Trying to access remote FreeNAS AFP share halts system!

[danzg]

I'm trying to access a remote FreeNAS box, with AFP sharing set up.
(AFP works fine over the LAN, just not over WAN.)

From a remote location, if I go to Finder and `Go>Connect to Server` then enter `afp://myserver.com`, I get prompted for username & password, and then am presented with list of shares, just as over LAN.

However, when I then select a share, there's a little spinner in the bottom of the window; it spins for a few seconds, and then my machine is OUT COLD. I.e., frozen, halted ... not black screen, but NOTHING works except moving the cursor around. Cannot Apple-Option-Escape, cannot Apple-Tab, cannot click anything. Only option is hard reboot.

I tried this from both a MacPro running 10.7.4, and MacBookPro running 10.6.8, and had the same result.

On the FreeNAS side, it's a FIOS connection, using a Verizon MI424WR-GEN2 modem, where I forwarded port 548 (TCP & UDP) to the FreeNAS server. (Obviously I'm getting through fine, since I'm being prompted to log in and getting the list of shares.)

I'm 96% sure this DID work before we switched to FIOS over there ... when we had DSL.

I checked Console but didn't see anything that seemed relevant.

 

[cyberjock]

Does this work locally over your LAN? If so then I'd think that either you are missing a port or FIOS is somehow blocking or otherwise garbling the connections.

I would seriously consider going VPN instead of punching holes through your router to the internet. Not to mention that using a VPN may fix your problem.

 

[danzg]

Does this work locally over your LAN?

Yes, works fine over LAN.

If so then I'd think that either you are missing a port

What do you mean by missing a port? AFAIK, AFP only uses port 548. Are there any others?

or FIOS is somehow blocking or otherwise garbling the connections.

Probably, since I think it worked fine when we had DSL.

I would seriously consider going VPN instead of punching holes through your router to the internet. Not to mention that using a VPN may fix your problem.

How do you use VPN with FreeNAS?

thanks

 

[cyberjock]

I'm not sure what ports AFP uses. I'm not into Apple products myself so I can't really help you out much. I avoid Apple products when I can(which isn't that hard really). I can understand why some people like them, but they aren't for me.

For VPN services you'll have to do some googling and see if your router supports it. If not you'd have to setup a machine on your network to act as a VPN server. VPN services only allow you to get access to your FreeNAS server, they don't run on the FreeNAS server itself.