I have been trying to figure out a way to have remote access to a specific drive or folder on my MacPro. When I say remote, I dont mean a different computer on the same network, I mean access it from another computer, in another city, state, country, where ever. I want it to run like an ftp server or an idisk. What do I need to set this up? Im not completely lost on the subject, just never did it before. I would also prefer to use ssh since ftp isnt as secure. I also dont need access to my entire MacPro, just the specific folder or drive. Thanks in advance
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Remote File Access to a specific driver or folder on my Mac
- Thread starter jdl8422
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Since you mentioned ssh, you can enable it via System Preferences -> Sharing . Check the "Remote Login" box. You can also set up, from within that window, what users you want to have ssh access (if not everybody). This will allow you to ssh into your MacPro and to also use "scp" (to copy files to/from your Mac Pro). Of course, if you are doing this from outside of your local network, you'll have to setup your router to open/forward the appropriate port and deal with all the security issues that comes along with it.
Forgive me if you already know some of this. I'm just trying to be thorough...
I also have an Airport Extreme. I'm not at home right now and I can't remember exactly how to do it. Within the Airport Utility, you are looking for something called "Port Mapping", or "Port Forwarding" or something like that. What that does is allow you to specify a port on the internet side of your router and forward it to a specific IP address + port on your local network. If you're not already using static IP addresses, you'll want to assign one to your mac pro. Once you have that, you will want to forward it to <IP Address of your Mac Pro> at port 22 (port 22 is the standard SSH port).
Now the question is what port do you want to open on the internet side of your router? You could just open up port 22. Now I'm no security expert, and I might be fooling myself by even doing this, but I use a different port on the theory that using an obscure port number is more secure. If you use a different port, you'll need to specify it on the ssh command line when you are logging in from outside of your local network (-p option)
That will take care of the router part of the equation. If you are not familiar with setting up SSH, I recommend you do some googling about how to secure SSH on your computer. OSX runs OpenSSH, which is a freely available ssh implementation used on many unix operating systems. I recommend you google for securing openssh. You might want to, for example, set up an ssh key and enable passwordless logins. This means you cannot login by typing in your user's password, but instead need a specific key.
edit: you'll also need your internet IP address. I setup dynamic dns, through dyndns.org, as my internet provider gives me a dynamic ip address.
I also have an Airport Extreme. I'm not at home right now and I can't remember exactly how to do it. Within the Airport Utility, you are looking for something called "Port Mapping", or "Port Forwarding" or something like that. What that does is allow you to specify a port on the internet side of your router and forward it to a specific IP address + port on your local network. If you're not already using static IP addresses, you'll want to assign one to your mac pro. Once you have that, you will want to forward it to <IP Address of your Mac Pro> at port 22 (port 22 is the standard SSH port).
Now the question is what port do you want to open on the internet side of your router? You could just open up port 22. Now I'm no security expert, and I might be fooling myself by even doing this, but I use a different port on the theory that using an obscure port number is more secure. If you use a different port, you'll need to specify it on the ssh command line when you are logging in from outside of your local network (-p option)
That will take care of the router part of the equation. If you are not familiar with setting up SSH, I recommend you do some googling about how to secure SSH on your computer. OSX runs OpenSSH, which is a freely available ssh implementation used on many unix operating systems. I recommend you google for securing openssh. You might want to, for example, set up an ssh key and enable passwordless logins. This means you cannot login by typing in your user's password, but instead need a specific key.
edit: you'll also need your internet IP address. I setup dynamic dns, through dyndns.org, as my internet provider gives me a dynamic ip address.