Help! How can I Mount Network Share with a GUI

Support & Help Requests
#1

I need to do backups and have a WD NAS connected to my home router.
I see various Sync and backup programs cannot easily access the NAS shares like the File Manager can.
I am looking for an easy way to mount a share, so that automated backups always have access to the share.
Any solution needs to be easy to use for any home user with no IT training.

#2

Hallo

Just one more thing to take into consideration…

Having a “file-server” permanently on-line makes sense, however, your backup drives should only be connected during the backup process. Otherwise an “encryption-attack” (syn. Ransomware) would take out your backups.

Fully automated backups are best left to professionals, or those with the same level of knowledge. That’s my humble opinion. :slight_smile:

1 Like
#3

Thanks. Good point.
Now if I wanted to manually initiate a sync of my files I still need to mount the share. And it seems that this is not available to normal users. Unless someone knows of an easy way.

#4

Hallo ianp5a

Have you tried “GRsync”?

This might be helpful:

also:

I don’t have experience of what you’re trying to do, so that’s about as far as I can help. :slight_smile:

#5

Hi @alpinejohn,

I’m not an expert at an IT level so I hesitate to attempt to cover every situation. But I can offer the following which I use to backup my own systems.

I do it the other way around. The backup machine initiates the backup operation. The user does nothing. Here’s how…

SSH is a handy tool to use for lots of things. When setup properly with keys on all the machines they can access each other without passwords. In fact, this is considered the most secure authentication method.

The rsync command can include -e ssh to use SSH. This allows the rsync command to specify the source directory for a backup as: user@host/path

Of course, I already have an account on every machine so there’s no setup for my situation. This is where I’d fizzle out in a real IT environment. I also setup rsync years ago and not up on it at the moment.

Just my 2 cents. User mounting is something I avoid.

#6

Thanks. I’ve tried those 2 and many more. Neither let you select anything on the network.

#7

Bill, thanks.
I’d happily avoid mounting the network share if possible.
Backups have to be done by home users. And it looks like, if I understood it right, that your method would be far too complicated. Unless there is a nice GUI to do that?