Ubuntu 20.04 not resolving local network hostnames

An Ubuntu 20.04 laptop installation started not being able to resolve the names of hosts in the same local network. Although the host names were registered with the router, the laptop wouldn't be able to resolve those host names. Surprisingly, neither netbios resolution worked (although nbtscan would find those hosts). The solution is to bypass … Continue reading Ubuntu 20.04 not resolving local network hostnames →

Samba anonymous shares

I'm currently writing up changes to the perfect, cheap NAS [1]. A major change is that I dropped support for user-level windows/samba shares and am using only a few public browsable shares. It turns out that Windows clients always ask the user for a password even though the samba share is anonymous. The reason seems … Continue reading Samba anonymous shares →

Ubuntu 20.04 getting wrong IP address

Yesterday (early August 2021) my Ubuntu 20.04 installation started configuring all network interfaces (wifi, ethernet) with IPv4 addresses from the wrong network segment block, namely 192.168.0.x. IPv6 still worked fine. I didn't figure out whether that's due to a change in the router or the OS (I suspect the router, because the situation improved when … Continue reading Ubuntu 20.04 getting wrong IP address →

Nautilus browsing large windows share is slow

When browsing large windows (samba) shares with Ubuntu Nautilus (that's the equivalent of the Windows File Explorer) I observed that shares which include many files and directories (a few hundred) take a few seconds to browse over WiFi, but almost instantly display over a fast LAN. A similar difference in speed is noticeable when searching … Continue reading Nautilus browsing large windows share is slow →

Building the perfect, cheap DIY NAS

This post was extensively discussed on Hacker News.Alex Buznik, nas.net.ua kindly provided a two-part Russian translation: part1 and part2. This post discusses hardware considerations, installing Linux, setting up software RAID, robustness and dealing with data corruption. I've been running for a decade a self-built NAS at home, so I thought I'd write down my experience … Continue reading Building the perfect, cheap DIY NAS →