Dearly love to have a virtual folder through the internet

[NASnumpty]

 I would dearly love, for various reasons, to be able to access a space on my Buffalo LinkStation Live from the internet, as if it was a simple windows folder, or perhaps a drive letter, within my Laptop's Windows 8 OS.

 

I have "webaccess" successfully running, with a single port-forwarding rule (uPNP disabled on everything), and without recourse to DMZ. So I can "dial-in" to my Linkstation's Java GUI in a browser (both with the Buffalonas proprietary service and also via a 3rd-party dynamic-DNS-type service)

 

This is all very well but I dont want to be forced to use a browser interface to access my files. I want it to be part of my laptop (when I am web-connected)

 

Eventually I want to use an auto backup program, and I feel that this will be much easier if my NAS space is available to the OS directly as a drive letter or folder.

I had hoped to use the NovaBackup software bundled with the LinkStation but it fails at installation (I have tried the NovaStor fixes for this to no avail)

 

Please Could anyone give any help as to how I can go about "mapping" a folder on my NAS (or indeed my entire NAS) into my OS, when my laptop is at one side of the internet and my NAS is on the other. (when my lappie and my NAS are on the same network of course it is trivial)

 

 

[davo]

Use FTP?

[NASnumpty]

Davo, thanks. I have explored the FTP side of things and it looks "virtually" ideal. I hadnt appreciated that I can map a network drive to an FTP URL within Windows 8.

 

However there is a little wrinkle: when I open the network drive within Windows, the first thing I see is a subfoilder called Disk 1. I have to open this to get to my own subfolders on the NAS. It would be better if I could map directly down to the appropriate subfolder on the NAS.

 

DETAIL:

on my Buffalo NAS box, I have a few folders on "Disk 1" - Videos, Software, Backups.

I would like my Windows Network Drive mapping to map right down to a subfolder. At the moment, I mapped the drive within Windows by entering:

 

ftp://usrname:paswrd@public.ip.num.ber:21

 

(I think the :21 may be superfluous)

 

this is obviously pointing directly at the FTP server which is running in my Buffalo NAS box.

 

so this works, but when I go to open my mapped drive in Windows, the first folder I see is called "Disk 1". I double-click on it and then I see my organisational folder structure (vides, software etc)

 

is there a clever way of "pointing" my FTP URL straight at the subfolder?

 

hope I have made myself clear.

 

 

 

[NASnumpty]

sorted it. I was being rather dense.

 

the URL is of course,

 

ftp://username:password@public.ip.num.ber/disk1/subdirectory_name

 

 

Ive been told that SSH would be "more secure" than running what is essentially a public FTP server from behind my router. What are the actual risks with opening 21 (or indeed any port) on my router?

 

I mean, OK anyone can find my public-facing IP, and scan all the ports to see what is open . But then what would they do? throw a word list at the password prompt? (in which case my password strength is paramount) or is there a better way of getting in than guessing the password?

 

[ESCHER]

I think what you are looking for is a Cloudstor.