Connecting your devices to the NAS

4 min · 9 sections

A NAS you can only reach through a browser is only half a NAS. This guide is what to do on each device so the NAS shows up as just another folder: Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone and Android.

Always start here: Control Panel → How to get in. That screen already carries your addresses — yours, not somebody else's — with a copy button next to each, and says which ones are switched off. Below is what to do with each.

1. First, three things people forget

1. The folder must be published over that protocol. Ticking SMB on a folder and switching SMB on in File services are two things, and you need both.
2. Your account needs permission on that folder. See [Users, permissions and who sees what](usuarios-y-permisos.md).
3. The SMB password is its own. It is set alongside the panel one when the account is created, but from then on they are separate: changing one does not change the other.

2. Windows

The quick way

In File Explorer's address bar:

\\192.168.1.50

The folders you can reach appear. Right-click one → Map network drive so it comes back when you switch on.

If it keeps asking for a username and password

Almost always Windows is trying your Microsoft account. Type the username with the NAS name in front:

NASNAME\yourusername

If it does not show up under "Network"

That is not a NAS fault: Windows' automatic discovery is the first thing to stop working on any network. Type the address by hand and forget that list.

Your personal folder

"My drive" appears over SMB as one more folder, and only you see it.

3. Mac

Finder → Go → Connect to Server (⌘K):

smb://192.168.1.50

To have it back at startup: System Settings → General → Login Items, and add the mounted volume.

If you are going to use the NAS as a Time Machine destination, do not mount it by hand: there is a wizard that sets it all up in Backups → Machines, covered in Backups.

4. Linux

With a desktop (GNOME, KDE), in the file manager:

smb://192.168.1.50

Properly mounted, so it is always there:

sudo apt install cifs-utils
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/nas
sudo mount -t cifs //192.168.1.50/Documents /mnt/nas \
  -o username=youruser,uid=$(id -u),gid=$(id -g)

⚠️ Do not put the password in /etc/fstab: that file is world-readable. Use a credentials file with 600 permissions and credentials=/root/.smb-nas.

NFS is the other option on Linux, and it is better for things you use a lot. Each folder's exact path is in Control Panel → File services.

5. iPhone and iPad

Nothing to install. Apple's Files app speaks SMB:

Files → the three dots → Connect to Server → smb://192.168.1.50

From then on the NAS is just another folder: any app that opens files can see it, and you can save things straight there.

For photos and the panel, the comfortable option is to install the panel as an app, with its own icon and no browser bar: Installing the panel as an app.

6. Android

Google's Files app does not speak SMB. Two ways:

• The panel installed as an app (same as on iPhone): good for uploading, downloading, looking at photos and sharing to the NAS from any app's "Share" menu.
• A file manager that speaks SMB if you want the NAS as a system folder.

7. From outside the house

None of the above leaves your network, and that is correct: SMB is never published on the internet. To reach it from outside there are two ways, and the choice matters:

• Just you and your devices → the VPN. You get into your whole home network as if you were there, and nothing is published. This is the recommended one: [Network services](network-services.md#1-vpn-wireguard).
• Sharing with other people → publish the NAS with a domain and a certificate: [Access from the internet](external-access.md).

8. Which protocol for what

See also

• Files — the same from the browser, with previews and links.
• Users, permissions and who sees what — who gets into what.
• When something is not working — "I cannot see the NAS from Windows".