Mapping a network drive from an external network?

[Praetor]

I've finally got my linux box somewhat stabllized as a desktop. What I want to do is access my linux box remotely and map my media partitions as drives on a few XP boxes.

I've been toying with ssh and have learned how to log in remotely and administer my account via putty which helped out tons when I was initially setting up the box. I've also been reading up on ssh/X-tunneling, so I can log onto my desktop, but from my understanding, I need to have X installed on my Xp boxes for that to work. Doing it via VNC sounds like a better solution for remote desktop management....

Anyway.

Is my limited understanding of Samba correct in that I would be able to log on remotely (actually, from another state when I go on vacation) and have the drives mapped to my laptop? I've quickly glanced through a Samba book I saw at Barnes and Noble, and I think that's what I need to get this little goal accomplished. Suggestions?

And does any of this make sense? 😛 Thanks for any and all help.

 

[kamper]

Regardless of whether or not it's possible, do you think that's such a good idea? I mean, if an app thinks that a file it's using is on a local filesystem and treats it as such you might be running into terrible performance problems. Wouldn't it be easier to use sftp (since you're into ssh) to transfer the files you need to your laptop while you need them?

 

[Praetor]

Reasoning behind all of this:
a) going on vacation and plan to take the laptop. Access to my music and movies while on the road would be nice.
b) My girlfriend is almost clueless about computers, but is perfectly capable of clicking on an icon in "My Computer" or "Network Places" in xp so she can watch said movies at her place.
c) I'm bored and I thought I would try to learn a thing or three. 😛

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: Praetor
Reasoning behind all of this:
a) going on vacation and plan to take the laptop. Access to my music and movies while on the road would be nice.
b) My girlfriend is almost clueless about computers, but is perfectly capable of clicking on an icon in "My Computer" or "Network Places" in xp so she can watch said movies at her place.
c) I'm bored and I thought I would try to learn a thing or three. 😛

a) I still think sftp solves this problem.

b) can she learn to use WinSCP? It's not quite like a local filesystem but at least its graphical transfer. Otoh, I'd be thinking twice about allowing people to connect to my box with ssh unless I really knew what I was doing as an admin, there's just so much stuff you can do. Of course, this case is probably safe enough as long as you don't teach her anything to powerful 🙂

c) That is an valid excuse for rigging up just about anything 😉 If you've got the motivation go nuts. I'm sorry I can't help more but here's a bump anyways.

 

[Concillian]

You could do it with samba, but it would take some mucking about with the smb.conf to make it secure, because you would have to open the ports to the whole wide world. It would still not be as secure as an sftp.

I would definitely limit access to specific users. Hopefully you have someone that clueless set up on a user account (and not an Admin account) so they don't hurt themselves online. Make the samba account of the same username and password as her XP account, make it a network drive, then it should all be seamless to have her pull files from the share.

I wouldn't allow writing at all to the share and/or I'd limit the allowable IPs to her IP address or the block of IPs that her ISP uses if she's dynamic (if she's dynamic and on a huge ISP, I definitely wouldn't allow writing to the share). If you need to write, I'd use sftp.

It's really not all that hard if you start looking at some examplt smb.conf files from around the web. Keep in mind that you will have to open the samba ports in whatever you're using for a firewall.

 

[kamper]

Uhmm, I don't think he'd be opening up his samba shares for the world. You were talking about ssh tunelling the smb stuff right Praetor?

 

[kamper]

Now I may really be showing my ignorance, but would nfs using something like cygwin maybe be a more appropriate tool?

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: kamper
Uhmm, I don't think he'd be opening up his samba shares for the world. You were talking about ssh tunelling the smb stuff right Praetor?

b) My girlfriend is almost clueless about computers, but is perfectly capable of clicking on an icon in "My Computer" or "Network Places" in xp so she can watch said movies at her place.

That doesn't sound like ssh tunneling the smb stuff to me.

 

[kamper]

His gf doesn't have to be aware of the tunnelling going on. He can either set up a putty shortcut so all she has to do is click and type password or he can set up public key authentication so that it goes automatically.

 

[Praetor]

Originally posted by: kamper
His gf doesn't have to be aware of the tunnelling going on. He can either set up a putty shortcut so all she has to do is click and type password or he can set up public key authentication so that it goes automatically.

grr. I get the e-mails notifying me of the replies, but I keep getting a jrun error whenever I try to logon. 😛

Anyway, this is sort of what I was thinking of doing when you mentioned tunneling the samba connection through ssh. Setting up a script would be fairly trivial and this would theoretically work.

I've gotta get cracking on this before I try my next project, creating a bootable linux usb stick. 😀

 

[kamper]

I'm still waiting for someone who understands smb better to weigh in on this to say if it's really possible. In order to tunnel you'd have to turn the remote machine on itself (all smb connections that you want going to your 'server' would have to point to localhost on the client) which, it seems to me, would get a little tricky.

 

[Praetor]

Originally posted by: kamper
I'm still waiting for someone who understands smb better to weigh in on this to say if it's really possible. In order to tunnel you'd have to turn the remote machine on itself (all smb connections that you want going to your 'server' would have to point to localhost on the client) which, it seems to me, would get a little tricky.

The turning on is rather easy. Either a) leave the computer on or b) enable wake on lan (WOL). There are tools and websites that detail the process fairly easily....

http://gsd.di.uminho.pt/jpo/software/wakeonlan/mini-howto/

 

[imported_FishTaco]

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The "trick" seems to be uninstalling the file and print sharing.

 

[Praetor]

Very good. Thanks for the pointers, Taco!