I want my folders to be accessible to both PC’s without having to turn on one PC to work on it via the other. So therefore, I need a network external hard disk.
I want to purchase one and if I attach it to the router, I can access it from both PCs. However, how do you ensure that noone from outside has access to it? (after all, the firewalls are installed separately per PC; there is no extra protection for the external drive then)
Is the firewall from the router sufficient protection? Is there any way to protect it? Put a pass-word on the external hard drive? Is that easy to crack?
Yes, you can by Network Attached Storage (NAS) and connect it to the router. As far as the security is concerned, i don't think the NAS listens on a tcp port, so it will be secure in your network. You will be accessing the NAS with an internal IP, so unless someone cracks in your wireless network, they can't access the NAS. So, the answer to your question, the firewall from the router is sufficient as it is (supposedly) disallows any incoming traffic on any port. Actually, NAS will be more protected than the software firewalled PCs as NAS will not be going out to the internet, hence not exposed. There might be an access-list in the NAS to allow only certain hosts to browse the filesystem, enable that and you then you should be in peace.
On a sidenote, there might be an option in your router to disable ping traffic to the internet. If you set that, then you won't even get probed. 'Hackers' scan the IP addresses for open ports if they can ping them, so if they can't even ping your IP from outside, they won't even know that u r there.
Mr Genius: is a NAS the same as /similar to/ works the same as LAN HDD? in other words, does a LAN HDD have the same option of only giving access to certain hosts?
NAS = Network Area Storage -- In our case, it is your LAN HDD...
sorry for the confusion
Whats the make for your LAN HDD, please post the model and pic of that lan hdd and i will check the reference manual to see if there are options of giving access to certain hosts.
I also wanna clarify the other point.... your Lan hdd can't be accessed from outside your network e.g. you can't access that hdd if you are out of your house, hence it is secure.
Hey ness, Have you bought a network HD yet? which one? I m buying one myself in the next week InshaALlah for the same reason as you have /are going to:D
Share some info on this topic if you will since I have no experience at all with network HD’s
Some info on network HDs would be nice aswell. Price range, capacity etc.
or a more economical option would be to buy the HD separately, and the NAS enclosure separately, and put it together yourself. Something similar to those specs should be easy in about $200.
That's what I thought as well, but when I checked out some of the enclosures, their features list mentioned support for FTP, SMB and Telnet. So there is a good possibility of exploiting these services.
But i like the idea of LAN Disk, might buy one ...
^ Yah, that is what i was afraid of …
Again, its feature vs. security… I just hope that there is an option of turning those services of… or atleast give ssh instead of telnet, so ppl can use Secure Copyto transfer file from outside the network.
oh … actually u know what, we don’t have to worry about it, since we are not going to forward the port on the router for ftp, smb or telnet… so i guess those services even with the exploits are not a threat in our case..
.: network gurus, plz correct me if i wrong
Yes, not a risk if the LAN disk is connected to a regular router but in case it is connected to a wireless LAN Disk enclosure it can be a serious problem. I can’t think of any serious threats from the Internet …
it's a Lacie 300 Gb. and it's working perfectly fine. Although in the beginning I had some problems getting it recognized in the network, but it's alright now.
another question I have, is that I've made different folders for different users and then mapped those folders as network drives. Is it possible to install a maximum size limit per folder?
