Just purchased my WBL and am curious about the concepts involved and reasons why or why not to choose different setup options. Things like: When do you need to assign a ‘workgroup’?; Do you need to create users if this is a home network with only one real user?; etc. Could someone point me to articles or manuals that would help research this information? I’ve gone through the manuals on this site and they tell you how to fill in the blanks, not the consideration options or guidance for setting up the device to meet different objectives.
Well, I can’t point you to specific guides on that, but I can answer your questions.
1-> You need to assign a Workgroup ALL the time. This box ONLY works with Windows File Sharing, and a Workgroup is a requirement to work properly.
2-> The box runs Linux as its internal OS. In Linux, All files are mapped to a user. There’s a special user called GUEST, which is just set up to not require a specific USERID or PASSWORD. Anything that’s marked as Guest Accessible in the setup will be mapped to this special user. That’s a function handled by the way SAMBA is configured. (SAMBA, a/k/a CIFS is the protocol Microsoft uses to access files and printers on a network.)
Thanks for the quick response. On the user ?, is it correct to assume that a simple configuration would have sharable items in the ‘guest/public’ area and device backups, etc in a user specific area?
The MBL doesn’t support Apple Filing Protocol (except to facilitate Time Machine backups), but Macs support Windows File Sharing too, and the MBL will automatically show up in Finder under the Shared section.
