HACKER Q&A
📣 Fifer82

How do I share a hard drive with my friend?


Hi HN.

I have over the years ended up with a bunch of old windows systems and ended up with a network which is great.

I want to also enjoy these benefits outside of my home with a friend. Over the years I have collected dozens of physics toy tech demos and i'd like to share my drive. It's a mess of zips, dlls, and all sorts.

I don't want to use a service. I want him to go to like "Fifer82" and just see a windows explorer disk without all of the garbage of say torrents, file sharing services, individually sharing file-by-file via some attachment system.

As I ask this question, I don't know if I am stupid, since Dropbox, IRC or just whatever.... begs to suggest that there is no way to do what I want, but then the question is, why??

If I know someones network somewhere else outside my home, can't I just "let them at it" through standard windows mechanisms?

Thank you.

  👤 simonblack Accepted Answer ✓
'sshfs' would do the trick, if I am understanding what you seem to be saying. (WinSCP, IIRC, if you're using Windows.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSHFS

Executable script that I use - (actual names replaced)

    #!/bin/bash
    # mount remote directory on local machine
    #
    
    RDIR=$1
    MOUNTPOINT=my_local_mountpoint_folder
    USER=username_on_remote_server
    REMOTE_HOST=remote_servers_name
    
    if [ "$1" = "" ]; then
            echo -e "\nMounting remote home directory. If other remote directory"
            echo -e "desired, usage is $0 \n"
    fi
    
    #
    sshfs ${USER}@${REMOTE_HOST}:$RDIR $MOUNTPOINT
👤 Nextgrid
Get two routers capable of acting like an IKEv2 VPN server & client. Set yours up to act as a server and his as a client, make sure the internal IP addresses don’t overlap (if yours is at 192.168.0.x, his should be at 192.168.1.x). Once the two networks are reachable from either side you can access a shared folder by typing the computer’s IP in Windows Explorer like “\\192.168.0.1” (name discovery might not work as I believe that works via layer 2 and IKEv2 is layer 3).
👤 SStanley
I do not know if I did understand clearly but, I was thinking about that for a startup idea, I think is definitively possible.

There is way to have a hard disk on your wifi and get it from an app but only for video/photo. And there is a way to connect to a distant linux/window server.

I think it my be possible, but need some technical skill more than juste website development

👤 hedora
I think this will solve your problem:

https://www.zerotier.com/

It should be able to up a VPN bridge between your LAN and your friend’s LAN. (Or, at least a “LAN” between two machines.)

👤 new_guy
You could use something like TeamViewer, set up a separate box (important!) with the files you want to share, then let him have at it! Just be aware that opening up your network (even to friends) is a security risk.
👤 throwaway888abc
https://syncthing.net/ https://pydio.com/
👤 rolph
my scheme is this:

subnet a router; place a webdav capable server on one of the subnets; port forward request at the wan side of the router to the server. you will need a static public IP or else, update the public IP to a domain name [DNS]

the effect is someone can go to your server using a browser that can "speak" webdav

the subnetting is for security if you share the router with the rest of your network, or you can just use a dedicated router for your server to live in.

👤 SStanley
The real question is: do you want just to let someone get into your computer or create a service to make that happen easily?
👤 flatfilefan
What about an Explorer-like GUI SFTP client?
👤 mikst
mm.. RDP?