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How can I set up secure remote user file access?

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by michaelbrown29

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I am a network admin for a school system and I want to implement some kind of home user file access for students and teachers. I want the users to go to a webpage with a simple login that will authenticate to AD (maybe using IAS). For whatever user that is logging on to the computer I want their associated user folder to be mapped to the remote computer they are working on. I want to try and achieve this without any client based software. I just want a simple log in, and maybe a small script that runs on the server side to map that drive upon a successful login. Does anyone have any ideas how I could acheive this? IAS, SFTP, FTP SSL?
Thanks.

8 replies

by michaelbrown29

I really don't want to do anything with VPN. I set up IPSEC VPN access though our ASA 5520 of which I use and some of the principals use but this isn't the direction I want to go for teachers and students. I want something very simple for the user.

by nexs

Rarely go hand-in-hand.
VPN, for the person setting it up, is not particularly simple, but can be made simple for the user with nice web interfaces.

by Member 27131101

You could try implementing webDAV with IIS 7 on server 2008 r2. It's secure, you can make users login, and you can do folder isolation if you like...which means the users will only see their folder. You can also do it over an SSL connection. It's basically like ftp, but more secure.

http://www.iis.net/download/webdav

by cg it

what is the school district's policy for students accessing the school network?

These issues must first be addressed before you can decide on what methods to use to allow remote access to your network.

by oldbaritone

It's not clear what you're trying to accomplish.

There are many free teacher sites that allow teachers to set up a site for their class, and upload assignments, reference sheets, and what-have-you for students to download. They give the students a class ID and password, or something like that, and it gives read-only access to the students. Only the teacher can post. Some include a means for students to transmit completed assignments back to the teacher, "write-only." Once it's sent, it's sent and no one can access it except the teacher.

There are also commercially-available products that do the same thing. Some vendors of Student Management Systems have plug-ins for this kind of functionality, for a fee.

If you're thinking about opening an educational server completely to the web, you're opening many security nightmares. Keep your AD and file system away from the web, unless you're really prepared to take on the hackers. Let someone else have the headaches, not your school system.

by rkuhn040172

I work for a homebuilder but nonetheless the software we choose to use for our vendor portal has a large client base of schools.

http://www.stone-ware.com

The potential this software brings to anyone but especially schools is tremendous.

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