More of a technical question than a problem, so feel free to send me away if this is not the place to post!!
Has anyone had any luck attaching a NAS drive to their livebox? I've attached it via the second ethernet port and in the livebox's configuration page it shows that a device is connected yet it doesn't show up on the network. I did speak to the wonderfully unhelpful technical support at Orange, who basically fobbed me off because it is a third party piece of equipment, however the guy did say that the second ethernet port is always open and therefore no tweaking of settings should be required.
I'm no technical expert on these matters and will probably have to call the NAS manufacturer for help, but thought I'd ask the question here anyway.
I have known NAS drives to successfully be connected to the livebox.
Usually the NAS has to configured for network access, a common method is by using an inbuilt webserver. Have you tried connecting to it over http to do this?
The NAS will either need its IP address set in its configuration or assigned to get one from the DHCP server in the livebox, you will need to check the default configuration.
Firewalls can also block connections to networked equipment and therefore these setting should be checked to allow access to your NAS.
Thanks for the reply Thomas. As far as I'm aware, the NAS should be configured correctly straight from the box. I could be wrong though. Basically, I've followed the standard set up so far but nothing appearing.
I'm not sure how to check/assign it an ip address using the livebox configuration page, any ideas?
I have zone alarm but have turned it off and this doesn't seem to fix anything.
You would set the IP settings on the NAS drive itself, including for it to automatically get an IP from the livebox (the latter I would think would be the default).
For the latter the DHCP settings need to be turned on in the livebox (which again I think is the default).
In the Run command you could try typing \\nameofdevice or \\ipofdevice substituting the name or IP retrospectively. This will force windows to look for the path.
Likewise if you type the name or IP address in your web browser it may bring up the configuration pages.
If you know the IP address of the NAS you could try pinging it from a command prompt to see if you get a response.
Your NAS should be powered on after it is connected to the livebox and some can take a few minutes to register itself on the network.
Thomas, thanks for replying again. I actually did the classic switch off, unplug, leave, reconnect and this time the NAS appeared.
I'm using a Synology Dj108 with a Seagate hdd.
I'm now though battling with trying to set up the FTP service. Basically, the NAS is attached to my router but I need my colleague to be able to access it from his house over the internet. The NAS is now set up for FTP and it talks about port forwarding. I've tried to set this up in the Livebox but the Synology asks me to assign a FTP service port (which I can see) but also a passive FTP port range, which I can't see the option for - can you assist with this? If by any chance I've got it right, how would my colleague then connect via the internet to the drive?
I was told about using DynDNS but was also told I could just use FTP. I'm now a bit lost!
The problem with using Orange broadband with an ftp server is that Orange only allow dynamic IP's. That is it changes each time you connect.
Someone trying to access your ftp server would need to know the IP address either directly or indirectly using the DNS service. As your IP is always changing you can not register a standard domain name to it.
DynDNS combats this by monitoring your IP address and updating it to the assigned domain name as it changes. You will need this or similar service otherwise you would need to tell your colleague the IP address each time they wanted to connect.
On the firewall protecting the FTP server, you must configure for active-mode transfer, or for passive-mode transfer. Or both.
The firewall must allow passage of incoming connections to port 21 to reach the FTP server, and also allows an outbound connection from port 20 on the FTP server to any remote ephemeral port. This is active-mode.
Alternatively or in addition to this, the firewall is configured to permit passage of port 21 to the FTP server, and to also allow inbound connections to any ephemeral port. This configuration is for passive-mode FTP.
The passive port range is a range of TCP ports above port 1023 that the ftp server can accept additional connections on. The settings on your ftp server need to match that of your router otherwise your router may block connections to your ftp server. Effectively these means forwarding all or a selection of TCP ports in the 1024-65535 to your ftp server. This can be done by by creating a manual rule in the advanced settings of the firewall on your router.
Enabling passive mode can pose a greater security risk as you are opening ports in your network.
It would also be best to assign your NAS a local static IP address in your network so you can create rules on the router specific for this IP address. This IP is not to be confused with your WAN IP, the latter being used to connect from outside your network.
As said before, for your colleague to connect he would need to either know the WAN IP address of your router (which changes each time it connects to Orange) or connect via a domain name using a service such as DynDNS.
Thomas, thanks very much indeed for the ongoing help. What you say does ring a few bells so I shall have a play around with it later. If I get stuck, I might pester you for a bit more assistance if that's ok...?
I think I've now ground to a halt. I've registered with dyndns and downloaded their software. I assume I need to assign the relevant ip address to the dynamic DNS host address I've created.
Am I assigning the ip of the NAS or my router? I only want my colleague to be able to access the NAS. I have added the host address details in to my Livebox configuration and have added them into the NAS - I'm not sure where to go now?
Once I've assigned the right ip address, is it as simple as my colleague typing the host address into his browser and then using explorer to view files? All the tutorials I can find seem fairly straightforward but I fear too straightforward, I'm clearly missing something!
I tried for some time to connect by Buffalo NAS unit to my Livebox on the second (yellow) Ethernet port but got nowhere. The Livebox kept assigning some ridiculous IP address to it. If I removed my main pc from the Red Ethernet port on the Livebox and connected the NAS to it then all worked fine. The only way I could get both devices hard wired to the Livebox was to use my old Netgear router as a switch to allow both devices to be present on the Red port. This was not practical so at present all pc connections are wireless and the NAS is on Red.
I challenged Orange about this and was told that only one or the other of the two Ethernet ports could be used at one time, not both. Whether or not this is true I have no idea (based on the amount of fob-offs I have had from Orange in the past).
I challenged Orange about this and was told that only one or the other of the two Ethernet ports could be used at one time, not both. Whether or not this is true I have no idea (based on the amount of fob-offs I have had from Orange in the past).
Does not sound right to me. I understood both should work, though people have had similar problems getting both working in the past.
I was extremely surprised that both won't work. However, if both are supposedly identical why are they coloured so as to be uniquely identifiable? I was told that the Red should be used and if that doesn't work then use yellow, implying there is indeed some difference. It seems very short sighted to only have one Ethernet port as even the cheapest Wireless routers I have used in the past had two and more usually four.
I don't use a Livebox but I'm sure I remember a thread mentioning a setting in the config. which is defaulted to DTV setting, this has to be changed for the yellow port to function the same as the red port.
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