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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Mac Remote Access to Windows Drives

gormsby - Feb 21, 2007 - 1:13 pm

Hello,

I have a dilemma involving a remote Mac. I have a MacPro located offsite that I want to be able to connect to my workplace Windows network...specifically shared drives. So I want to open the shared drive then open a document that I can then use in Quark, Photoshop, etc., on the Mac.

The remote Mac has a 3MB/768k DSL connection. The worksite has a T1. The Mac is running Tiger 10.4 and the Windows Network is Windows 2003 w/XP.

I tried using VPN and it is painfully slow so it is not a viable option. I've been trying to find a different way to do this and ran into a couple of applications that allow you to remote into the Windows network but I would have to copy the files from the shared drive to the Mac. That doesn't work because there are so many files it would be impossible and risky because other users are also accessing those files.

I'm wondering about ADmitMac or Dave which will let you mount shared drives but I don't know if that will work remotely.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thank you,

Gloria

Yesurbius - Feb 22, 2007 - 2:15 am

Hello Gloria, my name is Daniel - thank you for taking the time to submit your question, I will do my best to assist you.

Connecting through a VPN has its advantages because it securely puts your Mac onto the internal network that your server is on. If you make your shares mountable to the internet, or utilize any other publicly-accessible port for the purpose of remote filesystem mounting, you are opening yourself up to a variety of compromising attacks. You will need to consider this when choosing a solution.

Because of the speed issues that you experienced when connecting to a VPN, you should be prepared to move to a solution that is like ftp in nature, where you copy files. Furthermore, the setup of the solution I am about to suggest is not for the faint of heart.

I took a look at the website for ADmitMac and Dave and they appear to be utilities that allow the Mac to participate with the Windows network on a higher level, but are not specifically geared towards remote connectivity - which is what you are looking for.

Standard advice and disclaimers aside, I think the best bet at achieving EXACTLY what you are looking for would be to try some semi-experimental software. I'm talking about using a FUSE (File-system in USErspace) type solution. Essentially, a FUSE mechanism takes ftp-like protocols and makes them appear as a mounted filesystem, transparent to the user. While these projects originated on Linux, there is a Mac OS X version of this: http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/ By installing OpenSSH on the windows server, you can securely access your files from your Mac over the internet (I've set up 1024 bit certificate encryption on SSH before - its pretty secure considering banks use 128 bit)

I won't lie to you however, this is not the easiest to set up. OpenSSH can be pretty tedious to configure (although there is a plethora of documentation available for it), and the FUSE implementations are VERY new... (like weeks and months old). Being so new, they are going to come with issues of their own such as being unable to properly deal with dropped connections. However, if you are dead set on seamless integration, without compromising your server, this WILL do it.

In regards to speed, a VPN will tunnel network traffic through the internet. Windows CIFS protocol messages, remote procedure calls, everything .. gets passed through the VPN. SCP (Secure Copy Protocol) extension of OpenSSH is a targeted protocol. It should be much more efficient on bandwidth. Just remember that this is a remote connection, there will be performance issues.

Yesurbius - Feb 22, 2007 - 9:12 am

Gloria, I've had some time to think on this, and I talked with a friend who regularly does VPNs in the manner that you are talking about. There are a few more points I'd like to add in regards to VPNs.

The VPN connection can more than likely be sped up.

1) The VPN client for windows can have very poor performance. Its advantage of course, is that it is free. You can try a VPN solution like Cisco VPN 3000 Series or Nortel Contivity Extranet Access.

2) If you would like to stick with the windows VPN client / server, then you are going to have to fine tune the VPN client and server in order to squeeze out the performance you are looking for. This can involve network configuration as well as VPN software configuration. One big thing to consider is your router setup: a VPN passing through a port forwarding router setup can kill VPN speed. If getting a list of shares is slow, but once connected to the share its quicker - there may be an issue with your name resolution.

If you weren't using graphical type applications, I'd also suggest investigating Terminal Services.

gormsby - Feb 22, 2007 - 12:34 pm

Daniel,

Thank you for the great input. I will look into the other VPN solutions you mention and also look at tweaking the vpn settings to see if there can be a performance gain. I have tried Timbuktu and LogMeIn to copy files back and forth. I also copied files using VPN. VPN actually works best because it retains the folder structure and the others don't. So it seems that will be the solution for now.

Thank you so much for your help.

Gloria

Yesurbius - Feb 22, 2007 - 5:46 pm

You are welcome. Thanks for using macosx.com!