Because I struggled terribly getting the C2300 router, USB drive, to automatically mount on my Linux Mint PC  (Ubuntu Linux derivative), I wanted to share this info.  It is really easy to do, but I could not find the necessary documentation for this specific router.

 

Log onto the router (at 192.168.0.1 if still at the default IP address).  Go to USB sharing.  There is a Network/Media Server name.  I believe the default name is "C2300-Shares".  You can leave this as is and just modify my instructions to fit, or change its name to "volume1" as I did.  I will assume you will want to change the name to the same as mine to make following the instructions easier to follow.  [Just as a sanity check, If you change the name, you will see that the Network Neighborhood address changes to smb://volume1]

 

I plugged my USB drive into the USB3 port on the router.  No clue yet if this has significance.  What I can tell you, and what made this so difficult, IS THAT THE CONTENTS OF THE HARD DRIVE ARE NOT ADDRESSED AS "VOLUME1" (The name I Gave it!) but as "volume_a1"  I would be nice if they told us that in their reference material!  (I suspect that the "_a1"  is an abbreviation for sda1 basically the first partition of drive "a").  

 

Therefore you need to mount

//volume1/volume_a1/  or more specifically to this task //192.168.0.1/volume_a1/

 

Now you know the tricky part.  Everything else is easy and easily found elsewhere.  I will share the rest of the instructions however.

 

For those new to this stuff, to automount this USB drive, you add a singe line to the bottom of the /etc/fstab file (not to be confused with the fstab folder.  You will edit an fstab file in the etc filesystem folder.).  When you do this, the contents of the USB drive will appear in a "dummy folder" you create for this purpose.  You could put this anywhere, but to make your life easier, do as I do:  

 

Navigate to your /home folder.  Create a folder called RemoteMedia. (You may need administrator/root/super user (all the same)  privaledges to create it.   Do this by opening your file browser as root/superuser/administrator.  Often the easiest way to do this is in the terminal....  sudo <name of the brower program>.  Your file browser program will launch with root privaledges.  As an alternative sometimes right clicking inside the program will offer an option to open as an administrator, this is the same as super user)   Inside of RemoteMedia, create a folder NAS_USB. (NAS stands for Network Attached Storage which is of course, what this is.)   Change the permissions for the folder to make sure you are not locked out.  This is not hard, but since I am not good at the command line, you will need to identify your own file browser program and open it with root permissions.  (Open a terminal, type sudo <browser name> )  Browse over to Remote Media.  Right click properties, select permissions, make that RemoteMedia folder and NAS_USB folders part of your group.  You will find you login name as part of that long list of groups. Pick that one.  Give yourself and all others as many abilities as it lets you.

 

Almost done!   Open you text editor ( I use xed) as superuser otherwise you will not be able to edit this critical file.  Type sudo xed in the terminal to open as a super user.  This will allow you to do infinite damage to your system!  Be careful.  Open the "etc" folder in you file system.  Find and open the fstab folder.  Add the following 2 Lines to the bottom:

 

# This is a comment so I will remember that I added the below line to mount my router USB drive

//192.168.0.1/volume_a1/ /home/RemoteMedia/NAS_USB cifs vers=1.0,guest,uid=1000 0 0

[Side note…. For my Archer C8 it is //192.168.0.1/volume/ /home/RemoteMedia/NAS_USB cifs vers=1.0,guest,uid=1000 0 0 ]

 

Save the file.

 

Your choice.... reboot the computer OR open the terminal and type sudo mount -a 

 

If you navigate back to your dummy folder /homeRemoteMedia/NAS_USB , all of your USB files now appear in this folder.  You might also discover that NAS_USB appears in you list of "places" or there is an icon on your desktop already.

 

You now can address this location any time, or more importantly, use a backup program such as Lucky Backup (my favorite) to automatically back up your important files to you Network Attached Storage USB.

 

I hope that this helps some of you!

 

JUST ADDED INSTRUCTIONS FOR AC4000 model C4000

Similar to C2300.  Log in to the administration page.  Under the basics tab, select USB Sharing tab on the left.  You will see a circular graphic representation of the USB drive.  Above the circle will be the name "label" of the drive and in parenthesis a letter.  In my case it was a "G".  Please note that this is upper case.  In the address it needs to be lower case.

 

The line you would need to add to fstab is: 

 

//192.168.0.1/g/ /home/RemoteMedia/NAS_USB cifs vers=1.0,guest,uid=1000 0 0

 

"g" should be the what ever letter is shown on your browser page above the teal colored circle, next to the drive label.

 

If this is a help, I would be pleased if you would reply with a thanks.

 

Regards,

Don