samba - Feb 2009 - Tunneling over SSH

Mike Messick wrote:
> Hi Kevin,
>
> You might take a look at openvpn instead - http://openvpn.net.
>
> I've had great success for 3+ years using openvpn on my samba server
and
> having windows machines accessing shares via the vpn link.  Since openvpn
> can use udp as well it provides a much more resilient transport for samba
> traffic (At the cost of some throughput I'm sure.)
>
> Hope this helps,
> -Mike.
>
> =================================================================> Mike
Messick           Dona nobis pacem          rm -rf /bin/laden
> PGP Key Fingerprint:                       email: mikem@alaska.net 
> 2048/0x57318496 053B 412B 82FC 3808 E141  CDCD 74AE 01C5 5731 8496
>
> On Tue, 24 Feb 2009, Kevin Bailey wrote:
>
>   
>> Hi,
>>
>> Has anyone successfully got a Windows PC to access Samba over an SSH 
>> tunnel.  This first of all worked immediately - but now seems to have 
>> stopped.
>>
>> I've tried with using putty and myentunnel to set up the tunnel -
and
>> these are working when I test against a web server.
>>
>> I've followed instructions at:
>>
>>
http://www.security-hacks.com/2007/05/18/tunneling-smb-over-ssh-secure-file-sharing
>>
>> This has set up another loopback device which means that the Windows 
>> machine can carry on with its own file sharing.
>>
>> This is particularly important as my client needs to access Sage 
>> Accounts data files which are Access files - I want them to continue 
>> accessing the data using Samba - but as I need to put the server on to 
>> the internet I need to tunnel the Samba traffic over ssh for security.
>>
>> Any help, pointers gratefully received.
>>
>> Kevin Bailey
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>>     
>
>   
Yep - thanks for that.  We've used VPN's successfully before - but the 
client wants to attach from various locations and setting up VPN's is 
too much.

Also, we had trouble setting up a VPN from his house - can't remember 
the details apart from the fact that it was BT's fault!

Cheers,

Kevin

-- 
*Kevin Bailey*
Director/Programmer - Freeway Projects Limited
Web: www.freewayprojects.com <http://www.freewayprojects.com/>
Email: kbailey@freewayprojects.com <mailto:kbailey@freewayprojects.com>
Phone: +44 (0)1752 267090

Kevin Bailey wrote:
> Also, we had trouble setting up a VPN from his house - can't remember 
> the details apart from the fact that it was BT's fault!
Was this using OpenVPN or PPTP? OpenVPN is much more flexible than PPTP 
and will happily work across all but the most stubborn connections  
(also it doesn't rely on GRE which is what has caused me the most VPN 
headaches).

I haven't used Sage before, but if it is opening the data files directly 
off a share (which would seem to be the case) then you may run into 
issues using it remotely. I have had users insist on running MYOB and 
Quicken over VPNs, if they are lucky it is almost unusable and they give 
up, a couple have had issues with file corruption.

Have you considered RDP? This would allow quick and easy access from 
most connections without any setup, it would be faster than pulling a 
large access file over a VPN and would be immune to corruption as a 
result of interrupted connections.


*Michael Heydon - IT Administrator *
michaelh@jaswin.com.au <mailto:michaelh@jaswin.com.au>

Could you post the batch files here.  Thanks.