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Mounting storage in Windows
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Mounting storage in Windows

tehdartherertehdartherer Member
edited September 2014 in Help

How would you mount storage from a Linux VPS / Dedi to Windows (7)?
Imagine, both are in a secure VPN, so no encryption is needed.
The obvious choice would be Samba, but this is a pain when dealing with high latencies, i.e. over the net. I am looking for a reliable / responsive / fast solution.
In Linux there are plenty of ways, but I am not very familiar with the possibilities in Windows.
Mounting it as a (network) drive would be mandatory, since this preserves compatibility to any program running.

Comments

  • Well, there are a few ways:

    • NFS/CFS

    • Samba

    • WebDav

    There are also a number of ways to do it with FUSE (but screw Java...)

  • mikhomikho Member, Host Rep

    Nfs or iscsi (if you know how)

  • iSCSI.

  • mikhomikho Member, Host Rep

    Samba is straight up in windows.
    Both nfs and iscsi requires config on the windows machine aswell.

    And it could be blocked by a 3rd party application.

  • rm_rm_ IPv6 Advocate, Veteran
    edited September 2014

    MikHo said: iscsi

    socials said: iSCSI

    I wonder did you read the 1st post. For someone who's complaining about Samba being suboptimal at high latencices over the Internet, do you seriously suggest iSCSI of all things, as something that handles high latencies better?

  • said: How would you mount storage from

    Why? There might be a better solution than folder mounts. I find the folder mounts are most intuitive, but unnecessary in many situations.

    Do you need the files synced (redundancy), only on the server (security, ACL), accessible by multiple people (sharing), etc.?

  • I use Samba.

  • Anyone got any idea how to use samba without a VPN?

  • socialssocials Member
    edited September 2014

    @rm_ said:
    I wonder did you read the 1st post. For someone who's complaining about Samba being suboptimal at high latencices over the Internet, do you seriously suggest iSCSI of all things, as something that handles high latencies better?

    Concerning storage there's no such technology that's optimal at high latencies over the Internet.

  • @joodle said:
    Anyone got any idea how to use samba without a VPN?

    Why would one need a VPN for Samba?

  • @wych said:
    Why would one need a VPN for Samba?

    I never got it to work on a linux VPS for years.. Simply couldn't connect to it

  • @joodle said:

    Strange. I first used a turnkey image as I had to back some stuff up asap. After that I just followed a few guides and went from there.

    Now I have my samba on a box that then rsync across the world for more redundancy :)

  • mikhomikho Member, Host Rep

    @joodle said:
    Anyone got any idea how to use samba without a VPN?

    http://www.lowendguide.com/3/networking/samba-share-your-vps-drive/

    Works without vpn, is it a good choice to do it without vpn? You tell me.

    @rm_ said:
    I wonder did you read the 1st post. For someone who's complaining about Samba being suboptimal at high latencices over the Internet, do you seriously suggest iSCSI of all things, as something that handles high latencies better?

    He asked for solutions that would work with Windows primarily.
    Thats what I answered, will it be reliable and fast? Depends on so many factors that no one can predict the result.

    No matter what you chose, if the ping is constant around 300 ms anything would be slow.
    If the oing is 5ms then it might work.

    Thanked by 1BlazeMuis
  • @MikHo said:
    If the oing is 5ms then it might work.

    If you have a strong password, what's the problem?

  • mikhomikho Member, Host Rep
    edited September 2014

    @hostnoob said:
    If you have a strong password, what's the problem?

    Strong password is the best security you could get.

    I leave the decision to the one who tries it.
    Side-note: I do run samba over the Internet without vpn to a server that I at best get 125ms ping. It works.

  • @MikHo said:

    Well, at the moment I just store my "Linux ISOs" behind a htpasswd protected folder.

    I tried Samba but when you open a "Linux ISO" it doesn't open straight away in VLC like a stream, it downloads the entire thing first :(

  • @tehdartherer saID: I am looking for a reliable / responsive / fast solution.

    Responsive and fast over a WAN means lot of caching. The fastest out-of-the box solution on Windows is iSCSI. It works over the Internet and the default Windows client setting is to add tons of cache, so the disk almost feels as local when browsing content or moving files. You can try very easily by yourself.

    The drawbacks are bad security (unless you want to go over the basics and learn the full iSCSI security features) and data corruption risks if the connection is broken and the iSCSI session expires (iSCSI does manage small packet losses, so no issues in a normal operating scenario). I routinely use iSCSI over the internet to mount ISO images on Windows VPSs. A iSCSi read only mount is fast and easy while a read/write mount over the internet is possible, but I never used it on production systems. You can disable the write cache on the iSCSI Windows client and the volume will be managed like a USB memory stick. You can unplug a stick from the computer while writing over it with limited data loss.

    @MikHo said: Nfs

    I haven't had the time to test the NFS client on Windows 2012R2. Is it really better than the Windows 2008R2 implementation? The Technet article lists many improvements, but Microsoft feature lists aren't always a good source.

  • mikhomikho Member, Host Rep

    @pcan said:
    I haven't had the time to test the NFS client on Windows 2012R2. Is it really better than the Windows 2008R2 implementation? The Technet article lists many improvements, but Microsoft feature lists aren't always a good source.

    It's not that commonly used in the world of Windows and I don't have any comparison tests so can't say if it's better or not

  • Thanks for the suggestions, I didn't know that NFS is available on Windows platforms. I will look into that.

  • How about sshfs?

  • joodle said: I never got it to work on a linux VPS for years.. Simply couldn't connect to it

    Simple reason, ISP block. a high amount of isp's block SMB/NFS ports.

  • @TarZZ92 said:

    A fair suggestion, sshfs, but it requires specialized software installed.

    @TarZZ92 said:

    It's incredibly trivial to change the port of NFS. And NFS works out of the box on Windows.

  • @TarZZ92 said:
    Simple reason, ISP block. a high amount of isp's block SMB/NFS ports.

    Just contacted my provider and they indeed block port 445 for SMB -.-'

    Connected to my Samba share while connected to a VPN on my LES and it opened/connected instantly..

    Damn you ISP!

  • Is there any way to change the SMB (client side/windows) port? I don't want to use a VPN all the time..

  • TarZZ92TarZZ92 Member
    edited September 2014

    joodle said: Is there any way to change the SMB (client side/windows) port? I don't want to use a VPN all the time..

    Nope. i tried this myself (one of my isp blocks it too)

    from what i've seen you can use a vpn but not forward gateway or something like that.

  • Could be just me, but there's no way I'd access Samba over the internet without tunneling it through a VPN.

  • CharlesA said: Could be just me, but there's no way I'd access Samba over the internet without tunneling it through a VPN.

    it's just you, as with @joodle you probably have blocked SMB ports.

    you can confirm @ http://netalyzr.icsi.berkeley.edu/

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