Raspberry Pi NAS

I have long wanted to run my own NAS on my [amazon_textlink asin=’B07BDR5PDW’ text=’Raspberry Pi’ template=’ProductLink’ store=’digit073-21′ marketplace=’UK’ link_id=’4067394e-0777-11e9-88b5-434ae23e439d’], and this is now finally easily achievable thanks to the people at Open Media Vault

For this tutorial, I am starting with a Raspberry PI 3, already loaded with Raspbian and SSH enabled. I have assume you can make it this far 🙂

You will need:

A Raspberry PI 3

A USB drive (one you can format)

The first thing to do is to add the OpenMediaVault repository and grab the gpg key:

echo "deb http://packages.openmediavault.org/public erasmus main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/openmediavault.list
wget -O - http://packages.openmediavault.org/public/archive.key | sudo apt-key add -

now let’s update the repositories grab the packages we need:

apt-get update
apt-get install openmediavault-keyring postfix -y --force-yes

When prompted for the General Mail Configuration, answer ‘no configuration’

apt-get install php-apc openmediavault -y --force-yes

When prompted for MD arrays chose all and run proftpd from inetd

Finally you should acknowledge this:

Next we need to add resolvconf:

apt-get install resolvconf

and finally, initialise the system:

omv-initsystem

At this point, you should be able to point a browser to http://yourpiname and log in with

username: admin

password: openmediavault

Change the web admin password

Don’t skip this!

To change the web administrator password, go to “General Settings” and change to the tab “Web Administrator Password:

Enter the new password and press the “Save” button in the upper left corner of the input form.

Log back in

Enable SMB / CIFS

So far, only SSH is enabled, we will want to enable SMB/CIFS to access this NAS from a WIndows machine. (Optionally, you can enable NFS if you are pure linux!)

Click Save, then APPLY.

Add Storage

Now we need to add some storage… make sure your BLANK usb drive is plugged in..

You really need to be using a powered hub here, as the PI will struggle to provide enough power to spin the drive up.

Navigate to STORAGE then Physical DIsk

Select your usb disk in the list, and choose WIPE, then QUICK.

Now navigate to STORAGE, then FILE SYSTEM and click +CREATE and fill in the options, eg:

When you click OK, this will take a few minutes depending on the size of your disk

Wait for this then click finish

Select the disk and click MOUNT, you will see this message:

Click APPLY in the top right corner, and then OK on the dialogue box.

Add users

Now we can add a user to access your file shares. Click on “Access Rights Management” > “User” > Add:

Click SAVE then APPLY

Add a file share

Next, we need somewhere to store all our files..

Click on “Access Rights Management” > “Shared Folders” > “Add”.

The next step is to grant read/write permissions to the user you just created. Click on the share in the list and then on the Icon “Privileges” in the menu above the list. This will open the privileges Window, enable “Read/Write” for the user and press save.

Now we need to assign the share to a service, in our case, SMB/CIFS.  Go to Services > SMB/CIFS > Shares, Click on “Add”, Select the share and press save. Click Apply.

And thats it – to connect from windows, open up an explorer windows and enter

\\my-pi-name

and you should be prompted to log in using the details you created earlier. You should now see your newly created share, and be able to copy files to and from it at will.

My Raspberry pi is connect via wifi, and I only manage around 3Mb/s, I have yet to try it hardwired but I would expect this to increase significantly.