4. Setup & Admin - Disk Setup

Most configuration is done via the Administration link, which has the very annoying attribute of requiring you to log in every time you click on it! Fortunately, there's a work-around via a bug - at least until Linksys fixes it.

TIP: The Administration log-in work-around requires that you log in successfully once. Then, each time you again click on the Administration link, just Cancel the log in box that pops up, click on the Go Back link on the page that comes up, then click on the Administration link again and you'll be back in the NSL's admin section.

TIP: Update 7/7/2004 The admin login information is Linksys' standard admin for both username and password. This is a little fuzzy in the User Manual (page 22).

TIP: For more fun, try entering http://192.168.1.77/Management/ into your web browser, logging in with the default user name and password and clicking on the telnet.cgi link. Let me know if you figure out what the Telnet login info is.

TIP: Update 7/7/2004 You can also try the log_server.cgi link on the hidden /Management page for setting up logging to a syslog server.

Once you're logged in, the first thing you'll want to do - after making security changes as suggested above - is format the USB hard drive you've attached to the NSL.

Figure 3: Setting up the attached USB drive

Formatting took about 12 minutes for the 160 GB Maxtor OneTouch drive that Linksys arranged for the NSL's checkout. During the format, you get a "Formatting..." indication in the Disk Status box, but no progress bar and you can't really do anything else. The screen does refresh the status to indicate Formatted when it's completed, though a little beep or two from the NSL's on-board buzzer would have been nice, too. Figure 3 also shows that you can run a disk error scan immediately, or schedule one daily or weekly on your chosen day at a programmed time.

The NSL will actually support two USB hard drives via its two USB 2.0 ports, or one drive and one USB Flash memory device. Linksys says you need to install a Windows utility which lets you set the flash drive as a Windows mapped drive and "safely" shut it down before you yank it out of the NSL. But I found the utility really isn't necessary - which is good news for non-Windows users.

When you insert a USB Flash drive into the Drive 2 USB port, the NSL automatically configures it as a Share named "flash" with read/write permissions set for the "administrators" and "everyone" groups. This Share also automatically appears in My Network Places or whatever network browser your OS users and as a Location selection on the Share setup page.

I did note that the Disk 2 status with a Flash drive installed shows "Not Installed", which I think should be changed to "Flash Drive Installed" or something similar to show what's actually happening with that port. You can't perform a ScanDisk on a Flash drive either.