[boris03]

Using the newest DD-WRT built on my TP-Link C1900 and successfully enabled the USB drive and SAMBA in NAS settings. I can access in Windows all OK.
Now I see there is a USB over IP option and I activated this.
But nothing happened - How can I now access the USB over IP?
I cannot see a new IP for the USB drive?

[kernel-panic69]

USB over IP (rather, vice-versa) is supposed to be for tethering to your phone, I think?

[Dr_K]

[kernel-panic69]

@Dr_K, thanks for the clarification. Of course, I am still trying to regain the learning curve on some things. USB over IP didn't exist when I was knee deep in a Pentium II Slackware box for an internet gateway / router with no wireless anything. Back in the truly masochistic days of Slack, even. I had migrated to Japan about the time it came about for the last 18 months of active duty, anyway, and all of my toys were in storage.

[boris03]

I don't get it. Why do i need this flag?
Is it of any value, when I use Samba or is it something different?
I thought I can use to connect to the USB drive by entering an IP, but seems this is not the case.

And why should I search for tomato when I don't like tomatoes? I am using DD-WRT and so I can set this flag and search here for a kind of help.

[Dr_K]

[boris03]

Now I got it, thanks a lot

But I still don't like tomatoes

[kernel-panic69]

The way smbd and nmbd (Samba) works is you type in the Windows PC name and shared folder with a forward slash ( / ). The USB over IP may be an interface with local dns via dnsmasq or by plain IP address vice windows host name. That's the best I can come up with.

As far as liking Tomato(es), FreshTomato firmware doesn't require a bunch of monkey-ing around and workarounds and scripts to work out of the box. DD-WRT is masochistic. I guess my Slackware background is the only reason why I even bother to put up with testing it. Some folks have given up on even reporting problems, because it falls on deaf ears.

[Dr_K]

[boris03]

Really can I access the Samba USB drive entering the IP plus 139or445?
I wasn't aware but when I'm trying now I cannot access when connected to the router in Wlan.
139 says nothing, 445 the browser at least tries to reach something but not successful.
How would that work entering IP and Port?
Because I am searching for the easiest way to access that Samba USB drive also via my OVPN connection.

[Dr_K]

Seriously... This is all now going to get twisted around into this nonsense?

Did I really say that your "web browser" was somehow going to know how to use/access the SMB protocol let alone connect to two ports at the same time?

Maybe this whole concept of utilizing yout router's USB ports over an ip based network is just too much to grasp....so lets stop & just call it "magic".

As far as your new search for an easy solution to acess samba...

That is even more trivial....??

My properly set up samba & FTP servers can be connected to while remotely connected over my properly set up OpenVPN server without issue of any kind.
No matter if they are hosted on router or on another device within the local network....More "magic" I guess...

[boris03]

So what should I say, I found it myself.
When connected via OVPN I can access the Samba share on Android easily with Total Commander and the LAN extension, don't need ftp at all.

On the other hand when I read your last comment quite a lot was written but nothing of that was helpful, not one word.
Did you also notice in forums there are many people writing comments for nothing?
Ask yourself - sorry to say

[kernel-panic69]

@Dr_K, "net use //server/share". Login batch files of yore on WinNT4, 2K, XP for Windows server shares or Linux Samba server shares. That's ancient methods from over 20 years ago, I seem to think it even could be carry over from NOVELL, but I'd have to verify (it's been a minute or five). I'm sure there's new/old methods I may not be familiar with, and I am always learning....

[MolaMola]

What a strange discussion.. I'm by no means an expert but I've looked into this several years ago and I immediately assumed USB over IP means exactly that: being able to use a USB device connected to another machine on the network as if it were physically connected to or plugged into the local host. So if I were to setup a USB over IP connection to my router I could connect to an external harddrive plugged into the router's USB port and access its file system directly by mounting it with the OS on my computer. All data that goes over the USB cable between the harddrive and the router gets forwarded to my laptop where the USB over IP client presents that data as if it were coming from a physical device. The OS wouldn't know the difference between this setup and having the drive physically plugged into the laptop's USB port.

Back then I used Windows on my pc. Development of the USB over IP client for Windows seemed abandoned and unfortunately didn't work on Windows 10 so I was never able to test it or its performance. I use Linux now and I guess I could fire this project up again but I'll stick to using the standard samba protocol instead for this application.

The reason for trying USB over IP back then was the slow samba protocol on devices such as routers or my Raspberry Pi. You'd think data rates noticeably faster than 8-9 MB/s would be possible, especially with a quad core Raspberry Pi 3. I'm considering buying a multi-bay NAS system but those things are expensive and again, why are NAS ARM systems so much better at it then my Pi? But that's a whole other topic.

By the way, I suspect it's possible to use any kind of device with USB over IP and not just harddrives or SSDs. The protocol probably just transfers the detection of the USB device to a different machine. I always found that an interesting idea but I also read it comes with certain security issues which is probably why this never really became a thing. I also wonder why it's still in DD-WRT when nobody seems to really use it.

*Addendum*

Here's the info I used back then:

http://usbip.sourceforge.net/

Unfortunately it seems to be dead. Plus I remember now that my point was to be able to use my USB printer bidirectionally over the network with its standard software tools such as for cleaning the printer head once in a while or monitoring the ink levels. The standard USB print function in DD-WRT only allows one directional print commands. I have a network printer now so I don't need it anymore but if you use Linux or an old Windows version you might still be able to fire it up.

[Dr_K]