Currently, when my NAS password changes, I have to delete the old NAS folders and readd these with a new password. However, I then lose my entire library. There has to be an easy way to change a NAS password without having to go through all of this.
Whilst I agree 100% that there should be an easy way to change the password associated with an existing configured storage (or backup) location in Roon, I think something is wrong if, when removing and re-adding the existing share, you ‘lose your entire library’. At worst, it should cause a re-scan which may be inconveinient but it should not lose anything. If your experience is different, then I would raise a issue in Support.
There is also a post in an old thread that suggests that, rather than removing the old share location and then re-adding it, you can select ‘edit’ on the existing, non-functional storage location, then browse and, from there, add a duplicate of the share location with using the new password before deleting the old one. I’ve not tried this so I can’t vouch for its efficacy but @Geoff_Coupe is usually a reliable source of technical assistance.
However, in light of the current inability to change the password associated with a network share location in Roon, my approach would be different. On my NAS I would create a (new) dedicated share used only for Roon media storage - call it ‘RoonMedia’. This share would have normal read/write/modify permissions for your normal NAS user. I would then create a new user on the NAS - call it ‘Roon’ - with permissions only to read the RoonMedia share and its contents. This ‘Roon’ user will have no permissions at all on any other share. The ‘Roon’ user could then have a very strong password which would never be changed.
Then, in Roon → Settings → Storage, configure the network location to use \\<NAS>\RoonMedia (or smb://<NAS>/RoonMedia) with the Roon user and password.
The Roon storage configuration would then be the only place that I used the ‘Roon’ username. Since this is only place it is used, the password does not have to be memorable because it will typically be used once and only once. For actually managing my media storage, I would use the normal NAS username and password (which can be changed as often as you like).
Yes, because the ‘Roon’ user’s password isn’t changed, it is a slight security weakness. However, this is probably more than compensated by the fact that:
- You can use a much stronger, more difficult to remember, sequence of random letters and numbers for your password.
- The consequences of the ‘Roon’ users password being compromised are very much more limited because of the lack of any write permissions.
Note: From a ‘data safety’ perspective, the separate share is not really required. You could just give the ‘Roon’ user read only access to an existing share. The separate share for the Roon library media storage is required from a ‘data privacy’ perspective. If the Roon user password does ever get compromised, you don’t want a bad agent to be able to read any other, potentially sensitive, data on your NAS.
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