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Readyshare not working Windows 10.
I'm tired of waiting on the SMB1 fix. Am I missing something or wouldn't it be easier if Netgear simply added support for an additional user (other than guest and admin)?
Well I'm confused by the responses, so you may be right. ;-)
I'm talking about ethernet access over the LAN to readyshare on the router; no SSID involved. When a user attempts to mount the \\readyshare\folder, Windows prompts for username/password. Entering admin/password works; entering guest with no password does not.
Several readyshare folders are set up. An ADMIN folder for admin only access; an RO folder for readonly access by "All - no password" (i.e. guests), and an RW folder for full access by guests.
This used to work for guests. Now it does not. If guest without password is the problem, then a "user" account with a password would seem to be an alternative.
When I mount the drive as "admin", I provide the admin password assigned to the router. Thus, if the router also supported a "user" account, then the users could mount the drive as "user" and provide the user password assigned to the router.
Does this make sense?
OK, more clarity in what you want to do.
I've got my USB drive set up with TWO shares. The share for the ROOT of the drive with is P/W protected but has access to the entire drive. In that drive I have a folder on the root called SHARE and a sub-folder in it called VIDEO which contains many sub-folders of ripped DVD's, that \SHARE\VIDEO is NOT P/W protected. So I now have 2 sharenames for the USB drive, \\R8000 which is the root (192.168.1.1) and \\R8000\SHARE.
Now on my PC only is a Credentiai for the Router (192.168.1.1) that contains the UID and P/W for the router \\R8000 share. My PC has complete access to the drive, however, other PC's and devices don't as they don't know the UID and PW. Now I'm using DLNA Server on the router and therefore the \\R8000\SHARE since it has NO CREDENTIALS needed can be used by the SmartTV's to show the DVD's as can a DLNA Client on the PC's, Phones, and iPad's. I think you might have been asking how to do that (Read the Manual as well).
My understanding is the DLNA is only readonly access of media files. I have both readonly and readwrite shares needing access to all files (not just media files).
My real interest here is whether my proposal is reasonable?
1) If the guest account was replaced with a "user" account that has a password, then users could access shares by entering the credentials (and SMB1 would no longer be the issue; just as SMB1 does not seem to be an issue with admin/pw).
2) In your opinion, would you agree this would be easier to address than whatever issues remain with trying to address SMB1?
If so, what's the best way to get Netgear's attention? e.g. is there someone in the community that has some leverage with them?
Let us make this easy.
First, what you want to do can't be done now... that is 3 different levels of access... ADMIN with ALL, USER with some (w/pw) and Guest with less access and no pw.
Present design allows 2 choices, p/w protect or not.
You are looking for a function that most FTP sites would have, a user name and password restricting access to specific folder.
There IS a SUGGESTION area in this site, https://community.netgear.com/t5/Idea-Exchange-For-Home/idb-p/idea-exchange-for-home, but I would hold my breathe on any progress or even an answer. Seems to almost be 'black hole' (https://community.netgear.com/t5/Idea-Exchange-For-Home/A-great-idea-Act-Upon-Ideas/idi-p/1774561#M2457 ).
Only NG people here have an 'N' icon on the name, all others are plain old end-users like you.
Bottom line, 2 types of USB accounts, one with a p/w and the other with none. The one with the p/w you can set to be the entire drive and read/write access to it. Others, by share name you can assign with no p/w to specific folders (or sub-folders) on the drive. So you have have \\drivename\pictures, \\drivename\movies, \\drivename\games, \\drivename\programs, etc., but there would be no restriction to access.
If all you want it an FTP style, then use FTP for the USB drive. You never mentioned your Router, so find the MANUAL in SUPPORT above and read it how to set up FTP. The implementation though is just like normal sharing. That is only 2 types, protected by p/w or not. I guess you could create as many different protected shares as you wanted, but only tell the one you want to use a specific share the share name and p/w. Of course, that might be totally useless as they would ALL have the same p/w (see, even to implement your 'suggestion' one might need X users, not just one, depending on how many different 'people' you wanted to support) and anyone with some level of knowledge how to see shares (like use Windows Explorer) could see all of them and by 'luck' try the same p/w and get in.
By the way, most residential routers operate like this. My old ASUS does, the NG R8000 and R7000 does, and in an even worse setup, my Archer A20 does (worse that is has ONE share name for both USB drives).
I would keep it at 2 levels of access; i.e. root and non-root, where non-root supports "user"/pw. And while I have no interest in guest access, I expect Netgear would likely continue to support it for backward compatibility; i.e. users could connect with "user"/pw -or- if they're not running into the SMB1 guest issue, they could connect using "guest" without password.
Thanks for the links, once this thread goes dormant I'll go ahead and submit something and we'll see what happens.
I have little concern regarding the "user" password being leaked; i.e. it's simply a replacement for the guest access which does not have one.
However, having said that, I would still like to be able to set the user password and be able to disable the "guest" access; i.e. while a shared password is poor security, I'd consider it a step above no password.