This is a good question and it just so happens to be something I do
myself although not with important company documents.
First of all you have to think about how your current network is
connecting to the internet. Are you using a static address or a
dynamic address?
If you are using a static address you are already half way there, if
you are using a dynamic address you will need to use a dynamic ->
static addressing system.
I find the best one for the job is located here
http://www.no-ip.org
Set up two accounts under no-ip.org and install the no-ip.org software
on each server so that the external IP address for each network
becomes a pseudo static address.
For example you can use mycompanyserver1.no-ip.org and mycompanyserver2.no-ip.org
When you want to connect to the remote end, depending on who you need
to connect to, you only need to remember the address
mycompany1.no-ip.org or mycompany2.no-ip.org.
Once your static IP addresses have been fixed you now need to work on
the problem of ?How will I connect directly to the servers from the
Internet?.
The best way I would suggest is to use an IP port forwarding on your
router. In other words set your router up so that anything that hits
port 21 for example is automatically forwarded to the server that is
hosting your files.
If your current routers do not allow port forwarding it may be wise to
look at another router. I know that all of the current Linksys models
that I have configured are able to do port forwarding.
I would advise that you allow port forwarding for port 21 which is the
FTP default port (if you are confident enough and want some more
security you are able to assign another port if you wish).
Once you have the port forwarding enabled and static addresses
available for use you are now able to think about what software you
can use to house and transfer files.
I personally prefer to use FTP, the client I use is called Filezilla.
This software comes in two flavours, one is a freeware FTP client and
the other is a freeware FTP server.
Available here
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=21558
Once these are downloaded install the Filezilla server to both of your
servers and install the Filezilla client to the machines that will
download the data from the servers.
Once installed set a password for the server so only you can
administer the settings.
Now click the button that has a picture of a person on top of a
computer. From here you can create a new user (the user that will be
able to download your data), create the username and assign a password
that you wish to use on the Filezilla client. Once done click OK and
go back into the same screen you just left and choose SHARED FOLDERS.
Create a new folder on your server and use that as your data store
(unless you want to store all of your company information, which in
this case you would just set your company data folder as the shared
folder). Once done you can now copy any data you wish to be able to
download to this folder and download it from any location that has FTP
access to your office.
Click ok again.
Now assuming that you are external to your networks you should now be
able to open the filezilla ftp client and type the address of
myserver1.no-ip.org with the username and password you assigned to the
server and all things should connect as normal. Once connected you
should be able to download any shared company information you require
to your local PC.
I hope this helps, I won?t be able to help you with the finer points
of configuring your network router as there are so many different
types available and I do not know them all, but I am sure there are
many local IT people near your location that can configure all of this
for you in a relatively short space of time.
Alternatively, if you cannot do this or do not want to do it, have you
thought about RARing your files up with a password and then emailing
them somewhere such as a gmail account so you can access them from
there?
Any other questions let me know,
--Keystroke-ga |
