I have started about 3 years ago to use Ubuntu.Now I have 14.04LTS for stability.

I want to setup access to my home computer from other locations ( my office for instance).
I have read over 200 articles on how to setup firewall, ssh-server, iptables and everything is becoming very confusing because not one relates to the other portion of the puzzle to make everything work.
Ex- I have setup SSH-server and it works good but I still cannot set iptables....for the firewall; (which is best to start ufw/ gufw/ firestarter or else), The result is thatnothing is still working and I am not able to do it.

Also what is the setup that has to be made in the router to coordinate all these setups? The end goal is to make it work...

There seems to be no article that deals with all these subjects together or interrelates these together so we can have a clear understanding and more accurate procedures.
Would it be possible to have more or less a basic recipe; steps a,b,c,d, etc.. of what are all the steps to accomplish the ultimate work?

Denis Gaulin

UFW (Uncomplicated Firewall) would be good for a new user. And documentation is always the best place to start...the Ubuntu page on UFW has the EXACT command to enable remote SSH:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UncomplicatedFirewall
The end goal of working on ANYTHING is to make it work. And there's no way anyone can tell you the answer to this, since we don't know what kind of router you have, or where you live. Some ISP's are better than others...but chances are there will be a web-page you can access on your router, which will let you do what is known as a 'port forward'. For this, you'll need to know:

• The external IP address of your Internet router (this is provided by your ISP). If it's dynamic...you WILL have problems, since your Internet-facing address will change whenever they update things, reboot your router, or if you lose power.
• The IP address of your Ubuntu box on your local, internal network.
• The port your have SSH running on, if you changed it.

Say your external IP address is 11.12.13.14, and your Ubuntu box is 192.168.10.10, and you're running SSH on the default port 22. You forward port 22 on your external address to port 22 on your INTERNAL system, so the router just shovels things in on that port, to that address. So that by typing in "ssh user@11.12.13.14" from any box on the Internet, you'll get connected to your Ubuntu box. HOW you do this, where, and the syntax depends on the hardware.
No, because what you're asking for has FAR too many variables. Setting up SSH varies from system to system, and on that users needs, not to mention the THOUSANDS of brands of routers, each with a different setup, and the various policies from each ISP. Not to even get in to the whole dynamic-vs-static IP address problems.

If you get a basic understanding of networking, that's what you need.

2015-01-11 Thanking you TB0ne. You answer clarify what I had more or less concluded. THis is enough to make me go on check my IP with my ISP (service provider) and continue. Has you said I will use ufw for starter.

Once again thank you for fast response