Set up access to home files and tunnel traffic remotely

Hi all,

Looking for a way to achieve 2 things, essentially remote into my home network from outside (e.g., public cafe) and have access to all my home network shares + tunnel all my traffic through the home network

I currently have an ISP-provided router at home (that I cannot flash custom firmware onto) and a Windows 10 Desktop computer

What is your recommended way of achieving something like this with good network security and relatively easy setup?

Thanks

You can use rdp or team viewer to do it you will need to forward ports on the router to get in

LeoBloom said:

Hi all,

Looking for a way to achieve 2 things, essentially remote into my home network from outside (e.g., public cafe) and have access to all my home network shares + tunnel all my traffic through the home network

I currently have an ISP-provided router at home (that I cannot flash custom firmware onto) and a Windows 10 Desktop computer

What is your recommended way of achieving something like this with good network security and relatively easy setup?

Thanks

Hi there

a bit too complex to post answer here without writing PAGES

but have a look at Putty and Tunnelling

How to Configure an SSH Tunnel on PuTTY - The Devolutions Blog

You'll also need some way of knowing what your home IP address is (as seen by the external Internet).

If your IP address doesn't change much after you've logged on from home (even with dynamic IP addresses) most don't change for the lifetime of the logon then just use that one -- otherwise you need some sort of program which runs in the background every so often --say once in 30 mins or so - which issues command ipconfig and emails the answer out to your phone or whatever

Don't bother with paid things like teamviewer - a simple script should be able to get your IP address and a mailto command will do the rest.

Router will be able to port forward --pretty standard so no need for flashing etc.

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

If your IP address doesn't change much after you've logged on from home (even with dynamic IP addresses) most don't change for the lifetime of the logon

I use dyndns - it is free but there are plenty of others - noip etc which will also deal with non-static IP addresses and forward your connections to your current IP.

Having said that my external ip has never once in the last 20 years changed except when I moved house. Not once. Not even if I tried to change it by rebooting router etc. This has been the same in several different countries. Static IP is (at least in EU/MENA) a sham - IP addresses are all pretty much fixed once you get them - you may pay extra for the "Static IP" tag on your bill but the result is the same either way. It just doesn't change.

jimbo45 said:

Hi there

a bit too complex to post answer here without writing PAGES

but have a look at Putty and Tunnelling

How to Configure an SSH Tunnel on PuTTY - The Devolutions Blog

You'll also need some way of knowing what your home IP address is (as seen by the external Internet).

If your IP address doesn't change much after you've logged on from home (even with dynamic IP addresses) most don't change for the lifetime of the logon then just use that one -- otherwise you need some sort of program which runs in the background every so often --say once in 30 mins or so - which issues command ipconfig and emails the answer out to your phone or whatever

Don't bother with paid things like teamviewer - a simple script should be able to get your IP address and a mailto command will do the rest.

Router will be able to port forward --pretty standard so no need for flashing etc.

Cheers
jimbo

Thanks for suggestions - a couple of questions

• Is it safe to configure an SSH server on a Windows machine (as opposed to directly on a router)
• Is it possible to configure a client to connect via a different port (and forward to the correct port within the router) to avoid port scanners?
• Will I be able to map a network drive (as opposed to only having access to my files via a command line interface)
• From a security perspective, is SSH as secure as an OpenVPN solution
• Not concerned regarding dynamic IP -- already set up a DynDNS service

Thank you!

I never bothered changing ports. They are secure as I require a password and haven't been subject to any DDOS/port scanning attacks as no-one (apart from tenforums) knows my IP address.

I forward 22 for SSH, 5389 for teamviewer and 9091 for my Transmission server and that is all.

As for security, I know nothing about it really so take my comments with a pinch of salt. WikiLeaks says SSH isn't secure (Secure Shell - Wikipedia) but I don't know enough to worry about it. I set up SSH as described here Secure Shell - ArchWiki to make it as safe as I reasonably could. I only connect to Linux via SSH.

According to here Windows since can now act as SSH server but I've not tried it and have no idea how it works or if it is secure so I don't. powershell - Does Windows 10 have a built-in SSH server? - Super User

Mapping a network drive over internet was always characterized as very unsafe and you should use a VPN instead. Alternatively you can use (as I do because it is easier) TeamViewer (or WebEx or whatever) rather than run separate VPN. I tried OpenVPN but it was just easier to use TeamViewer. All depends what you want to do I guess.