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At home I have a little network. It is mostly wireless componentes hanging together. I have a wireless router and a Time Capsule hanging from it. I would like to be able to connect my Windows pc to my home network when I am somewhere else in the world. Is it possible to connect to my router at home and therefore to my time capsule?

If so, what do i need to know and how could I set this up. The router is a zyxel. Any terms that can help me on my way or instructions would be great.

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a time capsule, that's amazing – barlop Oct 23 '11 at 4:01
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3 Answers

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I own a time capsule myself and have tried tirelessly to make remote access easy. It supports setup-free remote access for mobile me users (which you can't get right now even if you want to pay). Thus you've left with basically three options:

1. Forward the SMB or AFP ports at your home router and risk using these slow and insecure protocols over the Internet.

2. Setup a SSH or VPN server in your network and access the TC through that. Your router may be able to do with a third-party firmware like DD-WRT.

3. Setup a file access service like FTP or WebDAV on your computer, forward the ports and secure that with SSL.

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which are the SMB ports? 445 and 139? it's unusual to do it over the internet 'cos it wasn't really meant to be.. Would you have any security concerns over doing that? Besides turning the admin share off... default it'd be off. – barlop Oct 23 '11 at 13:16
I believe TCP 445 is the only one that is useful on the Internet, as NetBIOS is designed for broadcast LANs. However, the SMB protocols are seriously insecure in aspects of authentication and data encryption that they should never be used on untrusted pipes like the Internet. You should consider using VPN or protocols that can be ecrypted using SSL. – billc.cn Oct 23 '11 at 13:38
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Most routers will connect to a dynamic DNS service. This will allow you to find your home network from the Internet.

Your router likely the capability to setup a DMZ host, or port forward. Port forwarding is generally more secure. In your case you would need to port forward the port(s) required to connect to the time capsule.

You will want to secure access to your time capsule. Using a strong password or other secure key is recommended. If the time capsule can act as VPN server all the better.

SSH tunneling may work to provide access to your time capsule. This can be quite secure if you use a key and secure it with a strong password.

More secure would be to setup a VPN server on your network. When you want to access your time capsule remotely, you would open up a VPN connection.

Many ISPs block ports for well known services like SMTP and HTTP. Often HTTPS and SSH are left open.

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You can also usually setup a port forward from a random external port to internal port 22 (or whichever port you want really) within the router. This is an even better option if you are worried about security as most people that probe for open ports typically only search for commonly used ports. – MaQleod Oct 22 '11 at 20:04
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use teamviewer or logmein on a computer or more, in your home network, then you can access any computer on your home network remotely. And then you have access to your network and your home router.

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