Dear readers,
Since a few weeks I’m the owner of a WD My Cloud device. It all works fine, except that I’m not able to acces the device using its network name (for example to map it as a drive). I can use the IP-address, so \abc.def.ghi.jkl\Public will work, but \WDMyCloud\Public doesn’t work.
Because I cannot and don’t want to assign a static IP address to the device, this is a rather annoying issue. I cannot assign a static IP because I’m not the network administrator and the network will not allow it. I also don’t want it, because the drive frequently migrates between networks and will also be connected directly using Ethernet cable to a computer. Therefore, it is necessary to use the device name instead of the IP address.
To resolve the issue, I have already reset the device and tried with another network name, but this doesn’t help. Other devices in the network are accessible using their network name.
Can anyone help me with this issue?
Thanks in advance and best,
Niels
I’m assuming you’re on a corporate or business network if you’re on a network to which you are not an administrator.
I then further assume that your PC is not configured and won’t be allowed to use NetBIOS broadcasts name lookups, or that the NAS and the PC are on separate IP subnetworks.
If that’s the case, then you’re out of luck. You’ll have no choice but to use IP-address based connections.
These things aren’t an “issue,” really, as the NASes really aren’t designed or intended to be used on networks that are set up like that. This isn’t a concern for home users.
If you don’t have access to the network setups then there’s nothing can be done except requesting from the network admin. You could use host file though, but need to update them as and when the ip changes…
Thank you for your replies,
However, instead of accepting it doen’t work, I would rahter try to resolve the issue, since it should work. The computers with which I have tried to access it are not restricted in any way. Computers and NAS are in the same subnet, but is doesn’t work on any network, not even when using a direct crossover ethernet cable.
Even for being a home user, I would rather navigate to the device name instead of the ip-address. Therefore I would be very happy if you can help me with a solution!
Best,
Niels
Have you tried doing a full reset? The 40secs reset method as stated in the manual. But before that, can you ping/traceroute the hostname wdmycloud from your pc? What’s your PC/MyCloud dns suffix (PC = ipconfig, NAS = hostname -A)? If both the same you should be able to do \wdmycloud.yourdnssuffix.foo.bar.
I find it weird as you mentioned earlier that the mycloud would “be connected directly using Ethernet cable to a computer”. Why not port it into any spare switch and let the what ever wins dns server on your domain handle the configs? Reason due your computer which is connected directly to the mycloud would be responsible assigning ip and dns caching locally via netbios only and this without proper routing won’t be visible to other computers.
A tracert to wdmycloud results in the message that the computer is unable to resolve the target system name wdmycloud. There is no internal dns server present in the network, therefore, the dns suffix is empty.
By the way, isn’t it a little bit strange that a post suggesting that the reason might be buggy software is censored? It is not impossible that the one who wrote it is right. Or was it removed by him/herself?
Niels
Log into your nas, do a smbtree, do you see any of the pc in the network? If no, netbios will not work in your setup. Just stick with ip, use lmhosts or hosts file.
BTW I don’t think it’s a buggy software to be censored. This is pure samba on debian arm distro. To isolate issue, connect the nas to another network ie. home based router.
nielsje wrote:
By the way, isn’t it a little bit strange that a post suggesting that the reason might be buggy software is censored?
If you’re talking about Eli’s previous post; ALL of his posts were deleted when he was banned…again.
It was just his typical practice of spamming 20–30 threads that have nothing to do with firmware bugs with his pointless ranting.
Anyway, can you do a traceroute to this name:
wdmycloud.local
(with that domain name at the end.)
If not, then the drive is reachable via “Multicast” DNS, which most PCs support, as does the My Cloud. (It has an mDNS responder built-in.)
However, mDNS doesn’t work for Share connection requests, usually only for pings, HTTP requests, etc.
If you cannot connect via hostname for shares, then something has disabled your NetBIOS Name Lookup on your PC; could be a firewall, could be configuration of your PC’s network stack, etc…
What happens with these two commands:
nbtstat -a wdmycloud
nbtstat -A (ip address of your mycloud)
If the first returns an error, but the second works, then there’s definitely something blocking NetBIOS name requests.
Well, nbtstat for wdmycloud resutls in an error, while it doesn’t for the IP. sot it seems there is something wrong with the NetBIOS name requests, aldough name requests for other machines do work… Strange…
Anyway thanks for your help everyone. if someone has an idea how to solve the NetBIOS problem, please let me know.
Thanks and all the best,
Niels
Same problem here - our device - on a home network (192.168.1.0/24) is not detected by our pc’s (a couple of them)
Netbios is enabled and working as the other pc’s in the network are detected …
C:\Users\francis>nbtstat -a florastore05
Local Area Connection* 11:
Node IpAddress: [0.0.0.0] Scope Id: []
Host not found.
Local Area Connection 8:
Node IpAddress: [0.0.0.0] Scope Id: []
Host not found.
Local Area Connection:
Node IpAddress: [192.168.1.110] Scope Id: []
NetBIOS Remote Machine Name Table
Name Type Status
---------------------------------------------
FLORASTORE05 <00> UNIQUE Registered
FLORASTORE05 <03> UNIQUE Registered
FLORASTORE05 <20> UNIQUE Registered
FLORANDA <00> GROUP Registered
FLORANDA <1E> GROUP Registered
MAC Address = 00-00-00-00-00-00
C:\Users\francis>nbtstat -A 192.168.1.36
Local Area Connection* 11:
Node IpAddress: [0.0.0.0] Scope Id: []
Host not found.
Local Area Connection 8:
Node IpAddress: [0.0.0.0] Scope Id: []
Host not found.
Local Area Connection:
Node IpAddress: [192.168.1.110] Scope Id: []
NetBIOS Remote Machine Name Table
Name Type Status
---------------------------------------------
FLORASTORE05 <00> UNIQUE Registered
FLORASTORE05 <03> UNIQUE Registered
FLORASTORE05 <20> UNIQUE Registered
FLORANDA <00> GROUP Registered
FLORANDA <1E> GROUP Registered
MAC Address = 00-00-00-00-00-00
