Mapping AiDisk to a Drive letter - RT-AC86U

[nav2004]

Hi everyone,

Just purchased and set this router up. I have two HDDs plugged into the 2 USB Ports.

I am trying to now map a drive letter to access each of these from all the computers in home. I am unable access the drives at the address it shows under AiDisk ftp://192.168.50.1/

I have disabled AiCloud for now as I read about all the security risks and recent hacks. I will be happy if I can just get this internal network access working.

I used to have an old ASUS RT-N13U router which also had this AiDisk, but I have not used that in a while. I think I had to use a free utility called NetDrive to map and ftp location to a lan drive, and that was not the most ideal.

I can add only a Network location under My Computers to these drives, but that too not using the ftp in that format, but in ftp://useraccount@192.168.50.1/Expansion_Drive/ where useraccount is the account I created under Aidisk.

I will call ASUS support and see if they can help, but meanwhile wanted to get advise from real users of this router.
My laptops have either Windows 10 or Windows 8.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Is there any reason you're using FTP?

Why not Samba? Then you can map a Windows network drive to something like \\RT-AC86U\MYFILES

 

[nav2004]

Is there any reason you're using FTP?

Why not Samba? Then you can map a Windows network drive to something like \\RT-AC86U\MYFILES

I just used the AiDisk wizard and Samba was also turned on by it.
But you cannot access the router if you type \\RT-AC86U-E468
That might be because Windows 10 has disabled the SMB1 Protocol because it is obsolete and unsafe. It says your system requires SMB2 or higher.

 

[ColinTaylor]

I just used the AiDisk wizard and Samba was also turned on by it.
But you cannot access the router if you type \\RT-AC86U-E468
That might be because Windows 10 has disabled the SMB1 Protocol because it is obsolete and unsafe. It says your system requires SMB2 or higher.

Yes, this has come up numerous times since MS disabled SMB1. Most of us here just re-enable it. It's more of a concern in a workplace/commercial environment rather than at home.

Do you have "Allow guest login" enabled? If so, turn it off. You should still be able to access the drive, even without SMB1, if you specify the full path including the shared folder name, i.e.

\\RT-AC86U\MYFILES

 

[nav2004]

I don't have allow guest login enabled under "Network place (Samba) Share/Cloud disk

I tried what you mentioned on my Windows 8.1 laptop using the value in Device Name listed under the Samba Share screen, which was RT-AC86U-E468
I can change it, but have left it at that for now.
It kind of works and I am able to map a drive letter to it. But what it does is, it shows a listing of all the folders from root drive of both HDD connected to the Router. I have not found a way to find the path to the root of each drive, so that I can then map them each to a specific drive letter.
If this works, I can then figure out how to enable SMB1 on the Windows 10 laptop.

 

[ColinTaylor]

But what it does is, it shows a listing of all the folders from root drive of both HDD connected to the Router. I have not found a way to find the path to the root of each drive, so that I can then map them each to a specific drive letter.

It's a quirk of the way Asus have designed the interface . When "Allow guest login" is disabled you cannot see (or share) any files that are in the root of the HDD. You can only share folders that are in the root of the HDD. But each of these root folders (and any sub folders) can be mapped to a drive letter in Windows.

So if your setup is like this:

RT-AC68U -+- HDD1 -- Label1 -+- Folder1 -- Folder1A
          |                  `- Folder2
          |
          `- HDD2 -- Label2 -+- Folder3
                             `- Folder4

you can share Folder1, 2, 3 and 4 but not Folder1A. But you can still map all the folders to a drive letter including Folder1A.

Alternatively you could enable "Allow guest login" which would share the entirety of each HDD including files in the root. But of course there would be no access restrictions.

 

[nav2004]

It's a quirk of the way Asus have designed the interface . When "Allow guest login" is disabled you cannot see (or share) any files that are in the root of the HDD. You can only share folders that are in the root of the HDD. But each of these root folders (and any sub folders) can be mapped to a drive letter in Windows.

So if your setup is like this:

RT-AC68U -+- HDD1 -- Label1 -+- Folder1 -- Folder1A
          |                  `- Folder2
          |
          `- HDD2 -- Label2 -+- Folder3
                             `- Folder4

you can share Folder1, 2, 3 and 4 but not Folder1A. But you can still map all the folders to a drive letter including Folder1A.

Alternatively you could enable "Allow guest login" which would share the entirety of each HDD including files in the root. But of course there would be no access restrictions.

Thank you @ColinTaylor for the explanation.
I really would have wanted to see all files/folders under Label 1 for instance in your example. Now if I have 5-6 folders in my root, it will not be ideal to map a drive letter to each.
An alternative might be for me re-structure the folders and create one called RootHDD1 and then move all existing folders under it. This way I can then map a drive to folder RootHDD1. Will have to to modify my .bat scripts that i have for doing some backups to these HDDs and also to some SyncToy configuration that i use to replicate some of my data from HDD1 to HDD2.

What is the security risk here if I enable guest login. I don't care if anyone in the home or any devices in home can access these drives. In future, if I enable AiCloud can I have this login restriction or disallow annonymous access for AiCloud, but not for AiDisk ?
This way no one from outside can access the data in the HDDs. I did run into problem when I added access protocol from HTTP to HTTPS for AiCloud/DDNS. I then lost access to get into the router itself from the default login URL. Had to factory reset and reconfigure. That was a pain and then when i read about the AiCloud breach, decided it was not worth accessing my files from anywhere over lingering thought that God knows who all can see the data in these HDDs.
But I will admit, AiCloud was one of the big features that I brought this router. I was using Amazon Cloud service here in Canada until they jacked up the prices and removed the unlimited price plan. The tiered plans they now have did not work for me, so I just stopped using that service.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Sorry I've never used AiCloud so have no idea how it works. I rarely need remote access and when I do I use the OpenVPN server.

 

[nav2004]

Sorry I've never used AiCloud so have no idea how it works. I rarely need remote access and when I do I use the OpenVPN server.

Oh, I am curious how to set this OpenVPN up. If there any posts in the forums, when you get a chance, I would love to read up on that and enable it in the router. I have only used VPN for accessing my work network, so not sure what it does in the Home environment. I am assuming, it let you access the computers and any hard drives connected to them from internet.
Will there be an Android app available to vpn in and access your hard drives as that is the most likely use case for me to be able to access data at home from anywhere. Having a computer nearby might not be possible.

 

[ColinTaylor]

It will probably work in the same way as your work VPN. Being open source there are free OpenVPN clients for all platforms. You just start the VPN client on your device, it connects to the VPN server on your router, and that's it. You are now connected to your home network more or less the same as if you were at home. There are a few options that can be changed but it pretty much works "out of the box".

Bear in mind that all that the VPN does is connect you to the home network. If you want to access files or devices on that network then you would use the same applications you normally would. There are a few wrinkles related to being on a remote subnet, but they can be worked around should the need arise.

 

[nav2004]

Thank you so much @ColinTaylor
I enabled Samba share with enable guest account and can now access the root folder of both HDDs and map them to a network drive. As this is all within the home network, I am fine if every device on this wifi can access these.

Also, initialized openVPN and was able to test it out on my Android phone. After connecting over Mobile data, I was able to then use X-Plore app and access the same Samba device and see the data from connected HDD.

Any Security issues you see with this setup ?
I don't think I need AiCloud enabled any more. Only advantage with it is that it has a nice App, but I can live with knowing that my data is not exposed through some unknown means that I don't fully understand.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Any Security issues you see with this setup ?

If you need to have remote access then OpenVPN is the most secure of the options available.