My **MyBookLive** Notes

My old MyBook World 1 TB NAS drive is dying. It froze on a daily basis. So I bought this new external drive called MyBookLive 1 TB. Nice device, it has a GigE interface but no USB.

Most cases, the first thing I do on any smart device (running linux - like a smartphone) is to hack into it, enable SSH and a bunch of stuff I want to. And then look for guidance in the web about removing some unwanted processes ( like the Mionet Java on MyBook world - replacing it with a thin apache ).


Although a few notes for the external network drive users ,

a) Enable the web password. i.e. http://mybooklive , in the Users page , set a password for admin user.
b) Disable DHCP and set a static address. I did this on the Mybookworld to make NFS work all the time. But this time around, I think this is another way to secure the device. Static IP choice gives you an option to mention a DNS server - I entered a bad address here .. Something in the non-routable IP segment and never up. This way, mybookworld live will never be able to resolve a URL's FQDN thus preventing any hacker code to connect the internet unless they use IPs instead of names.
c) Setup a firewall policy on your router - It varries depending on what kind of Wireless router you are plugged into. Linkys can have a policy to block all internet access to a given IP address, I do this for my Mybook live system.

Upgrading firmware ::

You will have to Undo both Step "b" and Step "c" to upgrade the firmware using the web interface. A better option will be to download the firmware from WD website onto your laptop and apply from there.

Basically, don't let your External NAS at home get out of your LAN. Put them in your local Subnet Jail.

I just learned ( Thanks bloggers ) a trick to enable SSH

Goto http://mybookworld OR the IP. go to  Settings -> Utilities -> Import / Export Current Configuration

Export it to a text file, open it from unix, edit and enable this line

ssh_enable="disabled", change to ssh_enable="enabled"

Once done, import this configuration file. This will reboot the system, now first thing you want to do is login as root/welc0me using an ssh client and change the root password to something only you know.

Have fun ......

Samba on Mybook live isn't as stable as  the one I had on the Mybook world. I am looking for a stable version. Once done, I will update the blog on directions to upgrade to the new version.