's all in one place and the "decision" can go in that forum.

I'd thought about doing it the way you mention but I think, from a system development (thinking D-Link) perspective it's adding **** on to a system/process that already exists.

If you do a "Save Configuration" from the system menu, all of the information we're talking about is already saved so, insted of reinventiing the wheel, just use that configuration file but allow the user to selectively choose which parts to restore.

If I replace my NAS (or buy a second), I'd want to use the same core of the configuration file without loading all of the other config.

Eureka! I think... DNS-325 - Firmware Wishlist

[JavaLawyer]

I'll concentrate on the process here instead of the other forum. You can tell me if something needs to be posted there too. This way it's all in one place and the "decision" can go in that forum.

I'd thought about doing it the way you mention but I think, from a system development (thinking D-Link) perspective it's adding **** on to a system/process that already exists.

If you do a "Save Configuration" from the system menu, all of the information we're talking about is already saved so, insted of reinventiing the wheel, just use that configuration file but allow the user to selectively choose which parts to restore.

If I replace my NAS (or buy a second), I'd want to use the same core of the configuration file without loading all of the other config.

Added to the firmware wishlist. . . Let me know if the posted entry captures your requirements.
DNS-325 - Firmware Wishlist

[Her_Kitty_Daddy]

Added to the firmware wishlist. . . Let me know if the posted entry captures your requirements.
DNS-325 - Firmware Wishlist

For the most part, it works. I'd maybe adjust the wording a little but that's minor:
Replace {Load} Configuration Settings option with a more intelligent Wizard containing the option to pick-and-choose which settings to restore (or not restore) in the file (e.g. user accounts, groups, shares, network settings, etc.). This feature would prove invaluable for migrating specific settings to other ShareCenter devices