Recently I've become very interested in setting up a fileserver, mostly for home usage but also because of the fact that I live in 2 places, I need to be able to access my files from both homes. I have already done some research into this but I am unclear about some things.
My requirements are the following;
Needs to work on both Mac and PC(only using Windows atm on PC but could be good if it supports more OS's to make it futureproof in case I need Linux or something else)
Need to be able to set up a folder/drive/network space to act as a link to a certain folder on the fileserver
All files should only be stored on the fileserver, e.g. no "shared" folders like in Dropbox where files are stored on the client computer
Would prefer it if folders are password protected or that I can somehow specify what users can access the fileserver's shares
Fileserver's OS most likely have to be Windows due to other factors outside of being just a fileserver
I've already kinda figured out that I will need to set up a VPN so that I can access my fileserver from outside the local network. Probably going to use OpenVPN.
Question 1: How would I go about to set up a VPN server so that I can connect to my local network at the fileserver's location?
I know that since I'm on a dynamic IP I will have to get some sort of dynamic DNS server - I've already checked into this and I'm fairly sure I know how to fix that. I also know that I will have to forward the port OpenVPN uses in my router.
Question 2: How would I actually share the folders on the fileserver so that I can access them on my other computers? I've researched into Samba but I'm uncertain if it needs to be run on a Linux OS. I know that the clients connecting to it can be Windows for example but can the Samba "server" be run on Windows? Also it appears that Samba shares a folder, meaning it works like Dropbox - I don't want that. So how would I share a folder in that case to make it work like I want it to?
Sorry for the incredibly long question, I tried to structure it the best I could for easier read. Thanks in advance!
