New Release - Firmware Version 2.01.06 for My Book Live (8/2/11)

WD Legacy Products My Book Live
41

Anyone have any tips on how to actually get this firmware installed?? I’ve tried Firefox and Safari, and doing both the “search for updates” and the manual install method. I even went so far as to download the firmware via a PC (since trying this on Firefox or Safari just brings up a page of symbols, etc).

Every time on manual install, it displays the “transferring file info” message, but then the whole thing seems to time out after about 20 minutes, with an error message 5657 or whatever. Looked this up, and it references a network connection issue. Hardly the case, since my whole home theatre and iMac are setup and running flawlessly through an Airport Extreme…

I’d really like to use the TimeMachine function of my iMac, but it seems like at this rate, I’ll never even be able to get the firmware installed. I like the solid performance of the MBL, but the issues I’ve had thus far with firmware upgrades has really got me frustrated. Any tips or workarounds would certainly be appreciated. 

42

Time Machine is now working again.  Thank you for fixing that so quickly.  Also WD 2GO looks like an awesome product.  I think I’m going to buy another My Book Live just to have more available storage in such a convenient package.

I know most people on the forum are here for problems. I just want to say good job to all the Tech Support staff.

43

A big thank you to the good work of the wd staff!!!

I decided to wait for the wd lion update before updating my imac to lion. And earlier as I thougt the update was here.  After updating my MyBook Live (without any problems) I installed Lion today. And until now everything ist working fine :-) 

Well done!!!

44

I had a lot of difficulty getting the firmware updated. Multiple tries at manual and automatic upgrading with no luck - it would just appear to hang in a waiting or processing state. Ultimately rebooted the device through the Utilities menu and was successful in a manual firmware update on first try after that.

45

in deed reboot do the trick. Thank you very much. it is now updated. Time Machine works perfect. 

46

erik1672 wrote:

hello bill, can you give me an indication when the new firmware will be available for the my book white light? unfortunatelly i cannot use the timemachine on my macbook, but i think you already kwow about this problem ;-). in advance, thank you for your answer! erik.

They’re definitely working on it, but I can’t give an eta.  Personally, I doubt it will be more than a couple of weeks.

47

 The firmware downloaded fine and eventually there was a message that the firmware had been updated and the (2T) drive would be rebooted.  But after leaving the drive and computer (a Windows 7 64-bit) alone for several hours, the “rebooting” graphic was still there and nothing was happening.  Left it overnight and the situation was the same.  After finally closing the window (which they warn you not to do), I opened a new window and went back to the dashboard.  In “Settings” the recent firmware update does not register (shows the last update was in July).  I clicked to check for updates.  It hung on a “Please wait” message. 

The drive works fine otherwise and backups seem to be ongoing.

Thanks for any advice.

48

hanging reboot is a common problem with MBL firmware updates.  If you cannot shut down the drive via the dashboard just pull the plug and reboot that way.  might want to wait until the drive goes to sleep.

49

After upgrading, I lost access to the UI remotely.

How do I fix this? Logging in using the wd2go.com only shows me the shares. how do I remotely connect to the UI so I can manage the settings, users, etc?

50

I have the same symptoms.   I can also NOT access the drive thru WD Smartware.

51

You cannot access the UI now remotely. With the new remte access technolgy we went have to close down potential security holes, and this was a big one.

You want to make sure you download the latest smartware off of our web site.

52

Tony, the customer needs to be given a CHOICE!  This is a pain for me too.  For accessing the Dashboard UI remotely I firstly logged into the router from my remote location over a HTTPS link, open the port to the MyBook Live, did what I needed to do then go back to the router and disable the port forward so security was never really issue regarding the Dashboard UI.

What should have been done is an option added to the MyBook Live’s firmware to allow the owner to choose if to allow remote access to the Dashboard UI just like it is possible to choose to enable or disable SSH access, with the default being to have the remote access disabled and the usual warning/disclaimer being shown informing the owner of the possible consequences of allowing remote access to the Dashboard UI.

Changing the subject slightly, the safepoint back-up is a bit useless. I was hoping I could select which set of shares I could back-up.  Whoever designed the safepoint backup didn’t think about hot it should work.

My media collection is backed-up elsewhere so does not need backing up again. I have a second NAS wish is 500Gb.  If I back-up just the shares that are my dynamic in nature it’ll all fit in the 500Gb NAS. If I back-up everything as the safepoint facility insists then wat is in my MyBook Live will not fit in the 500Gb NAS and I don’t want to go buy another NAS.

On the next firmware update could it be possible could it be possible to select which shares can be backed up and monitored by safepoint?  (Or maybe build in a facility to exclude certain shares from a safepoint back-up?)

This is simple common sense.  :smiley:

WDTony wrote:

You cannot access the UI now remotely. With the new remte access technolgy we went have to close down potential security holes, and this was a big one.

 

You want to make sure you download the latest smartware off of our web site.

53

Well, you have some options for remote access.

Either you can fiddle with the MBL config, or you can implement a network solution.

I haven’t seen the new firmware yet, but I would imagine that this config is either in tcp_wrappers (/etc/hosts.allow) or in the apache config.

If you don’t want to risk fiddling with the MBL, you can still get to it remotely by either tunneling into your network using SSH port forwarding and SOCKS or via some sort of reverse proxy server.  I recently wrote a tutorial on here about how to do the SSH port forwarding thing with SOCKS.

Given the ubiquity of UPNP on routers, I think this is probably not a bad idea.  I would probably have done this to my MBL if I wasn’t so darn lazy.  Putting a checkbox in the UI for remote access is probably not a bad idea either - with the default being disabled.

