secure samba over WAN

[Ken Cobler]

Tony Rich wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>   I am new to the samba environment. I was wondering if
> someone could point me to a location of documentation for
> samba over a WAN. I have two locations I would like to map
> drives from/to over the internet, and I am worried about
> security. Any help would be appreceated.
>

Is it a single workstation that you are remotely connecting?  Then you
could use Microsoft VPN and pptp software (freely available source
http://poptop.lineo.com) .  Granted, there are some minor security risks
with Microsoft's VPN solution.  I have configured this.  It took a
little while to get the kinks worked out, but, it's manageable  and I
view it is more secure than opening your machine to the Internet.

To be absolutely certain, the only way that I know of to connect
machines together (regardless what they are running, i.e., Windows,
Linux, Unix, etc.) over the Internet, is IPSEC (IP Secure).

There is a free implementation of IPSEC (built for Linux), but the
source is available and may work in other environments.  FreeSWAN is the
software (www.freeswan.org).  Though FreeSWAN (via IPSEC) is secure,
it's not for the faint of heart to configure. You will pull out some
hairs getting it to work.

Ken Cobler