Mounting disks not on the LAN

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secure NFS

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I am new to Mac and UNIX and doing all the reading I can on both. I'm very interested to find out if I can mount disks from Mac OS X or Win XP on my Powerbook when I am NOT on the same LAN as the stationary computers. Say when I am working across town, in the library, or away in the weekend.

Could I tunnel NFS through SSH and MOUNT my filesystem from the stationary Mac when I am working in on my portable in another city? so I can launch applications work directly on files, etc. SFTP does not give those possibilities.
--- Maybe, in a way similar to how I would mount my iDisk (what technology does iDisk actually use?) or any other way really.

Or could I use SAMBA/Sharity to mount my home disks on my laptop when I am somewhere off the LAN - is that possible or does SAMBA only work on the LAN?
--- If it is possible? - is it secure? would I have to set up a NT Domain?

In other words how do you make secure VPN with a MAC serving the files? Any hints on how or where I could find answers would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for all these newbie questions, but I am eager to learn.
 
Apple Mac OS used to use AppleTalk pre to OSX. It now uses straightforward TCP/IP. The protocol is AFP (Apple File Protocol).

If you need to share OSX-to-OSX (i.e your Powerbook connecting into your other OSX machine at work), then this is very simple. As long as the machine you want to connect to (the OSX one) has File Sharing switched on in System Preferences, and the machine has it's own IP number.

Basically, say for example your OSX machine that you want to connect to is IP number 210.80.80.80 (just an example number), then press Apple-K (or select Connect to Server in the Go menu on the desktop), and type in:

afp://210.80.80.80

... and that's it, it should connect to that machine as long it is connected to the Internet. It'll ask you for the Username and Password. I suggest also looking into a firewall though, to protect this route.

If you need to connect via SSH, then make sure Allow Remote Log-in is enabled in System Prefs. You would then use the Terminal to log-into the machine, like this:

ssh user@210.80.80.80

Again, make sure you definately have a firewall setup for this!


If you want to connect to an XP machine, then my advice ends here, since I am waiting for 10.2 to do this (I don't really need to at present and can't be bothered trying:rolleyes: ). But jaguar will make it seemless to do so come Aug 24th!:D

(By the way, the above options I mentioned work for me 100%);)
 
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