I purchased a Buffalo LinkStation NAS, which has scant documentation and even scanter tech support. The documentation says that, by opening Port 21, I can access the NAS drive over the Internet from anywhere.

I'm not quite sure how to proceed. I figured out how to open Port 21 on my firewall (but haven't done it yet) but I imagine that millions of home networks must have the same I.P. address so how do I set up the NAS so that it can found from the millions of other identical home network IP's out there and, more importantly, how do I keep intruders out?

"...I imagine that millions of home networks must have the same I.P. address..."

Absolutely not! Every public IP address is unique. That is how all information is sent via the internet. If there were duplicate IP addresses then there would be no reliable way for data to be sent via the internet.

Port 21 is for FTP access. So, FTP support may already be enabled on the Buffalo Station.

First, try accesing the buffalo station via FTP on your network by using the "internal" ip address of the buffalo station. ftp://internalip

If that works, then your next step would be to make it available externally. You would need to forward port 21 in your router to the buffalo station. Then you would be able to access it from a remote computer using the "external" ip address that is assigned to your router.

Michael J

You need more than 21 open and it needs to be open in the correct direction. Also you need to have a way to find it. I doubt it has a public IP address and it uses your (either static or dynamic) ip address. So you have to nat it.

How to keep intruders out is a whole series of steps. One is to make a 14 character or longer passphrase. Iliveinahoseaboveavalley is an example. Limiting access times and access lists to ips helps. Rotate ports to non-standard might offer a bit of help. See if some sort of ssh or other protected means.

One of the few good ways would be to have a floppy with a certiicate that you use to allow access.

All that being said you might look at barracudadrive and then access your home system with a bit of protection https that has a shared folder on the buffalo.

I read it wrong and answer it wrong too. So get off my case you goober.

"You need more than 21 open and it needs to be open in the correct direction. Also you need to have a way to find it. I doubt it has a public IP address and it uses your (either static or dynamic) ip address. So you have to nat it."

I made the assumption that by opening port 21 on his firewall that he meant forwarding the port on his firewall. I think we need some more information concerning his network setup. In any case I think the first step is still to try and access the drive via FTP internally.

Michael J