54

Hope no-one misunderstands me. I’m not slating anyone or their efforts and it is totally awesome that thought has gone into the security features of the MBL.  I’ve got the FTP service open to the Internet as looking into VSFTP it looks like an FTP service with security built in from the ground up.  (Pity that WD turn some of those security features off by default but I ain’t complaining because I can go in and turn the features back on after a firmware upgrade.)

Rgarding the Dashboard UI. I cured that problem simply by having secure access to my router from the WAN. I enable and disable the port forwarding rule as required and the Dashboard UI ain’t on port 80 when accessed from the Internet!. So when I don’t need access to the Dashboard UI then it’s simply not visible from the WAN at all.

Thing is, I also understand that there are numpties who own items like the MyBook Live who don’t have a clue and fair play to WD for trying to cater from them.

As to SSH access and SOCKS.  Seen that.  Even though I have changed root’s password to something quite secure, I don’t like having the SSH service exposed to the Internet.  Actually do the same thing with the SSH facility on the router. Enable and disable a port forwarding rule as required.

Just too much fiddling around setting PuTTY to be a SSH SOCKS proxy and messing about with the web browser to work through the proxy.

55

Myron - thans for the feedback. Always enlightening reading your messages :slight_smile:

Safepoints - This is version 1.0. Think we have a roadmap planned???

56

Myron,

I have tried changing the port from 80 to a differnt port to access the UI but still couldn’t  access the UI. How did you do it?

I can access my router remotely.

57

 Tony, It’s only feedback and honest, not slating anyone. Maybe indicating a bit of frustration but no slating of anyone.

Put this one in the roadmap.  Not everyone will have a massive hard drive like on the MBL but have a few smaller drives, maybe over several computers or several hard drives within one computer.

Extend the Safepoint facility so one safepoint can back-up a group of shares to one destination, another safe-point can back-up another group of shares to another computer or same computer but another hard drive?  Some safe-points don’t need to be scheduled others maybe?

As an example to the above paragraph…  I have (as you know) a 500Gb NAS.  I can keep that on and have a scheduled safepoint back-up happen to that as the shares I’ll be backing up like this will be more dynamic in nature.  Files coming, going and changing frequently.  Another safepoint would be manually started as it’s group of shares would back-up to, say, a computer my media collection which will me more static in nature. Not that many changes to it and unline the second NAS I would not wish to keep a power hungry computer running for the sake of receiving back-ups.  The other NAS takes just as much power as as the MBL.

I can’t justify just going out and buying another 1Tb NAS for the sole purpose of using it as a back-up device.  Financially a lot of people have more important so spend their money on like fuel for the car to take them to work and back as well as keeping a roof over their heads so I.T. is not a priority but they would like to use what they already got to safeguard their information.  As stupid as the latter may read, I believe it’s true.

Second question…  If it possible to access all the files from the Safepoint back-up as refyular files while the MBL is sent off for repair or are all the files held in an archive.  I’ve not got to use the safepoint back-up yet because I simply don’t have the required “lump of free storage” to place a back-up of the MBL I’ve got.

Seriously…  Have a look at at how Microsoft’s SyncToy works and put the equivalent of that on the MBL.  As the synchronising will be performed/managed on the MBL it would not matter if the target is a PC or a MAC and all the files can be easily accessed on the target (of the safepoint bacup).  Should any files get changed on the target then the MBL would be able to pick-up those changes and replicate them back to itself.  Now that would be a totally awesome feature!

So, unfortunately, the safe-point back-up at the moment does not work right for me so I can’t yet use it.  I could use if if I could omit several shares from the safepoint.  Yes, I’m aware that if I needed to restore ALL the data then I would need to manually copy the stuff not safepointed back to the MBL.  Would not be as automated, a minior inconvenience but can be tollorated.

Remember…  Give the owner of the MBL a choice of what to do with their data.  Either safepoint back-up the whole lot or a sub-set.  (Put it another way…  I already have a copy of my media collection on the second NAS.  Why do I need to back-up the whole lot again?  The media collection at the moment takes up two thirds of the MBL’s used storage and is mostly static data.)

That’s my two-cents worth.  :smiley:

WDTony wrote:

Myron - thans for the feedback. Always enlightening reading your messages :slight_smile:

 

Safepoints - This is version 1.0. Think we have a roadmap planned???

58

Excuse my blondness even though I ain’t blond…  Where are your instuctions on proxying with with PuTTY?  I thought I took a off-line copy but I didn’t.  Oh wel…   Got a link?  :stuck_out_tongue:

mstargard wrote:> If you don’t want to risk fiddling with the MBL, you can still get to it remotely by either tunneling into your network using SSH port forwarding and SOCKS or via some sort of reverse proxy server.  I recently wrote a tutorial on here about how to do the SSH port forwarding thing with SOCKS.

59

Myron,

Again - Read my post… We plan things out many many months in advance…

Regarding your other message:

“Second question…  If it possible to access all the files from the Safepoint back-up as refyular files while the MBL is sent off for repair or are all the files held in an archive.  I’ve not got to use the safepoint back-up yet because I simply don’t have the required “lump of free storage” to place a back-up of the MBL I’ve got.”

Yes. You can go to the target share where the safepoint is located and browse the sfepoint freely. It is under the WDPROT directory.

60

Just providing feedback. Not used the safepoint feature yet because I don’t yet have one large enough lump of free storage to accommodate one safepoint backup.  :cry: