Best Protocol for colab over the internet?

[Flux Azreal]

Me and my friend work on editing large videos and we constantly need to send eachother video files that ranges from 500mb to 12GB and lots of small files too, we both use Windows and I've recently got into making servers for file transfers, I've installed Ubuntu Server and played around SMB and it was super fun, it also had such great intergration with windows, with the ability to have it just as a one click folder on your desktop to access, or just drag a file there or look into File Explorer to see how much storage you have left, I loved the intergration and how useful it was, not to mention it was really fast! But after many hours of trying to get it port forwarded so it works for my friend too I found out the hard way that ISPs block the port it uses (I use AT&T), and (as far as I know) there's no way to port forward smb since windows doesnt allow you to use a different port for smb, I've even tried using software to swap ports, I'd port SMB to something like 449 and get the client to redirect it to 445 but I never could get it to work, and there's no info I could find online (if you do know a way please let me know!) but I don't think there's an easy way out aside from using a VPN which I'm pretty sure will add a lot of overhead and make it too slow, and I don't have money to purchase a good one. I was wondering if there's a similar protocol I could use? I don't mind hosting it on any linux/ubuntu/windows os just as long as it's atleast very performant! 

[Kilrah]

27 minutes ago, Flux Azreal said:

I don't think there's an easy way out aside from using a VPN which I'm pretty sure will add a lot of overhead and make it too slow

What you want is not a commercial VPN, but to set up your own VPN server on your server machine like Wireguard or OpenVPN, and have your friend connect to it. 

[Flux Azreal]

Just now, Kilrah said:

What you want is not a commercial VPN, but to set up your own VPN server on your server machine like Wireguard or OpenVPN, and have your friend connect to it. 

Oh interesting! I've heard of this but thought i'd have to be a genius, if he connects will my computer be like a proxy and use my internet whenever he accesses the internet? Or will it only be for the SMB?

[Kilrah]

You can specify in the VPN server config if the link should be used for all traffic or only for what's "local" between you 2, you'll probably want the latter.

[Electronics Wizardy]

You could also use something like nextcloud that syncs files. Then the person doesn't have to deal with the slow connection over wan. Using smb over wan isn't a great experience normally.

 

If your editing video together many of the large editors like resove and premiere allow multiple editors on the same project, and you can make small proxies for editing.

[Flux Azreal]

3 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

You could also use something like nextcloud that syncs files. Then the person doesn't have to deal with the slow connection over wan. Using smb over wan isn't a great experience normally.

 

If your editing video together many of the large editors like resove and premiere allow multiple editors on the same project, and you can make small proxies for editing.

Oh you're right! I think proxy files would be an amazing addition, thank you!

[LIGISTX]

Don’t ever port forward SMB… unless you really like everyone in the world being able to access your data, but worse… be able to alter or copy data (viruses….) onto your share. SMB is not meant to be internet facing. 
 

As others said, what you want is likely either nextcloud or use WireGuard to set up your own VPN. Once you or your friends VPN in, you can use SMB just like you normally would if you were in the same network, it’ll just be slow since it’s going over WAN…. 

[Flux Azreal]

1 hour ago, LIGISTX said:

Don’t ever port forward SMB… unless you really like everyone in the world being able to access your data, but worse… be able to alter or copy data (viruses….) onto your share. SMB is not meant to be internet facing. 
 

As others said, what you want is likely either nextcloud or use WireGuard to set up your own VPN. Once you or your friends VPN in, you can use SMB just like you normally would if you were in the same network, it’ll just be slow since it’s going over WAN…. 

Thank you for this! I'll have to use something like SFTP for now