Network places accessible from internet

[Milan]

Hello,

How to make the samba shares on router accessible from the internet? I have connected drives to the router and I want to access them from the internet as mapped drives. I know that I can use the Asus iCloud, but I would like to use a samba connection.

 

[eibgrad]

Use a VPN! Do NOT expose such services directly to the internet via the WAN.

 

[FourthandShort]

Hello,

How to make the samba shares on router accessible from the internet? I have connected drives to the router and I want to access them from the internet as mapped drives. I know that I can use the Asus iCloud, but I would like to use a samba connection.

Tailscale works great for me. I can enter the TS IP address and share name and get to it from anywhere. Alternatively, depending on how you setup access, if you setup an exit route to a machine in the LAN, then all traffic for the machine would behave like the exit node is the one asking for the shared Samba files.

 

[Milan]

I set up a VPN - I tried both - OpenVPN and WireGuard. OpenVPN is working for me, but when using WireGuard I don't see shared drives on the router. So I will stick with OpenVPN for now.
Is there some additional setup needed for WireGuard?

 

[bennor]

Is there some additional setup needed for WireGuard?

Did you enable the WireGuard option "Access Intranet"? What settings for WireGuard Server did you change from default? Can you access the router attached USB hard drive using the IP address for the router when connected via WireGuard?

 

[eibgrad]

I don't see shared drives on the router.

By "see", some users mean they don't see resources listed under Network Places (or whatever MS is calling it these days). That feature relies on network discovery, which will NOT typically work across a routed (TUN) tunnel. It may work w/ a bridged tunnel (TAP), but WG doesn't support bridged tunnels, only OpenVPN does. But that doesn't mean you can't still access those resources either by name (provided you've configured the VPN to use your local DNS server (i.e., DNSMasq)) or explicit IP.

 

[Milan]

By "see", some users mean they don't see resources listed under Network Places (or whatever MS is calling it these days). That feature relies on network discovery, which will NOT typically work across a routed (TUN) tunnel. It may work w/ a bridged tunnel (TAP), but WG doesn't support bridged tunnels, only OpenVPN does. But that doesn't mean you can't still access those resources either by name (provided you've configured the VPN to use your local DNS server (i.e., DNSMasq)) or explicit IP.

Then this explains why the drives attached to the router and shared via samba are accessible only in OpenVPN. Then I will stick with it.