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Accessing a Western Digital ShareSpace Drive

J

JoelBC

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 16, 2012
1,057
104
I hope that there is a simple solution to this so here goes...

I have a WDShareSpace NAS...I have nave the device / NAS HomeNAS.

In WIndows 7 using Internet Explorer I can access the device from IE by entering the URL http://HomeNAS.

In OS X Mavericks using Chrome I can not access the device from Chrome by entering the URL http://HomeNAS (i.e chrome times out).

Know that you know the problem please tell me how to fix it so that I can access the device from with Chrome by entering the above noted URL.

Two points:

1. I know that I can acess the drive using the IP adress from using Mavericks and Chrome but I want to be able to use the device name.

2. What is strange is that I can access the device using OS X Mavericks + Parallels + IE which leads me to believe that it is a Chrome issue.

TIA,


Joel
 
Does your WD NAS support AFP protocol by any chance? This should usually be accompanied with also advertising the service via Bonjour - the Zeroconf Networking of which Windows doesn't give a damn.
 
priitv8 said:
Does your WD NAS support AFP protocol by any chance? This should usually be accompanied with also advertising the service via Bonjour - the Zeroconf Networking of which Windows doesn't give a damn.
Click to expand...

A few points:

1. Yes, the drive does support AFP and I have no issues connecting to the drive...in fact, a wired connection works seamlessly all the time even though a wireless connection can be dodgy.

2. The reason for wanting to access it via a web browser is strictly for purposes of configuring the drive. I can, as noted above, drop into Parallels to d this but it should would be nice to do it directly from Mavericks + Chrome.

3. I am beginning to wonder whether it is actually a Mavericks issue as Safari has the same problem but, then again, why does it work from within Parallels?

All very confusing to me though I would like to both fix and understand the problem.

Thanks,


Joel
 
Okay, now I got your point!
My D-Link NAS also knows to advertise it's HTTP admin page via Bonjour for this exact purpose. Check in WD forums or knowledge base if this can be configured.
You need to enable Bonjour bookmarks in Safari preferences to bring them to the toolbar.
If you have console access to your NAS this should be doable by adding to Avahi config file.
Avahi is opensource Bonjour implementation for Linux, that most of these NASes seem to use.
 
priitv8 said:
Okay, now I got your point!
My D-Link NAS also knows to advertise it's HTTP admin page via Bonjour for this exact purpose. Check in WD forums or knowledge base if this can be configured.
You need to enable Bonjour bookmarks in Safari preferences to bring them to the toolbar.
If you have console access to your NAS this should be doable by adding to Avahi config file.
Avahi is opensource Bonjour implementation for Linux, that most of these NASes seem to use.
Click to expand...

Appreciate the response...hopefully someone will come up with an extension / solution for Chrome as it is frustrating, especially when it works in Windows!

Thanks,

Joel
 
priitv8 said:
Windows uses UPnP for service discovery, not Zeroconf (aka Bonjour).
PS Can't you just solve the locating of WD's configuration webpage by simply bookmarking it in your browser?
Click to expand...

I may be misunderstanding you but I don't think that will work because the issue is NOT that Chrome is blocking the address / url but rather that Chrome is not resolving the address / URL.

If I am misunderstanding something or I am wrong please correct me.

Thanks,


Joel
 
JoelBC said:
...but rather that Chrome is not resolving the address / URL.
Click to expand...
Yes, that's what I was trying to say. Normally you use a DNS service to resolve a hostname to IP address. That's not practical for home networks, that's why Apple invented the Multicast-DNS that they applied a RFC for and has since been standardised by IETF as Zeroconf/Bonjour. All OS X computers use this technology to resolve local hostnames into IP addresses, without any manual intervention.
Windows, on the other hand, has gone it's own way - the UPnP. It does the same thing but differently, thus they are 2 incompatible ways to solve the same task.
For you to get a hostname resolved into IP address without the help of mDNS, UPnP or regular DNS service, your only option is to add the resolution into local /etc/hosts file on your Mac (or bookmark the IP in your browser, if it's a web page).
 
priitv8 said:
Yes, that's what I was trying to say. Normally you use a DNS service to resolve a hostname to IP address. That's not practical for home networks, that's why Apple invented the Multicast-DNS that they applied a RFC for and has since been standardised by IETF as Zeroconf/Bonjour. All OS X computers use this technology to resolve local hostnames into IP addresses, without any manual intervention.

Windows, on the other hand, has gone it's own way - the UPnP. It does the same thing but differently, thus they are 2 incompatible ways to solve the same task.

For you to get a hostname resolved into IP address without the help of mDNS, UPnP or regular DNS service, your only option is to add the resolution into local /etc/hosts file on your Mac (or bookmark the IP in your browser, if it's a web page).
Click to expand...

Appreciate the response and note the following:

1. I don't understand the "network protocol piece" as it is above my understanding.

2. I would appreciate you explaining to me how to bookmark the IP in Chrome as I cannot see how / where this can be done.

Thanks in advance,


Joel
 
2. Just enter the
http://the.ip.addr.ess/ (like http://192.168.0.10/ or whatever it is)
of the NAS into Chrome's address bar, press Enter and add it to bookmarks. Have you bookmarked any websites in your browser? Do the same, just now we have IP address on the address bar instead of hostname. For previously discussed reasons.
 
priitv8 said:
2. Just enter the
http://the.ip.addr.ess/ (like http://192.168.0.10/ or whatever it is)
of the NAS into Chrome's address bar, press Enter and add it to bookmarks. Have you bookmarked any websites in your browser? Do the same, just now we have IP address on the address bar instead of hostname. For previously discussed reasons.
Click to expand...

I know how to bookmark I just did not understand what you are saying...

I know this to be a workaround but would really like to find a solution, hopefully one will be found in the future.

Thanks.
 
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