Map Network Drive Remotely

[Snotrap]

Hello All,

 

I believe I have asked this in the past, with no successful solutions I am back.

 

How would I go about mapping my network drives remotely? I need to access code for school, don't feel like offloading 10+GBs of code to my laptop.

 

Any ideas? Preferably not the windows VPN server, I have had many unsuccessful attempts.

[Levent]

ftp or webdav is what comes to my mind.

[Master Disaster]

FTP? I wouldn't suggest using straight FTP but as long as you understand certificate signing use FTPS instead.

 

Failing that you could use a HTTP server program like HFS...

https://www.rejetto.com/hfs/

[Snotrap]

1 minute ago, Levent said:

ftp or webdav is what comes to my mind.

Yeah, got FileZilla up and running but it's not secure and also not as streamlined. What's webdav?

[Levent]

1 minute ago, Snotrap said:

Yeah, got FileZilla up and running but it's not secure and also not as streamlined. What's webdav?

if you cant set it up properly nothing is secure.

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, Snotrap said:

Yeah, got FileZilla up and running but it's not secure and also not as streamlined. What's webdav?

Use SFTP (FTP over SSH) or FTPS (FTP-SSL) for security.

[Windows7ge]

Yeah, if you don't need a GUI I'd use SSH either in Terminal or use PuTTY. Otherwise you can access the files with something like WinSCP which is a SFTP tool but you'd still have to download the file if you want to edit it with anything fancier than a basic text editor.

 

Only other ideas I have if you really need a remote direct access to it would be to use an encrypted tunnel into your network. Otherwise perhaps just Remote Desktop into your computer and edit the files that way. Use something like Teamviewer. It's free for personal use.

[Snotrap]

4 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

Yeah, if you don't need a GUI I'd use SSH either in Terminal or use PuTTY. Otherwise you can access the files with something like WinSCP which is a SFTP tool but you'd still have to download the file if you want to edit it with anything fancier than a basic text editor.

 

Only other ideas I have if you really need a remote direct access to it would be to use an encrypted tunnel into your network. Otherwise perhaps just Remote Desktop into your computer and edit the files that way. Use something like Teamviewer. It's free for personal use.

How would I create an access point into my network? Team viewer flagged my account as commercial use even after contacting support. 

[Windows7ge]

Just now, Snotrap said:

How would I create an access point into my network? Team viewer flagged my account as commercial use even after contacting support. 

If you mean an encrypted tunnel I unfortunately don't have the knowledge to get you started there. I vaguely know of a method or two but that's it. I've never explored it myself.

 

There are other remote desktop software vendors. Google has one. There's one called AnyDesk. I'm told they operate under the same terms as Teamviewer. Free for personal use. I wonder what Teamviewer deemed as commercial activity from you. I believe there are others but I don't know of them.

[Snotrap]

So I can't just like forward a port and then map a network drive without a vpn? 

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, Snotrap said:

So I can't just like forward a port and then map a network drive without a vpn? 

There's HTTP file sharing servers available, I linked one earlier.

[Windows7ge]

1 minute ago, Snotrap said:

So I can't just like forward a port and then map a network drive without a vpn? 

Ok, before I say anything else DEFINITELY don't do that. You'll always want some level of security and if that worked (I don't know if it would) it would open up your network to all sorts of potential breaches. Not to mention people being able to packet sniff what you're doing.

 

What type of editors do you need access to? If you're using something like Microsoft Visual Studios it would still have to download the entire file(s) before it can do anything with it. That would be a pailful experience with the software timing out a lot waiting for the large files to download to the laptop over the Internet.

[00100000]

43 minutes ago, Snotrap said:

Hello All,

 

I believe I have asked this in the past, with no successful solutions I am back.

 

How would I go about mapping my network drives remotely? I need to access code for school, don't feel like offloading 10+GBs of code to my laptop.

 

Any ideas? Preferably not the windows VPN server, I have had many unsuccessful attempts.

God, all I could notice is your PFP

[Snotrap]

9 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

2 minutes ago, 00100000 said:

God, all I could notice is your PFP

Lmao. Did that during a German class, was bored. 

 

9 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

Ok, before I say anything else DEFINITELY don't do that. You'll always want some level of security and if that worked (I don't know if it would) it would open up your network to all sorts of potential breaches. Not to mention people being able to packet sniff what you're doing.

 

What type of editors do you need access to? If you're using something like Microsoft Visual Studios it would still have to download the entire file(s) before it can do anything with it. That would be a pailful experience with the software timing out a lot waiting for the large files to download to the laptop over the Internet.

Yeah. Any good, super easy to setup vpn software? Considering I can't get windows server to work. 

[Windows7ge]

14 minutes ago, Snotrap said:

 

Yeah. Any good, super easy to setup vpn software? Considering I can't get windows server to work. 

I've got nothing. Sorry. When I need remote access I use SSH/SFTP or Remote Desktop. I've never used an encrypted tunnel.

[dalekphalm]

On 7/21/2019 at 6:57 PM, Snotrap said:

Yeah. Any good, super easy to setup vpn software? Considering I can't get windows server to work. 

Assuming you truly just want to access files over Windows File Explorer via a mapped drive, VPN is exactly what you need.

 

What's the issue with Windows Server VPN that you can't get working?

 

The best alternative is to setup an OpenVPN server - OpenVPN runs on many OS's - Linux and FreeNAS being quite common.

 

Some routers also have the ability to host a VPN server. That's more commercial grade, but occasionally a consumer one will support it.

[Alex Atkin UK]

I can confirm that a VPN is the way to go for this to work, but do bear in mind its not necessarily the optimal way.

 

Windows file sharing is expecting you to be on a LAN with low latency and next to no packet loss.  It can perform far less efficiently than something like SFTP as its expecting the network connection to be perfect at all times.

 

Generally its a bad idea to try opening files directly off a Windows share over a VPN, unless its a small file its going to lag horribly with your limited broadband speed.  The software will likely hang frequently as it waits for the slow network to catch up.  I'd imagine compiling would be completely unusable in this configuration.

[dalekphalm]

18 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

I can confirm that a VPN is the way to go for this to work, but do bear in mind its not necessarily the optimal way.

 

Windows file sharing is expecting you to be on a LAN with low latency and next to no packet loss.  It can perform far less efficiently than something like SFTP as its expecting the network connection to be perfect at all times.

 

Generally its a bad idea to try opening files directly off a Windows share over a VPN, unless its a small file its going to lag horribly with your limited broadband speed.  The software will likely hang frequently as it waits for the slow network to catch up.  I'd imagine compiling would be completely unusable in this configuration.

Agreed - if accessing files stored remotely is the end goal (without downloading them, modifying them as needed, then re-uploading them), then remote desktop software seems to be the better result. Teamviewer or RDP or LogMeIn, etc.

 

Of course, I wouldn't run Windows RDP over the Internet unless that was behind a VPN too. However, other solutions already include encryption (such as Teamviewer) so they are generally safe to use as-is.