How to access home network server from outside my home network

[JazzaWil]

Hey, so i've got a windows storage spaces server running at home i keep my plex and other assorted files on. I was wondering if theirs a way to grab that drive and view/edit its contents from outside the network on it. 

[Crunchy Dragon]

You should be able to port forward the server in your router's firewall, which will let you connect to it from outside your home network.

[JazzaWil]

2 hours ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

You should be able to port forward the server in your router's firewall, which will let you connect to it from outside your home network.

How would i go about port forwarding the server itself? Like i know how to port forward but what ports etc would i be pointing it to 

 

[Crunchy Dragon]

8 minutes ago, JazzaWil said:

How would i go about port forwarding the server itself? Like i know how to port forward but what ports etc would i be pointing it to

Whichever port the server is using, I'd expect.

[Tad Bittoomuch]

Generally, unnecessarily having exposed ports poses a potential security risk.

 

I had a brief look at Storage Spaces in Windows 10 and from what I can deduce, I think you've created a storage pool and then shared the drive over your local network.

 

What I'd recommend is to use a L2TP VPN tunnel to access your local network.  Then you'll be able to access any local network hosts as if you're physically connected to them.  You could use a PPTP VPN tunnel but they're obsoleted by L2TP and have known security issues.

Once you tunnel into your local network, your network drive should connect automatically.

 

If you don't want to do this, you can port forward the specific Windows SMB ports for network drives in your access point:

NB-Name			137/UDP
NB-Datagram		138/UDP
NB-Session		139/TCP
SMB			445/TCP

Make sure these ports are allowed in Windows Firewall as well.

 

Hopefully this is helpful

[Robchil]

most people have dhcp at home with NAT in the internet router. you need to be pretty firewall savy if you want to do that. 

 

have you tried dyndns or teamviewer? . 

dyndns and teamviewer opens ports from inside and connect to a server,  so no need for firewall work, it's usually open inside -> out