FTP, Nextcloud, or other?

[Dickiescoob]

Good evening,

 

Still new to unraid, but I have been enjoying it so far. I was a former freenas user for 6 years, and this has been a welcome improvement.

The last part of my build is to make my NAS available when outside my lan, but only to my devices (via username/password login) to upload/download files on the server. 

If I am on the road and want to upload photos/files from my phone to the server, or if I want to download photos/files from my server to my phone/laptop. 

I have used FTP in the past, but I know that is not the most secure. I started looking into nextcloud, but I wanted to gather more seasoned users' opinions.

Are there better options?

 

Thanks

 

[John_M]

I don't have any experience of Nextcloud but if I understand you correctly you're thinking of using it as a way of accessing your files without directly accessing your server itself? It would be safer but unless you back up the entire contents of your server to the cloud then you'll obviously be restricted in which files you can access. I think most people who use cloud services synchronise only their most important files. FTP is not safe, especially using the service built into unRAID. You shouldn't forward incoming ports on your router to your unRAID server because the operating system isn't hardened. Most people set up a VPN if they need safe access to their file server, or indeed to any host on their LAN, from outside.