File Sharing

Purpose:

Upload or download files to the office/home PC remotely.
Make some files accessible to others out of the office/home.

Problem to solve:

Most home or office PCs are behind routers. They can not be directly accessed from the Internet.
Also, most home or office's Internet are assigned dynamic IP addresses. That means the IP addresses are not necessary the same ones from time to time.

How VNN Helps:

By running VNN on the home or office PC and remote PC, it establishes a virtual secure network tunnel between these PCs. The files transferred thru VNN tunnel is encrypted transparently. This prevents the file contents exposed to the Internet. With VNN access control function, only authorized PCs can transfer data among their own tunnel. This prevents the PCs being accessed by un-related people.

There are many ways to share files with other PCs over VNN.

- Using Windows Network Neighborhood
- Using FTP or Web Server
- Sharing Files on NAS (Network Attached Storage)
- Using VNN Built-in Web Folder
- Using VNN-FileExpress

We highly recommend use VNN-FileExpress. For details, please see VNN-FileExpress.

To use Windows Network Neighborhood, simply type VNN IP address of the PC having the files that you like to access.

From Start->Run, type \\2.x.x.x, where 2.x.x.x is the VNN IP of that PC. You will see the familiar login prompt. If you don't see that login prompt, you might want to check the firewall settings on that PC. Normally you need to adjust the firewall rule setting to be able to share files from that PC.

To use an FTP or Web server, assume the VNN IP of the PC running the server is 2.x.x.x, then you can simply Start->Run->CMD, to bring up a DOS prompt. At the DOS Window's command line, you can type ftp.exe 2.x.x.x, and you should see the login prompt. If not, please check the firewall settings on that PC. For Web server, you can also open the browser and type http://2.x.x.x:port to access the files on that web server.

To use VNN built-in Web Folder, you can simply select the remote PC's VNN ID from the VNN UI, and click the Web Folder of that PC on the right side of the UI. By default, the Web Folder is enabled with a default password. VNN also added a rule to that PC's firewall to allow this access. The only thing to note is that VNN Web Folder only allows the file download.

To share files on a NAS folder, you need to use VNN Service. To do so, you can select "Add new" from the VNN UI.

Then you will see dialog box below. You can follow the sample below to configure the PC as a proxy to your NAS.

In the above example, we assume your NAS is accessible thru TCP port 80 and at your home LAN with IP of 10.1.2.3
You need to change this to the suitable parameters of your home LAN settings.

The port 12345 is also a sample number. You can use that or choose another port that is not used on your PC.

After you submit the settings, you will see UI as below.

That means you have successfully created a service on your PC so that remote PCs can access your home NAS thru this PC.

From any other remote PC that has the same account of this PC (different VNN ID), when the user selects the VNN ID of this PC, she will see this new service. By clicking this service, her computer will start a browser and access your home NAS thru VNN.

The similar setting could be used to access any other network devices. For example, if a network IP-Camera is assigned with the IP of 10.1.2.3 and listens at port 80, the remote user should see the picture on that IP-Camera.

To connect to a network printer, you can map the suitable port from your PC to that printer. By doing so, the remote user can print her document on this printer.

To work on a Linux PC, you can map the SSH or Telnet port from that PC to the Linux PC so the remote user can access the Linux PC.