Logging in Remotely

Connecting to a file server from outside the network that server resides in can be as easy or as complicated as security policies allow. If you don’t mind connections being made directly to the server from outside of the firewall, then one need only forward a port (or some ports) from the IP that comes into the environment to the server. Doing so is a feature built into every router sold and is usually as easy as editing an access control list of some sort. But before doing so, it is important to know what ports need to be forwarded.

Apple servers can use a variety of ports. AFP, SMB, and WebDAV all use different ports because they are different protocols. By default, AFP uses port 548, SMB uses port 445, and WebDAV uses port 80. These aren’t constants though. For example, the AFP port can be changed to 549 using the following serveradmin command: