Port forwarding the File Sharing so you can access it on the road

[latrosicarius]

Hi,

Thanks to all of you, I was recently able to port forward my router so I could access Remote Desktop from the Internet.

I know there is a way I can do this for normal file sharing, b/c it allows you to enter the website name or resolved IP address into the Add Network Place wizard instead of just the network path.

I looked at the Windows Firewall setting, and there are actually 4 ports that it uses, so I dont know how I should set it up.

Can anyone help me out? Thanks

[arthurleung]

You could try \\ipaddress
something like \\192.168.1.10 (replace with your external ip)

Many ISPs block the windows file sharing ports so I doubt it will work for you though.
This is done so that you can't see internet computers in your "My Network Place"

Depends on your ISP, if you attempt it their system may think you're infected by trojan and block your connection.

This method is unsafe and slow. If you have to access your files on the road, build a FTP

[FatalSaviour]

If it were me, I'd probably setup a VPN to do this, but it depends on your requirements really.

[latrosicarius]

arthurleung,

I thought the ISP always blocked FTP servers unless you have a commercial subscription?

Anyway, yes, that is what Im planning to try to do, but I dont know which port to tell the router to forward because there are 4.

When making the connection, I would have to specify a port after the IP, for instance: 123.45.67.890:12345. The router would see this incomming port 12345 and forward it using Network Address Translation (NAT) to an internal IP address that I specified (e.g.: 192.168.0.100).

The problem is, I dont know which of the 4 File and Printer sharing ports to do this for.... even then, I dont know if it would work, or if I have to set something up further due to the fact that I want to connect to an actual shared FOLDER, not computer IP address. So its very confusing, at least to me lol.

Fatal Saviour,

File Sharing is all I really know about. I was looking at VPN setup tutorials on the Internet today but they all look so complicated. If I went with VPN, would I be able to use my existing Active Directory users, or would I have to make new accounts w/ passwords for this?

Actually I dont even know what a VPN does.......

[arthurleung]

arthurleung,

I thought the ISP always blocked FTP servers unless you have a commercial subscription?

Anyway, yes, that is what Im planning to try to do, but I dont know which port to tell the router to forward because there are 4.

When making the connection, I would have to specify a port after the IP, for instance: 123.45.67.890:12345. The router would see this incomming port 12345 and forward it using Network Address Translation (NAT) to an internal IP address that I specified (e.g.: 192.168.0.100).

The problem is, I dont know which of the 4 File and Printer sharing ports to do this for.... even then, I dont know if it would work, or if I have to set something up further due to the fact that I want to connect to an actual shared FOLDER, not computer IP address. So its very confusing, at least to me lol.

Fatal Saviour,

File Sharing is all I really know about. I was looking at VPN setup tutorials on the Internet today but they all look so complicated. If I went with VPN, would I be able to use my existing Active Directory users, or would I have to make new accounts w/ passwords for this?

Actually I dont even know what a VPN does.......

Unless you're on some odd plans, AFAIK no ISP block FTP serving.

If you got a shared folder called music, access it using address like \\192.168.1.10\music

Think it might be using port 137-139 (thats what SAMBA use, from 30 seconds google search)

[Moby-Dick]

FTP is not the same as windows file sharing.

If you really wanted to access you machine from elsewhere then you'd be better to consider something thats at least a bit encrypted

SSH is a good starter or better still use a VPN connection.

with Remote Desktop you can still transfer files as it can be set to map your local drives to the remote machine. ( that may not work for desktops , but it does for servers - check the options of the RDP client )

opening Netbios/ RPC ports up to the web really isn't a great idea - security protocols are there for a god reason

as far as VPN's go - think of them like enabling a remote access user to dial into yoour LAN as if you had a modem waiting.

with a VPN they connect using a secured connection from the web instead of dialing that modem.

so if you have routing and remote access set up , you enable existing AD users to dial in using that connection.

[latrosicarius]

Thanks for the replies... Is RDP as secure as VPN? When I open RDP ports up to the internet, am I at risk? I use strong account passwords. And actually, i dont open the real 3809 (IIRC) RDP port, but I use NAT to port forward some arbitrary other port to 3809.

I can already transfer files through RDP, but its very slow for larger files b/c it has to "prepare" the file first, and it takes just as long to do that as it does to transmit the file

Also, I know how FTP works, but how does VPN work? Like what does the interface look like? Is it through your browser or something, or through Windows Explorer like a normal mapped network drive?

Thanks

[Tifosi]

VPN is not that simple to set up unfortunately. VPN does not have an interface as such you can get Gateway to Gateway VPNs often done by higher end consumer routers which have web interfaces typically. Then you can have client - gateway VPNs which reliese on a VPN client application and the gateways VPN system. VPN will allows you to access the Remote LAN as if you were working on it locally so allows windows shares etc anything you could do on a standard LAN.

RDP does not contain any encryption as far as I am aware. The solution would be to run the RDP session through SSH. Install Cygwin on your host and Putty on your client and the create a SSH link between the two, it's really simple. Then use the SSH session to tunnel the RDP session between the host and client. This will offer a great deal of security. This will not allow Samba shares though as far as I am aware however with some tweaking it may be possible.

