Is there a beginners guide or advice on connecting to my server's SMB shares and admin panel from anywhere in the world?

robster · Jul 11th 2018

Hi all,

I assume it has something to do with the OpenVPN plugin but I'm quite new to this. Can anyone advise in ELI5 talk (explain like I'm 5) on what is the best way to do it and I can follow up with research based on feedback.

Thanks so much...

Nibb31 · Jul 11th 2018

SMB is not designed for connecting over the Internet. It's a LAN protocol.

You would be better off using FTP, WebDAV, NextCloud, etc...

robster · Jul 11th 2018

Thank you as I'm quite new at this. I appreciate your answer.

I had thought in my mind I would be able to setup some kind of VPN link to the server so that if say, I'm in Europe for work and need to connect back to the office server to get files I can simply mount a SMB/CIFS share as usual (with a dedicated IP or something?) and see it like a normal (and maybe a little slow) drive.

Can this not be done?

mkpd · Jul 11th 2018

This Thread may Help

Read the linked thread. It will give you a good start on what to do.

tkaiser · Jul 11th 2018

Quote from robster

Can this not be done?

Sure, that's what a VPN is for. You should just keep in mind that 'through the Internet' latency (so called round-trip times) increase a lot and that LAN protocols like SMB (and especially others like AFP) 'love' low latency and show some serious performance hits with such WAN/VPN scenarios.

In case you run into that issue or just as a precaution:

jollyrogr · Jul 11th 2018

The VPN wouldn't necessarily need to be setup on OMV. My VPN is configured on my router.

Is there a beginners guide or advice on connecting to my server's SMB shares and admin panel from anywhere in the world?

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