How do I map a network drive for remote use?

[78Pace]

Hoping that the greater PH wisdom can save what little remains of my hair, as I've been tearing it out! I have a WD MyBook Live NAS which has been running fine for a few years on my home LAN with a couple of shares that I have mapped to drives on my Windows 10 client laptop. I now want to be able to access these shares when I'm out and about in exactly the same way that I do when I'm at home (ie. I don't want to have to use the WD2GO web-based method which I find clunky). I've signed up to NO-IP's DDNS service to solve the issue of my IP address changing every so often which provides me with a hostname (let's call it Bloggs.co.uk for sake of argument) and I have configured my router (BT Home Hub 5) to use it - that part also seems to be working OK as far as I can tell. What's the next step? Do I need to forward any ports (if so, how do I find out which ones?) and then how do I perform the actual drive mapping? Let's say that the share name is MyNAS.

Are there (security) risks associated with what I'm trying to do and, if so, what are they and how should I address them? Although I've worked in IT all my life I'm afraid that I'm not well versed on networking so any advice would be most welcome!

[Trustmeimadoctor]

you need to set up a vpn server or every man and his dog will be able to get your data.

Really id replace your router with a better one that supports vpn's

[2Btoo]

This won't be the answer you are looking for but if you aren't sharing much then consider a hosting site. Something like mega.co.nz will give you quite a lot of GB for free and you can access it anywhere, sync it with your home (and other) computers and it's all nice and secure. Much easier than faffing with mounting drives and forwarding ports.

If you DO decide to make drives at home accessible on t'interweb then bear in mind your upload speed offered by your ISP. If you have ADSL (as opposed to DSL) then it will be slow, meaning that accessing anything from outside your home will be tedious.

[Trustmeimadoctor]

Lets hope it supports better than pptp

[BigTZ4M]

As has been said you need a VPN server at your home and then have a VPN client which connects to it on your machine that is remote. Then when you instigate the connection it will act exactly as if you were at home including referencing the share.

Your current router doesn’t support running a VPN server. Replacing your router with one capable is one option. The cheapest way I know to do it though is buy a Raspberry Pi and follow this guide: http://kamilslab.com/2017/01/22/how-to-turn-your-r...

[maccas99]

Depending on the quantity of data and your licenses/subscriptions wouldn't it be far easier to use a cloud based storage service such as OneDrive/Box/Google Drive etc? You could still back information up to the external NAS but have it replicating to a cloud storage service. This way your perimeter wouldn't need to have any holes punched through it.

[78Pace]

Thanks all for your replies. I suspected that the topic of VPN would likely arise, but didn't realise the implications upon the router. So what would be recommended as a "better" router to replace the HH5 (I'm using BT Infinity so have 9m/s upload which will be sufficient for my home needs)? I appreciate the suggestions of cloud-based storage but, call me old fashioned if you like, I prefer to be in control of my data. Also are there any recommended VPNs (or any to steer clear of)?

[weeboot]

ash73 said:

Or as mentioned, you can use a rPi as a vpn server.

Recently set one of these up as a little experiment. Surprisingly easy and works really well.
Helps having FTTP and 50Mb upstream..

[BigTZ4M]

78Pace said:

Also are there any recommended VPNs (or any to steer clear of)?

To be clear, for this to work how you want, you do not need a VPN provider. VPN providers like Nord, PIA or whatever run VPN servers you connect to. What you want to achieve has YOU running the VPN server at home that you connect to when you’re away.