Right….I’m reasonably happy messing about with media servers and stuff, however all the things I’ve set up in the house has been self taught, and behind a firewall with no open ports to outside world.

Next year eldest iwill be off to Uni….I think it might be an idea to get her laptop backing up to our server using Crashplan or similar, as well as allowing her to access media on our server remotely (plex or something else). Might try and set up own cloud or similar too …just because. At this point I’m conscious I know virtually nothing about security when opening up ports in my router to outside world for this stuff to flow through. So where do I start learning about this stuff.?…any good resources out there?

I’ve poked about on OpenVpn website, but it’s a bit of a steep learning curve at moment…what I’m really looking for is a Dummies guide to security so I can start figuring out what risks I’m running and best way to mitigate and pick up the concepts.

Plex is just a case of opening an inbound port on the router. Typically all outbound ports (and their inbound replies, eg web pages) are already open.

Dunno about Crashplan, I thought that used its own ‘cloud’ storage?

You can configure Crashplan as client and server, with the server bit sitting on your own headless box, and the client being outside your LAN

With regards to backing up, it would be far easier and simpler to use something like Dropbox or OneDrive.

With regards to backing up, it would be far easier and simpler to use something like Dropbox, OneDrive or Google Drive.

Setup Dynamic DNS for your plex server.

I wouldn’t bother Ms Sandwich had all the necessary accesses for home and didn’t use it once during her first year. Get her a coupe of external HD (it doesn’t exist digitally until it exists in 3 places) and the necessary software and teach her to use it. Remind her that losing a dissertation in the final week before submission due to a stolen or crashed PC is tediously common and extensions are not guaranteed.

CrashPlan backup is great (imo!) and as said above uses its own cloud. Automatic and easy.

What router are you using? Some of the more sophisticated ones support remote access VPNs (IPSec-based).

I’ve had a couple that do that. If so, rather than opening up file share or other ports, you could build a wee RAS solution.

http://www.dummies.com/store/product/Network-Security-For-Dummies.productCd-0764516795.html

Thanks everybody – keep the ideas coming. I don’t like spending money (West Wales genes) so if I can accomplish things with existing kit rather than subs for cloud services thats all good.

BT Hub5 router so not much scope for clever shenanigans

Remember that if she gets hit with ransomware then any direct connection to anything will also get corrupted. The usb hdd(s) option is often simplest and best. Dropbox will recover all your files for you if you get hit and tell them within 30days. I believe OneDrive do the same. If you back up to your own server then you have to back that up, at least 2copies
Enjoy

Student sub to Office 365 and 1TB of OneDrive is yours/hers for back-up purposes add in 1 USB HD and it’s all good.

+1 Office 365 sub with OneDrive. If Windows laptop, OneDrive is all integrated with OS and other apps. Just save stuff in the OneDrive folder and it does the rest.

Might be able to set something up at home to backup the same OneDrive to a NAS. I sync my OneDrive folder to my NAS at home, but that’s logged in with my account. Synology have a Cloud Sync package which can sync many cloud storage services. Normally you’d use their private cloud stuff and it syncs to the public cloud but I assume it works the other way also so works as a backup of the public cloud.

If the uni uses Microsoft, chances are she will get an O365 and Onedrive account anyway.

Just tell her that in no circumstances is a USB key to be used for anything of importance. Ever.

Perfectly fine to use a USB pendrive for important things. Just so long as it’s not the only copy. Same as any storage.