How do we most easily set up a freeware network of Windows + Linux + iOS + Android file systems

[Arlen Holder]

How do we most easily set up a freeware network of Windows + Linux + iOS +
Android file systems

I admit, right off the bat, I'm a networking noob who has only used a
cross-platform network in a corporate environment, where everything just
works (by virtue of the IT Department).

Even on Windows, I generally have all the "sharing" turned off, simply
because I have never needed to network shared "public" folders (as I just
use sneaker net).

Hence, I ask for basic pointers on how best to set up a simple freeware
file-transfer home network, given this one very specific single situation
using the typical SOHO 192.168.1.1 router default setup, with no firewalls,
& only native OS neworking software.

1. I have 2 dual-boot PCs on a WiFi LAN with PC1 booted to Windows 10 Pro.
2. The second PC, PC2, is booted to Ubuntu 18.04 Desktop.
3. An iOS device, an iPad, is mounted over USB to PC2 via ifuse.
5. An Android device, a MotoG, is connected over USB to PC1.

My noob question is how do I set up the network such that either PC has
access to both the USB-connected Android and iOS visible file system?

[pjp]

In article <phjfa6$jhk$1...@news.mixmin.net>, arlen...@nospam.net
says...

I'm certainly no expert nor have I ever attempted what you are trying to
do.

That said it seems to me the two USB devices are simply not part of any
network when connected to a pc via a usb port. Instead they likely show
up as some sort of removable storage device. If that's the case you can
assign a drive letter to them and then share that drive letter across
your network may be the way to go. I don't own a phone except landline
so ignorant of your Android devices themselves.

One little extra when things don't work as you want, insure there's an
"Everyone" (add user if neccessary) when sharing the folder makes things
a lot easier and there's little to no extra risk if you are only peron
using the pcs. I usually have every network device I have has a "Temp"
folder open to everyone for both read and write but that's to facilitate
copying stuff across pcs.

[Mark Blain]

Arlen Holder <arlen...@nospam.net> wrote in
news:phjfa6$jhk$1...@news.mixmin.net:

I don't know about the iPad, but the Moto-G connects over USB using
"MTP", which makes it more difficult to share across a local network.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Transfer_Protocol
There are various workarounds like running a third-party FTP or
WebDAV server on the Android device, but I've yet to find one that
makes it easily accessible on the LAN and also allows read/write
access to both the internal memory and external SDCARD.

[Frank Slootweg]

As others have mentioned, making USB-connected devices show up as real
file systems, is hard to impossible.

For 5. it's probably best to use a Wi-Fi - not USB - connection, and
use FTPUSE on the Windows system (and something similar on the Linux
system) and a FTP server on the Android device.

OTOH, if the Android device is rooted, you can use a Samba server on
it and use normal (SMB) Network Shares from the Windows/Linux systems.

[Arlen Holder]

On 5 Jul 2018 19:25:58 GMT, Frank Slootweg wrote:

> As others have mentioned, making USB-connected devices show up as real
> file systems, is hard to impossible.

Thanks Frank for that helpful suggestion where I will need time to test out
the existing suggestions (e.g., the suggestion to assign the device to a
drive letter and then share that drive letter on Windows).

I'm hampered by the fact that I'm a noob at Windows networking, as I have
most of the networking (if not almost all) turned off by default so I admit
I don't even have "basic" networking working between computers, let alone
USB-connected devices added to that mix.

> For 5. it's probably best to use a Wi-Fi - not USB - connection, and
> use FTPUSE on the Windows system (and something similar on the Linux
> system) and a FTP server on the Android device.

As you are certainly well aware, I'm familiar with using Linux or Windows'
file explorers (or Filezilla or scp, etc.) to "open" up WiFi connected
devices where I use the F-Droid based FTP Server (free) tool for that
purpose on Android and a similar tool on the iOS devices.
<https://f-droid.org/en/packages/be.ppareit.swiftp_free/>

That works fine for networking Android, but on iOS it's problematic due to
the lack of visibility into the file system that the FTP apps generally
have.

> OTOH, if the Android device is rooted, you can use a Samba server on
> it and use normal (SMB) Network Shares from the Windows/Linux systems.

The "AndSMB" Android client is venerable:
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=lysesoft.andsmb>
But the specific Android & iOS devices for this question aren't rooted.

