March 15, 2010
Is there any way to connect to a Windows server via SSH and then present a remote share on the local network?
Thanks!
March 15, 2010
#1
You'll need an SSH server on
You'll need an SSH server on the Windows machine. I don't know much about that, but I'm sure it is available.
After that, you add an account for it in Meerkat, then a tunnel using that account. You would want to reach localhost port 139. Say you choose the local (Mac-side) port to be 10039.
Then, on the Mac side, you would connect to smb://localhost:10039 in Finder (Go > Connect to Server...).
There are some automation possibilities, as well as the potential to add a custom Bonjour service in order to make the share show up Mac-side in the Finder sidebar. Let me know if you'd be interested in more on that and I can elaborate.
March 16, 2010
#3
Ok, once the tunnel is set
Ok, once the tunnel is set up, then you'll want to edit it & go to the advanced settings. Enable "Make tunnel endpoint available to other computers" (which should also solve your issue about other machines using it) and then the "Advertise over Bonjour as". Select "Custom..." as the type and enter a name such as SMB, Windows, or similar and a service type of "_smb._tcp.'
After saving the changes and activating the tunnel, you should see it show up in Finder's sidebar.
March 18, 2010
#6
I did some looking around and
I did some looking around and it seems that modern SMB servers can use port 445 instead of 139. I was not aware of this. Can you try editing the tunnel to use that remote port and see if it makes a difference?
March 19, 2010
#8
Are you by any chance getting
Are you by any chance getting an error message about needing to access the shares locally from the Finder?
I have just tried testing this whole setup using VMware and file sharing over a Meerkat tunnel and am getting that error.
Researching a bit on it doesn't turn up much in the way of positive results:
http://discussions.info.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=11212102
March 19, 2010
#9
From this, it sounds like you
From this, it sounds like you have to make essentially an ethernet alias so that you can access the IP 127.0.0.2 and have it point to localhost. Using an IP such as this will keep Finder from warning you about the "connecting to localhost" issue since it doesn't recognize the IP.
The command is this:
sudo ifconfig lo0 127.0.0.2 alias up
There's a bit more involved info here:
http://blog.lococobra.com/how-to-connect-to-samba-shares-over-the-internet-via-ssh-from-mac-os-x
I hope this helps. It sounds like Finder being "smart" is the real problem.
March 22, 2010
#11
Hmm, where is "files" coming
Hmm, where is "files" coming from? Are you using that as the hostname? Do you have a machine alias to that name? If the connection is failing, it should be failing to connect to localhost, as that is where the tunnel end point is. Your local machine should not really know anything about the remote machine as it is masked by the tunnel.
March 30, 2010
#14
I apologize for the lack of
I apologize for the lack of resolution to this, but it would appear that not many folks, if any, are trying this.
Just to confirm, you have the sharing working properly, it's really just coming down to configuring Bonjour properly so that Finder will work with it?
Another option might be to "bookmark" the connection in Finder's "Connect to Server" dialog. For example, you could type "smb://127.0.0.1:10137" (or whatever) into the dialog, then press the + button to save it for later use.
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Yeah, I have everything working properly, but porting 139 through to 10139 isn't much use unless I can advertise it via Bonjour (and hopefully on a port where other machines will be able to use it). If I can do that, then all the local machines will be able to connect to the share without their own connections. I have an L2TP tunnel up right now but would prefer the SSH solution.
Can you elaborate on the Bonjour idea?