Jack Wallen guides you to better storage by creating a network share in openmediavault.
The openmediavault platform is an outstanding option for deploying network attached storage on your network. It’s open-source, free, flexible and very reliable. This cost-effective solution allows administrators to create a robust storage system for any size business.
The only thing about openmediavault is that it takes a bit of work to get everything up and running. Of course, installing openmediavault can be done quickly and easily, but once that’s done, you still have a few steps to follow.
One of the most important tasks is creating network shares. After all, you want your users to be able to access this storage device in familiar ways, such as using their operating system’s file manager. And that’s why I’m going to walk you through the process of creating a network share in openmediavault.
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What you will need
The only things you need to take care of are a running instance of openmediavault and a user with administrator privileges.
How to create a network share
Create a shared folder
Before creating the network share, we need to create a shared folder first. To do this, log in to openmediavault and click on Storage | Shared folders. In the resulting window (Figure A), give it a name, select the file system, set permissions, add an optional comment, and click Save.
Figure A
Access the sharing page
Log in to openmediavault and expand Services in the left sidebar. Next, expand SMB/CIFS, then click Shares (Figure B).
Figure B
Create the share
In the resulting window (Figure C), click + to create a new share.
Figure C
Fill in the necessary information for sharing (Figure D), making sure to select the new shared folder you created earlier. Read through all the options to make sure you’re applying the necessary configurations for how you need your share to work and be accessible.
Figure D
Once you’ve configured sharing, click Save. You will then be prompted to apply the changes (Figure E).
Figure E
You’ll also need to make sure to create users in openmediavault (which I described in How to add users and groups in openmediavault), otherwise users won’t be able to authenticate to shares.
How to access shares
How you access shared folders depends on the operating system you are using. For example, on Pop!_OS, I open File Manager and go to Other Locations, where I’ll see all my openmediavault shares (Figure F).
Figure F
Congratulations, you have just created a network share accessible to anyone on your network with an account on openmediavault. These users can start storing and retrieving files to and from your NAS.
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