LogintoyournewNAS.Thismeansyou’redone
withtheinstall.Installing...Go to the Amahi website and create
an account. This is not strictly
necessary, but it makes things vastly
easier to manage and gives you an easy
hook into the configuration and web
services. Once you’ve set up an account,
go to the control panel and take a note
of the Install Code. This will come in
handy later.
Download the setup ISO from the
Amahi website. This is a CD-ROM disc
image that can be burned to a disk by
right clicking on it in Windows. If your
main or NAS PC doesn’t have a CD or
DVD drive, then you can use a USB
stick instead. To turn an ISO file into a
bootable USB drive, you can use a very
simple app called Rufus (rufus.ie),
which will take an ISO file and turn a
USB stick into a bootable drive based
on the ISO.
Plug a keyboard, mouse and monitor
into the PC you’re turning into the NAS.
This is only temporary.
Put the CD-ROM or USB drive into
the NAS PC and boot it up. Assuming
your PC’s BIOS is set up to boot from
CD or USB, it should boot into the setup
process for Amahi. (If it’s not, you’ll
have to access the BIOS and change the
boot order). It will start with a simple
text menu. Select the Install option.
Choose your language.
Next comes the main configuration
screen. First, click on the Amahi Server
Setup button. This is where you’ll enter
the Install Code for the server. That
will link the server to your Amahi
account. You’ll also likely need to set
the keyboard settings, and, if you like,
your network settings (although you
can fix those later).
Installation will proceed as Amahi
downloads the latest version of the
NAS OS.
Once it’s done, it will boot to a blank
screen with a login prompt. This is it:
Amahi is now installed. You can
actually disconnect your monitor,
mouse and keyboard from the NAS PC
now. It only needs network and power.
From here on, you can manage the NAS
PC entirely through a web browser.
Go back to your main PC, and head
back to the Amahi website control
panel. You’ll see it will have changed
and your new server will be registered.
Note the HDA IP address – this the IP
address of the server on your local
network.
In a new tab in your browser, go to
http://hda/, which should take you to
the login page for the Amahi server. If
that doesn’t work, just type in the HDA
IP address from the Amahi website
control panel into your browser’saddress bar, which should also take you
to the server.
On first boot, you will have not have
a username or password setup (unless
you did it in the install page). To log in,
use username admin with the
password administrator.
That will take you to the control
page. There’s an awful lot to touch on
here, and we don’t have space for it
here, so we recommend heading to the
Amahi wiki at wiki.amahi.org/index.
php/HDA_Admin_How_To to learn
more. Or you can just play around: click
on Setup or Apps on the top right to
configure the basics of volume and
shares, as well as install those apps
you’d like to have on your NAS.
Try out the mobile apps and generally
experiment. There’s no harm in trying
new things – at least until you’ve
got some data you can’t bear to lose
on there!