I’m going to be away from home for a few weeks and would like to access my computer (LMDE) while I’m away. Remote desktop connection would be ideal, just file transfer would be acceptable.
Is a VPN necessary, or can port forwarding be good enough for a one time use?
What software/networking recommendations do you have?
Just set up a basic ssh connection, using key based authentication. You don’t need anything past that for a basic short term connection. I used one for years with port forwarding through my router to the ssh port on my desktop.
Now that I have a more complex setup with several services I use Tailscale and run my own Headscale server for it. But still, basic ssh will get you a long way and should be the first thing you do.
Never expose the bare remote control endpoint publicly. For example, recently macOS had a critical vulnerability where an attacker could completely bypass authentication on their Screen Sharing daemon, and the researcher had estimates around 40k publicly exposed systems, and it was found out that the vulnerability was in fact being used in the wild. Exposing things like that publicly is asking for trouble.
Personally I don’t like relying on 3rd party systems like Tailscale, so I just have a WireGuard peer running firewalled to only allow access to what is necessary, though you can skip the firewall part. This obviously assumes you have a routable public IP, i.e. no CGNAT, if that’s not the case Tailscale is probably what you want.
Everyone says tailscale but if you don’t want to setup an account with google or Microsoft login, Netbird is the way to go.
Or run your own headscale server, which is what I do.
Tailscale should provide everything you need. Then you can use whatever remote desktop/management tools you want.
just use ssh with password auth disabled, you can copy files over it with any sftp client or forward applications or an entire desktop session with waypipe. Way easier to set up and you’re not giving some silicon valley company full access to your home network nor are you affected by their services outages.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters AP WiFi Access Point CGNAT Carrier-Grade NAT DNS Domain Name Service/System ISP Internet Service Provider NAS Network-Attached Storage NAT Network Address Translation SSH Secure Shell for remote terminal access VNC Virtual Network Computing for remote desktop access VPN Virtual Private Network VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)
10 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 14 acronyms.
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Wireguard server in your home network, remote access via DDNS is the way I do it.
Tailscale is easier and has a generous free tier, Netbird is free and has more features
Take a look at Yggdrasil.
Port forwarding is moderately simple but there are risks to just opening a port and not guarding it with appropriate firewall rules. This includes an SSH server if not up-to-date.
Whereas setting up something like Tailscale on your machine and on your laptop is exceedingly straightforward, avoids firewall reconfigurations, and Just Works™. You could then connect to whatever service you have running, just as if you were on your LAN. My only gripe is that you do need a Google/Microsoft/GitHub/Apple account or OIDC to set up.
In the long term, if you have misgivings about that company operating the coordination server necessary for this tunneling solution, then there’s always the open-source Headscale, which is a drop-in replacement.
If you’re gonna use an overlay network like Tailscale I would highly recommend also taking a look at netbird. Similar concept, but fully self hostable if the need arises (but not recommended unless you have a specific need).
Answering on the idea of port forwarding. Though like others have said, tailscale or similar is a better option.
Opening an ssh port would allow file transfer. You could also so remote desktop with port forwarding over ssh and vnc (or some other more modern protocol, haven’t futzed with anything like that in a long time).
Probably doesn’t need saying but make sure your system is up to date. Also using a nonstandard port and using key based authentication and disallowing password authentication and good security measures. If the device you’re connecting from isn’t something you’re bringing with you, you’d also need a copy of your private key.
If you want a full complete remote desktop solution, you should probably look at VNC and portforwarding its port. I think it’s 3001.
Or if you won’t (or can’t) mess with port forwards, you could setup something like RustDesk for the TeamViewer experience.
