unRAID desktop GUI app.

[Carpet3]

Before we start here's my thinking behind this project.

 

I work in a IT retail company as an IT tech and one of the common complaints I hear are to do with routers, long story short, the average joe doesnt understand what an IP address is and so can't log into a router via a web browser and so need to use the manufacturers CD which shows the user a nice GUI and interfaces with the router so the user doesnt need to worry about finding the IP address etc.

 

So I was wondering if this issue currently affects (or perhaps might in the future) unRAID. As you know when you first fire up a server unless you check the console or your router etc you don't know what the server IP address is, and unless you read the documentation you won't realise the default name is Tower, or indeed that you can use that name to access the web GUI.

 

So i've quickly knocked up (literally 10 mins of coding) this prog (It's currently a mess I know). The idea being that a new user can just fire it up and connect to the server to do the basic config, name etc. Obviously this could be developed further to show the user to open the page in a web browser etc.

 

Obviously this isn't intended to be used by the majority of people who frequent these boards, but rather by average users who would like to use a NAS but don't necessarily know a lot about IT/Networking.

 

Just thought it might help adoption of the prog. What do you think?

 

Requirements:

Windows (tested on Windows XP and 7)

.net framework 3.5

 

Obviously I take no responsibility for anything this does.

 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2705933/unRAID%20GUI.rar

[Carpet3]

63 views and no opinions?

 

Guess I'll just knock this on the head if nobody thinks it'll be of any use.

[Rajahal]

I like the idea behind it, though I haven't had a chance to look at your actual program yet.

 

Personally, I think a simpler solution might be to have unRAID just default to a static IP.  That way the documentation could just say 'go to http://192.168.0.100'.  The only issue with this is that some people have different subnets, so it needs to be, for example, 192.168.1.100.  I suppose there could also be an issue in which the user already has a device with that same static IP, but I would think that would be pretty rare (especially since most devices will be using dynamic IPs).

 

I always take the static IP approach with my clients, it just seems simpler.  I've run into the subnet issue once or twice, but it is easy to solve.  I don't really see the advantage of the server using a dynamic IP.  On my home network, the static IP seems to be far more stable, even when I'm accessing the server via http://tower

[joe90]

seems to be a good troubleshooter application that can help lots of new users!

 

tried just by entering the name of my server and it found the ip of it and connected asking credentials

 

definitively something useful for the community

 

nice work!

 

[kizer]

It reminds me of the Dlink DNS-323 NAS locator software. Man that app has saved my butt several times when I lost my drive on the network when I was first configuring it.

 

That's kinda cool. You should change the title of your first post with the app name and run with it. Worst case it gets used or becomes abandonware.

 

Only thing to remember there are a lot of users from various OS's here so be surprised if you don't get grief from the others.

[Carpet3]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

 

Program isn't anything to look at, at the moment, it's basically a web browser with a bit of code the resolves DNS names to IP addresses.

 

I'll take it a bit further and see where it goes, see if it's of any help.

 

I'll probably look at developing it for a different OS but my thinking at the moment is if somebody is using Linux then they won't need this prog, OS X is a possibility though I guess.

[neilt0]

I use Advanced IP Scanner (freeware) to do the following:

 

1) Check a server is up

 

2) Check the IP address of a server

 

3) Verify the name of the server

 

Check it out and see if it's something similar.

 

http://www.radmin.com/products/utilities/ipscanner.php

[Carpet3]

It's certainly far more advanced but doesnt appear to be the same thing.

 

This prog is designed for the user to put the machine name , click connect and it will bring up the unRAID menu

[aiden]

I think this little app has some merit, primarily because it makes no assumptions about the technical skills of the user.  In Raj's example, it's assumed the user knows what an IP address is, and what a subnet is.  Now, I know that's networking 101 stuff, but many people have no idea what that is.  They are used to a plug-n-play setup.  If you look at the software that ships with most NAS boxes, they use a similar detection script to find the device on the network.  They don't trust the user is capable of finding it on their own.  From an initialization standpoint, this is a good thing to have.  And like Kizer said, it can be a nice tool to use when you're in router hell.  Nice work carpet3.