Mapping an ubuntu drive over SSH/SFTP in windows

Its simple enough to mount an ubuntu share over the internet, if you’re using any linux distro. This however is a little more tricky when it comes to mapping this ubuntu share in windows, or is it? Not with a little program called red drive, which works like a charm! Here is the link: http://www.jscape.com/reddrive/

Of course the protocol used is SFTP, which stands for Secure File Transfer Protocol, and is really a great way to transfer files over insecure networks such as the internet.

Now for those of you who are familiar with dynamic dns, you would already know that this allows you to map a dynamic ip address (assigned by your ISP) to be converted into one of the many available domain names on www.dyndns.org

Basically the way in which it functions is that there are a number of dyndns update clients on their website, which enable the tracking of dynamic ip address. So in short if the domain name you chose on dyndns is turkeytunnel.homelinux.com, then so long as your update client is running on the machine which you are trying to connect to, you’ll be sorted. So once you’ve got your domain name and your update client is working nicely, the last thing you need to do in order to access your machine from anywhere in the world, is tell your router that any traffic coming in on port 22 should be forwarded to the NAT address of the machine you want to connect to. The NAT address, is the internal network address which you have assigned manually, or which has been assigned by your router.

Ok awesome, so you can now access your machine by simply typing turkeytunnel.homelinux.com into the address bar of your favourite browser. By typing the turkeytunnel.homelinux.com into your address bar, you wouldn’t get anything back unless you have a webserver running on that machine, and you would also have to configure your router to forward port 80 to that machine.

Ok so now iv been rambling on about kak that doesnt even concern the topic I wanted to cover. So you’ve got your domain name setup, and you can ssh into your machine. Now for mapping the remote machine on your windows xp machine: Install red drive, and Softpedia have provided nice screenshots of what you can do with red drive:

Red drive also provides a number of other protocols: FTP, FTPS, SFTP and WebDAV

If you’re running red drive on a network which requires proxy authentication, then you’re in luck aswell!

Red Drive also automatically remounts the remote drive upon startup, which is really neat! Enjoy this little program, and best of all, its 100% Freeware. While im talking about freeware, i think i want to ramble on a bit about software development companies ripping people off. Microsoft are a great one. I just cannot explain to you how frustrated I get with these guys, its just license upon license upon license, and within those licensing structures are more licenses! Its just a massive money making machine and if there is anything i can do about it, i wont use their software. Use ubuntu ladies and gents, honestly and truly, it does the job very well, and best of all its virus free and highly highly configurable. If you’re not keen on fiddling with settings etc in ubuntu, dont stress, cuz its extremely simple to use, and people at any experience level can use it! Some linux purists may say that Ubuntu isnt really a linux distro, well say what you want, its free, its easy to use, and its powerful. All you need. Don’t get me wrong, Windows works for the majority of the world, and so my two cents worth isnt gonna make a difference, but i thought id put it here anyways. Of course me saying all this stuff without any basis would be silly, so soon ill be posting about why Windows is a ripoff, and how you can move over to open source software, whether for personal use, or for commercial purposes.

Over n out for now!