It's interesting that SMB clients do exist for iOS though:
<https://sourceforge.net/projects/smb4ios/>

And Linux has no problem with smbclient or the smb servers.

[nospam]

In article <phmc2v$81f$2...@news.mixmin.net>, Arlen Holder

<arlen...@nospam.net> wrote:

> I'm hampered by the fact that I'm a noob

yep.

although i can think of much more descriptive words.

[Arlen Holder]

On 6 Jul 2018 00:59:24 GMT, nospam wrote:

> although i can think of much more descriptive words.

*Yet again, nospam quips his fifth-grade "humor" all day, every day.*

The problem with utter morons like you, nospam, isn't so much that you're
incredibly stupid (which you are, since you can *never* answer any
technical question), nor is the problem that you're not only ignorant, but
purposefully unhelpful - but far worse - you actually seem to think you're
the most clever guy on the planet simply because you can quip your idiotic
fifth-grade jokes all day, every day.

Moving the technical ball forward, and noting the success in this thread:
What Windwos freeware adds powerful "phone Susan" & "vipw" commands?
<https://groups.google.com/d/msg/microsoft.public.windowsxp.general/ySVGbayhLSk/bo0hPS_6AwAJ>

We have both these commands working perfectly on Windows:
This brings up a ciphertext passwd file on Windows sans major compromise:
Start > Run > vipw {Enter}

This greps a plaintext database file on Windows for a given keyword:
Start > Run > phone susan {Enter}

The next steps will be to try to figure out how best to network those files
so that one password file and one database file serves all the compute
devices, whether they're Linux, Windows, Android or iOS.

What we want now, is to have a *single* encrypted passwd file for the LAN.
It would need to work with all machines & mobile devices on the LAN.

That (probably) requires some kind of central "server".

Perhaps that's the native SMB server inherent in Windows?
\\server\share\path\file.ext

Or perhaps that's some other server, e.g., ftp, or http?
http://192.168.1.10/path/file.htm

What do the cross-platform networking experts on this newsgroup think?

Now that we have the original tasks both successfully working perfectly on
the first pass on any given Windows machine, what is your astute
recommendation for consolidating both the passwd and data files as a single
file accesssed from all Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS machines on your
local LAN?

[MarkA]

Good luck with the Windows networking part. I hardly ever use Windows,
and I'm not familiar with their current networking model, which seems to
be incompatible with previous versions. My wife's laptop runs W10, and
even trying to get it to print to a printer on an older Windows computer
is a nightmare.

--
MarkA

Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are
putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it. -- Mark Twain

[Arlen Holder]

On 6 Jul 2018 14:38:17 GMT, MarkA wrote:

> Good luck with the Windows networking part. I hardly ever use Windows,
> and I'm not familiar with their current networking model, which seems to
> be incompatible with previous versions.

I tackle cross-platform problems all the time, where, in general, iOS is
the hardest because of its Orwellian design, and where Windows is far
better, as is Ubuntu.

In general, Ubuntu 18.04 "mounted" my Windows, Android, and iOS filesystems
the best, in my experience, without needing a shred of additional software
that didn't come during the typical initial installation process (despite
the well-proven iOS moron nospam's repeated whining trolls to the
contrary).

In general, we need a "common server" approach to networking, I think,
where FTP works fine to "mount" Android file systems but FTP doesn't work
well on iOS filesystems simply due to iOS' Orwellian restrictions.

The main "common server" that all the platforms can enjoy seems to be
"SMB", where Android requires rooting to access SMB ports properly (it
seems) where, again, Linux excels at both smbclient and smbserver
connections.

> My wife's laptop runs W10, and
> even trying to get it to print to a printer on an older Windows computer
> is a nightmare

It's amazing that many of us (Jonathan Little for example) have found that
adding "legacy printers" (such as the HP LasetJet 2100) to Linux is far
easier than doing the same task on a recent version of Windows 10!

To that end, we have a tribal knowledge Windows apnotes which may help you:
Tutorial for installing legacy printer on Windows 10
<http://alt.comp.os.windows-10.narkive.com/yKNzX4YR/quick-tutorial-for-installing-the-hewlett-packard-hp-laserjet-2100tn-printer-on-windows>