Public Share leaves files vulnerable?

WD Legacy Products My Book Live
1

I bought the WD MBL to share music, pictures, documents with friends and family, but I am concerned the public folder leaves my photo and music archive vulnerable to people makeing changes to files, or even accidentally deleting some.  I understand the ability to have read only files, but can’t seem to find that option for the public share.  I could create a private share and then sare the files as read only, however having these files in the public share is nessicary to access them from my other divices.  Am I missing an easy solution?

2

There is an easy solution but it requires enabling SSH on the MyBook Live to gain access to the MyBook Live’s (will be referred to as “MBL”) Linux command prompt.  I’m assuming you’re using Windows. I’m not a MAC expert. I don’t have any Apple branded equipment to my name.

  • Login to the Linux shell using the user-name and password revealed to you when you enabled SSH.

  • Issue the following command which loads an easy to use text editor:  nano /etc/samba/overall_share

  • Find . . . .

    BEGIN ## sharename = Public

    [Public]
    path = /shares/Public
    comment = Public share
    public = yes
    browseable = yes
    writable = yes
    guest ok = yes
    map read only = no

    END

  •  Change this to . . . .

    [Public_for_admin]
    path = /shares/Public
    comment = Public share (admin)
    browseable = yes
    invalid users =
    valid users = admin
    read list =
    write list = admin
    map read only = no

    BEGIN ## sharename = Public

    [Public]
    path = /shares/Public
    comment = Public share
    public = yes
    browseable = yes
    writable = no
    guest ok = yes
    map read only = no

    END

  • When done editing press the CTRL/X keyboard combination, remember to save the altered file.

  • Issue the following command which loads an easy to use text editor:  nano /etc/vsftpd.conf

  • Only add the following two lines to the end of this configuration file and change nothing else . . . .

    deny_file=Public
    hide_file=Public

  • When done editing press the CTRL/X keyboard combination, remember to save the altered file.

  • Issue the following command:  /etc/init.d/vsftpd reload

  • Press the key combination CTRL/D to end the Linux session.

If **MyBookLive.local** does not work then try MyBookLive or the IP address of your MBL.

A firmware upgrade will undo the changes to vsftpd.  The changes to Samba will survive a firmware upgrade.  My MBL is working happily with such a custom configuration and has been for a number of months.

FTP will not allow access to any directory named Public and the network share Public will be read/only while Public_for_admin is read/write ONLY for the admin user.

On your router DO NOT route port 22 to the Internet !!!

Now you have read the instructions from start to end, if there is anything you don’t understand then please do ask and don’t just dive blindly into the back end of the MBL and make changes if there is ANYTHING you do not understand.