I got one of these, installed it on my network, and found that it was not as
advertised at all. You are supposed to be able to create user accounts and
shares on it, and the users are supposed to be able to put files on it and
retrieve them. It is also supposed to support command line
FTP.
It does none of this.
None of the users but Admin can put files on it. Command line FTP doesn't
work at all. You can login, but that's all. If you try to list files on it,
it will lock up. If you try to transfer files to it it will either lock up
or disconnect you. Some FTP server, eh?
I've written and called Linksys support, which, sadly, turns out to be in
India, and have yet to get a solution to the issues despite all the hours
spent on the phone with them. All my users can do with this NAS is retrieve
files from it, so I have to back their files up myself, via FTP to the
servers at work. This is laborious, and a hassle.
If command line FTP worked on this thing I could at least write a job that
would automate the backups to the NAS, but it doesn't. In my opinion this
product was rushed to market before it was ready and with inadequate
testing.
Another limitation of this NAS and the Linksys router is that you can only
put one NAS on your network owing to shortcomings in both the NAS and the
router.
On the router you can only put one IP in the DMZ exposed to the internet, so
you can't get another NAS online for users. On the NAS the login script
cannot be renamed, (it's in firmware) so if you could put two of them on the
LAN and get them into the DMZ, they would both be serving up the same login
script, which isn't going to work.
The NAS has a print server in it, but I've not tried that out yet. After the
disappointments I've had so far with this thing, I don't think I want to try
it either.
The support of this device leaves much to be desired as well. At one time,
having failed to get resolutions to the issues on the phone I resorted to
the chat support utility on the Linksys web page, and when the guy on the
other end couldn't address my questions he rudely disconnected me. He also
lied to me, saying that I would have to have a VPN for remote web access,
which I found out was not at all true.
I am told by one of the kids in India that *perhaps* a fix for the issues
will be forthcoming in the next version of the firmware for the EFG120 in
*maybe* one or two months. They are also pretty badly trained. Most
questions I asked them they had to ask someone else after putting me on
hold.
--
Amy Lewis
OpenVMS Systems Administrator
Information Technology Services
University of San Francisco
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