angrynorth

I may just be missing the blindingly obvious but I can't figure out what my direct IP is for my computer.

The thing I can't figure is the machine is on a network behind a router that carries an IP of say 192.56.56.56 (made up) but my machines IP on the network is 192.168.1.1

I need to access the hard drive of my machine from home so what IP do I use?

At home I'm, on BT Openworld with a dynamic IP.

Any help would help. TA

RoadrunnerV2

If you are not vpn'ing into your home network then it would be the public IP. If you are vpn;ing into your home network then you be your computers private IP 192.168.x.x.

Edmund

Type 'ipconfig /all' in the command prompt window and it will list all of your local IPs.

Fatman

If you're behind a router, then ipconfig won't actually report your external address in its adapter list. However, it should pick it up as "default gateway" on your ethernet/LAN connection.

angrynorth

ah sorry I should have mentioned I'm on a mac IP config doesn't exist. I know my gateway and local and router IP I just can't access the machine.

What I would usually do is this

finder > Conect to Serever > smb://111.111.111.111 and I would then be able to get to the drives etc. Just can't figure it out

angrynorth

Oh is it anything like when you try to connect to a port eg
192.11.11.11:80 ?

Fatman

Sorry, I don't know Macs. However, I guess that since you're behind a router, then a VPN would be your best route in (i.e. using the internal address). Unless you're using only a specific protocol, and then you might be able to use 'port-forwarding' to direct traffic to your internal address via the external address.

class_A

Right

Based on what I can glean from your post...

At home you have a Dynamic IP. As implied, this can change at any time. You need to use a Dynamic IP DNS service like DynDNS. Many home routers now support services such as this. They receive an IP from your ISP, then log onto the DynDNS service to tell it what your IP is. You then simply access your home LAN using a regular URL such as angrynorth.dyndns.org

Either that, or you can change your level of service with your ISP and get a static address assigned to your network.

Now you've physically got connectivity, you need to think about security. Exposing Windows shares (SMB) to the Internet is A VERY BAD IDEA You need to look at "encryption tunnels" such as SSH or IPSec which provide authentication and encryption in order to secure your network from intruders and prevent people from "sniffing" everything you transmit between your remote PC and home LAN.

I have Macs at home behind a router/firewall/NAT and I do this kind of thing all the time, so let me know if you need any more help!

Cheers,
Alex

Puff The Magic Wagon!

iTrader: (2)

You need to tell us a bit more

I think that you are at home with a solo Mac. You are trying to connect to drives/shares on your office machine which is behind a router/firewall.

If you are in the office environment, you connect using Finder as you describe above. However, you're the other side of the internet, so need to do things slightly differently.

In order that your data is not exposed or given *****-nilly to everyone over the internet, you need to make a secure connection from home to your office network. You need to connect to/via the external IP of your router by VPN to your office network. Once on, you should be able to use finder as normal.

angrynorth

Cheers everyone.

I think that DynDNS might be what I am looking for. The specific reason I want to do this is my pictures folder at home has lots of stock photo images, some of which would come in handy at work. I want to be able to access that single folder to transfer images over when required.

I think I will try and see what I can figure out when I get back to my home machine and I will let you know how I get on.

I would expect to hear from me again about this though

Puff The Magic Wagon!

iTrader: (2)

Ah! You're working the other way round

Need to tell us what you have @ home...

angrynorth

That is the setup at home:

HOME
Router on Dynamic IP BT Openworld
Mac G4

WORK
Static IP but firewalled and protected. God knows what else but its a big place so I imagine its pretty complex.
Mac G5

class_A

With the firewall situation, the easiest way would be to "tunnel" your chosen file sharing protocol over SSH, using port 443 (HTTPS/SSL). This will most probably be open on your work firewall.

AFP (Apple File Protocol), simple called "File Sharing" in System Preferences -> Sharing would be the best protocol to use...
a) it's Mac native
b) it only requires one port

Have a look at this article then come back and ask questions

Cheers,
Alex

angrynorth

Cheers for that Alex, I'll have a read and see what I understand

Andy