Web browser access/drive mapping to WD My Cloud EX2

Legacy Products My Cloud OS 3
1

In the immortal words of Mugatu, “I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.”

Yesterday I received and setup a My Cloud EX2, and it works wonderfully when I’m on my home network. Just great! However, I can’t seem to access it remotely as the documentation lead me to believe I could. What I am trying to do is what is reflected in steps 9 and 10 of this how-to:  http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/10623/~/how-to-remotely-access-a-wd-my-cloud-personal-cloud-drive

I realize this doc specifically references My Cloud, but is it really possilbe that the fancier, more expensive, prosumer EX2 version lacks such a valuable feature?

When I try to log in through the website, I see my device, but when I click on it (even expanding the menu and clicking “View Shares”) I’m redirected to this page:  https://www.wd2go.com/jsp/webdav.jsp?deviceType=WD_MY_CLOUD_EX2

Frustrating!

Now I’m going down a rabbit hole of Dynamic DNS, port forwarding, DHCP reservations, and trying to weigh the pros/cons of SSH/SFTP versus VPN. This is not what I thought I was getting myself into with something billed as such a plug n’ play device. Still excited about the potential payoff though.

What am I missing? How do others access EX2 remotely?

Thanks!

Joe

2

Your mistake was in assuming that the My Cloud device is similar to My Cloud EX2. They have very different firmwares and what works in My Cloud often won’t work in EX2 and vice-versa.

I won’t be able to help you much with your specific questions as I never enabled the cloud features - I use sftp to access my device remotely. BTW, sftp access is not possible on the EX2 except for the admin user (I cannot even remember now since it’s been almost 8 months when I got my EX2 and hacked the firmware for SFTP access but I believe even admin access sftp won’t work by default - because the sftp server is not turned on by default).

3

Thanks for the response. I’m a little bummed, becuase all the info I could find prior to purchase said the only differences between the My Cloud EX2 and the My Cloud Mirror were the color (obviously) and the EX2 support for iSCSI.

But yes, my mistake.

So (to your knowledge), does the My Cloud Mirror allow the drives to easily be mapped remotely as shown in the how-to article I mentioned? If so I might think about returning the EX2 and getting the Mirror.

I am leaning against messing with SFTP at all, but I am looking into creating a VPN to allow remote access to my home network. Any obvious reason why that wouldn’t work with the EX2 as a device on the LAN? (I know I’m getting away from the device into networking, but I’m just trying to determine if this is going to be a usable product for me.)

Thanks!

Joe

4

joecbloom wrote:

…becuase all the info I could find prior to purchase said the only differences between the My Cloud EX2 and the My Cloud Mirror were the color (obviously) and the EX2 support for iSCSI.

Actually, between My Cloud Mirror and EX2 there is very small hardware difference (I believe the chip is different) and also very minor difference in firmware…for most part their firmware are nearly identical.

joecbloom wrote:

So (to your knowledge), does the My Cloud Mirror allow the drives to easily be mapped remotely as shown in the how-to article I mentioned? If so I might think about returning the EX2 and getting the Mirror.

 

Actually, the article you mentioned is for My Cloud and not My Cloud Mirror. My Cloud does have a very different firmware than Mirror and EX2. So if you want a device that does what the article you linked to does, you need to get the (single-drive) My Cloud, which in my opinion is vastly inferiror to My Cloud Mirror or My Cloud EX2…but YMMV.

I have seen another post here not too long ago by someone else wishing to use their Mirror (or maybe it was EX2) as a device to tunnel in and have remote desktop access to all computers on his network, just like a discontinued line of Windows server based HP NAS that he already owned…and I told him as far as I knew, that’s going to be impossible, if not extremely difficult. My answer to you about a VPN is the same. You won’t be able to access your home network too easily via access to your EX2 (though it may be possible but I have not tried on my EX2 to mount Windows drives shared on the network to be mounted onto the EX2 via SSH using CIFS mounting). And if that works (a very big IF), then you can enable SSH access from outside (and then setup port forwarding on port 22 on your router) to access volumes on other Windows computers…IF the CIFS mounting works on EX2…on normal Linux computers you can mount CIFS volumes but the BusyBox shell restricts access and also EX2’s firmware has limited network access drivers loaded in it so it may not be possible at all for CIFS volume mounting). But all thisis too complex for many folks. I am not sure why you are looking to access other computers on your network anyway (as in a VPN functionality) via the EX2 because that is not a NAS’ expected functionality.

However, on your other question about easily mapped drives remotely, you can do that easily using WebDAV but will require port forwarding on your router - but that is a very simple step. WebDAV client is already built into Windows explorer (since at least Windows XP if not earlier) so you have all that you need. You should look through the settings on your dashboard to see how to enable it, and after enabling it setup the port forwarding and after that setup the WebDAV mapped folders in Windows explorer. Google for steps on the third part. Best of all you can enable WebDAV access using HTTPS, which provides secure encrypted access. Search on this EX2 subforum - there is a thread about it (with comments from another user Vertech1 and me).

Another alternate way to access files on your EX2 remotely from just a browser would be to use the Web File Viewer app built into the dashboard - but in order to use it, you have to enable dashboard cloud access in the dashboard settings. And also enable router port forwarding on port 80 to the EX2. Just be aware that by doing so you are opening the server to outside access over the standard web port (80) but as long as you and your users create 8 or more character passwords, you will be fine. But no matter how you setup remote access, anytime you open your NAS for outside access, you open it to others as well…so it is important to safeguard access with strong passwords.

If this info helps you a bit, please click the star under my username to the left of this post (or the previous post) to give me a kudo.

1 Like
5

Thanks very much for the detailed response. What I’ve actually decided to do is return the EX2 and turn my focus to the newtorking problem first (by investing in a router that can function as a VPN server to grant remote access to my LAN), and then come back to the storage problem once I have that working properly.

It may be the case that I’ll be better suited by a less sophisticated storage device (perhaps even a simple external HDD plugged into my router via USB 3.0) once I have the remote access configuration the way I want it.

Thanks again.

6

Of all the countless posts and replies I read here, your reply stands out as one of the rare, well-thought out and smart decisions. I applaud your decision. Indeed, if VPN functionality was my primary requirement, that is the path I would have taken too - that is return the NAS for now and focus on the VPN first. And then down the road even a simple router-attached USB drive could function as a basic NAS.

7

Wow, thanks for the kind words! Quite a compliment, and I’m glad to know I’m going in a good direction.

And thanks again for the guidance.