Question about setting up nas for linux.

I see routers set up to work with an external drive plugged into its usb port to share files over your network, I would like to do this with my linux systems to be able to use it as an automatic backup device/ file sharing. Im new to linux. Do I need a special router for this? Can I just get one off amazon and all should be good or do I need one setup specifically to work with linux systems?

Thanks in advance.

Hello and welcome to LQ.

Not sure I fully get your question.

Many routers have this ability. Not all have usb. The ones that do have usb in many cases can be used under stock firmware to access the usb. Some could run an open sourced OS to provide various types of support for usb.

Now as to using linux on a dedicated or VM to use as a nas then that is quite normal. Things like Freenas and others are pre-built for that task. Really almost any distro could do that.

To backup computers in a sort of Ghost way I'd look to Bacula.

Otherwise you will have to explain to us (or at least me) more.

Thanks for the reply. It looks like these routers just have you plug in your hard drive to it and then you have access to it through whatever devices are attached. I just didn't know if I would have to do anything special with whatever software that manages this on the router or if these systems just work well across the board with windows, Mac and Linux. I'm new to this so sorry if this all seems obvious to most.

Usually routers with this functionality provide a samba service to support file sharing (for multi-OS environments).

FWIW, at the start of this year I set up a Raspberry Pi NAS (using DietPi) to share files on my home LAN, including photos and videos taken over the years. I also have an Emby server running on it.

So, it will just look like a network mount - in Linux as well. However I doubt it will do "automatic backup device/ file sharing" for you. You can, of course, do that from each of your Linux systems - maybe even set one up as a server to manage it for everyone.

I looked at it once, but I wanted more control, so instead I dug up an old no longer used stand-alone NAS and hacked that to have a modern Linux I could setup as I wanted. But to answer your question, plug a disk in the router and it should "just work".

Check the router's manual or its Web configuration setup. Some router's require you to setup a share/password.

In addition you might have to specify smb version since recent samba versions and windows no longer default to smb 1.0