cifs and firewalls

jackd1000 · 05-13-2009, 11:51 AM

I've got a linux box outside our firewall that I have decided needs to mount a directory in an NT box inside our firewall using cifs.

Any bright ideas from anybody as to how I can do this ? Is it completely impossible to address a box with a private IP address from outside a firewall ? I should point out I am trying to avoid using a VPN, before anybody suggests it.

I'm stuck. Any help appreciated. Many thanks in advance

Jack

JulianTosh · 05-14-2009, 02:08 AM

You're asking for serious trouble if you don't add some kind of layered protection around that service, especially on an NT box.

If you're really really dumb, you can NAT a public socket on your firewall directly to your NT box on the private cifs socket - Again, if you're really really dumb.

Please dont take that the wrong either. I'm not calling you dumb, but you would be if you did that.

Dumb.

jackd1000 · 05-14-2009, 03:43 AM

I'm not thinking about using cifs directly.

I'm on about forwarding the cifs service over SSL (which might be slow, but that isn't a consideration). I just want to know if there is a straightforward way of connecting to my NT box(privately addressed inside the firewall) without using hardware but instead a hostname.

JulianTosh · 05-14-2009, 03:54 AM

Are you talking about using something like stunnel between the outside linux box and the firewall? If you have control over the firewall, you can do anything. Just about any firewall device has the ability to forward/NAT packets from a public address to a private one.

If you do not have control over the firewall, then things get more complicated.

archtoad6 · 06-12-2009, 09:41 AM

What did you do?

Is the problem solved?

What is the solution?

Do you need more help?