Putty connection - WAN IP of the host box's gateway typically on port 22.
Then in Putty Forward Local port 127.0.0.2:3389 (check the port against your config) to remote port <Insert Host's Foreign LAN IP i.e. 192.168.x.x >:3389

example
My LAN 1 has IP range 192.1.1.x subnet 255.255.255.0 - Host RDP on this LAN
My LAN 2 has IP range 192.1.0.x subnet 255.255.255.0 - Client RDP on this LAN

In the RDP session connect to 127.0.0.2:3389

The Putty session creates the tunnel to the WAN IP address of LAN 1 then the packets are forwarded from the Client on LAN 2 (whose RDP session aims to connect to 127.0.0.2 (a local host address)) to the IP address of the machine on LAN 1.


Hamachi is somewhat like a soft VPN and maybe another way forward I have only recently discovered this program. This will let you use Samba shares (Windows File Sharing) and RDP securely.

Waste also offers a secure way to transfer files.

I personally have a Gateway to Gateway VPN which inside has an SSH tunnel that I send my important traffic through. The rest of my traffic just relies on the VPN. When I cannot use my VPN (I've yet to have success with Client - Gateway VPN on my network) I run Hamachi with the SSH layer again.

All my Windows boxes have the guest account passworded and disabled making all Samba shares require authentification and each machine and each have Firewall setups inside the LAN with IP and MAC filtering on to add a further layer of protection.

The weakest part is probably the wireless network although it runs with WPA and MAC filtering and IP tables setup.

[TiMeZeRo]

i got ftp server running on my box and it work fine from external connections im on ntl btw id say ftp is the best option although if u have some spare moeny building a linux box to run it all would be fairly efficent

[badass]

VPN is not that simple to set up unfortunately. VPN does not have an interface as such you can get Gateway to Gateway VPNs often done by higher end consumer routers which have web interfaces typically. Then you can have client - gateway VPNs which reliese on a VPN client application and the gateways VPN system. VPN will allows you to access the Remote LAN as if you were working on it locally so allows windows shares etc anything you could do on a standard LAN.

RDP does not contain any encryption as far as I am aware. The solution would be to run the RDP session through SSH. Install Cygwin on your host and Putty on your client and the create a SSH link between the two, it's really simple. Then use the SSH session to tunnel the RDP session between the host and client. This will offer a great deal of security. This will not allow Samba shares though as far as I am aware however with some tweaking it may be possible.

The Std RDP server/client in XP uses encryption by default. (IIRC its RC4 56 Bit) VPN's aren't as complex as you make out either. XP has a built in PPTP server aswell. Most consumer routers will forward GRE traffic to the same host you forward port TCP 1721 to.
Use the new connection wizard and you've made yourself a simple VPN server.

[Lee H]

If you have internet access on the move and want to access music and video files why not check out www.orb.com

[Tifosi]

The Std RDP server/client in XP uses encryption by default. (IIRC its RC4 56 Bit) VPN's aren't as complex as you make out either. XP has a built in PPTP server aswell. Most consumer routers will forward GRE traffic to the same host you forward port TCP 1721 to.
Use the new connection wizard and you've made yourself a simple VPN server.

Thanks for correcting me on the RDP encryption.

Yet I am still to get the Windows VPN client to work with a Netgear DG834G router (acting as the VPN endpoint). Was your VPN suggestion to forward the VPN connection through the router and have the host PC running a VPN Windows PPTP server and the client using the Windows VPN client. Hence the router does not actually act as the VPN endpoint?

This is new I need to look into the Windows PPTP server. Where can I find the Windows PPTP server?

[Moby-Dick]

On 2000/2003 server its part of routing and remote access.
On XP its under network connections..

http://www.zdnetasia.com/insight/net...0223c-1,00.htm

[Splash]

Thanks for correcting me on the RDP encryption.

Yet I am still to get the Windows VPN client to work with a Netgear DG834G router (acting as the VPN endpoint). Was your VPN suggestion to forward the VPN connection through the router and have the host PC running a VPN Windows PPTP server and the client using the Windows VPN client. Hence the router does not actually act as the VPN endpoint?

This is new I need to look into the Windows PPTP server. Where can I find the Windows PPTP server?

Not 100% certain but my DG834GT doesn't function as a VPN endpoint. Not only that but I think that the Netgear stuff needs the Netgear (not cheap either!) VPN client.

[Tifosi]

Moby you are a star I have finally managed to get my network sorted

My two houses run a gateway - gateway VPN and then for when I am on the road I can now VPN into either LAN through the Windows VPN as the router passes the VPN session through to the Windows PPTP server.

So I can now access all the network wherever I am. Before I was trying to use the Windows client against the Netgear VPN.

Yes I didnt want to pay for the netgear client and couldn't find another client that would work.
Today is a happy day I've been trying to do this for months on and off.

[latrosicarius]

Thanks guys. I will probably not use VPN in favor of FTP because of the reasons you all mentioned above, but you have all been very helpful in letting me decide. Thanks