Hacking Linksys NAS

I really like the fact Linksys has been using Linux to power a number of their devices and appliances, as it allows folks to jump in and extend the capabilities of these devices well beyond what Linksys originally intended. First was one of the Linksys access points, but today on /. I read about a new hack for the NSLU2 “network storage link.”

The device itself is simply an interface to make USB storage devices such as external hard drives and flash memory/readers available over the network. Not as slick as, say, a SNAP server, but a heck of a lot cheaper and, in many ways, more versatile (especially after the following hacks).

Tom’s Networking has two articles on hacking the unit: Part 1 | Part 2. The first explains hacking the unit to get command line access, and the second gets into setting up utilities like NFS.

There’s another page collecting a lot of useful info here. Supposedly the box can also get SSH, an iTunes server, and more up and running. Not too shabby for less than a hundred bucks!