Comments on: How do I access my work server's harddrive through VPN on Mac?

Question: How do I access my work server's harddrive through VPN on Mac?

willy_dilly — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 21:11:02 -0800

How do I access my work server's harddrive through VPN on Mac?

I'm trying to access the harddrive of my desktop at work. I've VPN'd into the work network. What do I do next? By the way I have a Mac.

Thanks.

By: TheAnswer

TheAnswer — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 21:19:14 -0800

We are gonna need some more information for this one. What kind of server are you connecting too? Is the server sharing a portion of it's file system across the network?

Which version of Mac OS are you running?

If the server in question is a Windows machine and you are on Mac OS X 10.1 or later, check out this guide: Link

By: TheAnswer

TheAnswer — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 21:19:58 -0800

'too' should be 'to'... meh

By: Kadin2048

Kadin2048 — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 22:02:43 -0800

Not really possible to answer with just the information provided. We'd need to know more about the computer you want to connect to -- you need to enable file sharing on it, obviously -- and it might be helpful to know a little about the VPN. Are you using Apple's VPN client (the "Internet Connect" application), or a third-party one?

In general the answer provided above by TheAnswer regarding connecting to an SMB share should work, since that'll be how most Windows machines expose shared folders to the network, but there are a lot of possible hangups that can stop your Mac from connecting, especially over a VPN.

By: strawberryviagra

strawberryviagra — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 03:31:12 -0800

Try www.logmein.com.

By: misskaz

misskaz — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 07:19:00 -0800

I'm not sure I understand the question, but let me share my related story in the hopes it will help. You sound as confused as I was - too confused to know what to ask.

I have a mac at home and use VPN to connect to my work PC. I was confused when I first tried using Internet Connect - it appeared the connection worked, but I wasn't sure what to do next. Like, how was I supposed to actually access files?

The answer, for me, was the Windows Remote Desktop Client for Mac. This allowed me to actually see my work PC's desktop and run the PC remotely. Anything my work PC could do - like access our shared network files - I can do. I can even use it to work on Office documents even though I don't have Office on my mac. I'm basically just controlling my work PC through the internet.

Of course your work PC has to be on for this to work, but you can always just leave it on but logged out.

By: mkultra

mkultra — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 07:54:00 -0800

The answer is "the same way you access it at the office".

Once you VPN in, your Mac is on your office network. Unless you have some conflicting Firewall rules (doubtful), you should just be able to mount via smb://[machine address]/[share]. If you can't mount your server's FS in your office, you can't do it over VPN.

By: mkultra

mkultra — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 07:56:56 -0800

Though I will say that if you don't need to move files back and forth, RDC (as misskaz) suggested is great, and works incredibly well over a VPN- I do it all the time. It's the one thing Microsoft does hands-down better than Apple.