OpenWrt and Android devices

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Hi,
I am a newbie with Android and I have to learn a lot as it become more and more popular.
My home network has a Syslink WRT32X router with OpenWRT and a USB HDD connected. My boxes are all Opensuse 15.x and I use NFS to access the HDD.
Question:
What are the protocols I can use to access (r/w) the HDD from my Android 10/11, non rooted and rooted?

I have read that SAMBA is working but I am not too keen of it (all linux boxes). If you have experience, Is there other possibilities?
Thanks

2

There is an app called Syncthing-Fork. If your data set is not too large it's a fast and convenient way to remotely access and exchange contents between multiple devices. There is also a yt video that shows how to set it up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYHQzqSjKWQ
Syncthing is cross platform, so runs on nearly all processor platforms (arm, amd, ...) so Windows, Linux, Android, Mac as well.

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3

ksmbd and luci-app-ksmb is a replacement of samba server for openwrt... fastest and simplest to configure !

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4

On the android device, the app Total Commander has a SMB filesystem option that works really well...

5

Thank you all for the info.

In Openwrt, there are 5 packages for SMB; I think I have to install 3 of them, luci-app-ksmbd, ksmbd-avahi-service, ksmbd-server, but what about ksmbd-utils and kmod-fs-ksmbd ?
With that, I'll try Total Commander in Android side.

  • What is a "not too large" data set? My HDD is 12TB almost full.
    Could you confirm that the app will stay sync in background even if I don't use it or don't access the remote data. This will wake up the remote HDD at regular time.
    Is there a way to sync only when I want to access the remote storage?
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It can stay working in the background, sync on schedule, when powered by ac and a lot of more options to combine including tasker triggered syncing. The HDD will wake up less when the scan interval and/or sync run conditions are configured accordingly. A higher scan interval won't wake disks so much. Syncthing uses a database , it grows when syncing a larger fileset. I wouldn't recommend syncing more than 80gb with your phone. The more you sync , the more ram gets used.

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I use the Solid File Explorer Android app using the SMB protocol. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.solidexplorer2

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File Manager+ (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alphainventor.filemanager&hl=en_US&gl=US) also works great on Android, the GUI is a bit more modern-ish than Total Commander and it works fine with SMB 3.1.1 using non AD authentication. Ads aren't really intrusive, I haven't seen any mentions of any adware/malware or anything shady yet.

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Syncthing (and Syncthing Fork) lets you specify folders to sync in their entirety to selected devices. You do not get to pick and choose. So unless you have a 12TB phone that will not work. It will start syncing and continue until you are out of space (almost).

I use Fork to keep everything on my phone duplicated on my computer. Photos, backups, etc. A small number of files the other way around. Using it for media is a PITA.

By the way I haven't tried it yet but I saw this cool looking github repo Myflix (instructions) which is basically the most minimal possible web interface slapped on a collection of videos to make it slightly more usable than straight up plain files. Depending how comfortable with editing scripts, you are it might be a nice touch.

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10

After reading, ksmbd looks to be the best way to access a shared NAS.
Unfortunartely, I didn't get any answer to my questions in the Ksmbd (Samba3/4 alternative, ex cifsd/smbd) package support thread.
Any help welcome.

I keep it a side for later to use it as backup. Thanks

11

You can also setup WebDAV and use https://github.com/phpbg/easysync

The solution has an advantage that you can use it over internet with a secure HTTPS