Access MY EX 2 outside of local Network

My Cloud OS 3 Personal & Network Attached Storage My Cloud EX2
1

Hi guys,
As the title says, I wish to access my EX 2 outside of my local network without using WD apps. I am looking for a solution where I could access the drive through the Finder on a Mac, even when I am not home. I am not extremely server savvy so if any good soul knows an How To, it’d be much appreciated.

Thanks a lot in advance for taking the time to read this!

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I don’t know MAC software. . . but the key will be to properly set up port forwarding on your router.

  1. You will need to know the WAN IP address of your router (assigned by your ISP. . . these are not always static IP addresses. . .so that may be an issue)(the WD apps are used to get around that problem)

  2. You need to assign an external port for the NAS box (Say, 8443(. . .so if your ISP assigns 24.100.100.100 to your router, you will point your software to “24.100.100.100:8443”)

  3. You need to assign an internal port for the NAS box (from the EX2 configurations page). . . If I recall, you have to reference both the external port and internal port (something like 443) on this page.

  4. You most likely will have to do “port forwarding” on your router. Works best if the NAS box has a static IP address on your network. Port Forwarding is used so that the router directs any information that comes to the external port (e.g. 24.100.100.100:8443) to the appropriate port on your Nas box (e.g. 192.168.0.100:443 - - > assuming your NAS box IP is 192.168.0.100)

You probably have to do half of these steps just to get WD apps to work (especially if you have more than one NAS box exposed to the internet)

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3

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply @NAS_user!
I have done that already, including trying to map with a DynDNS but it did not work. There may be an issue with my router as regards port forwarding though; however even in local network, when I try to log it using IP:Port it does not work.

The step I did was:

1/ Use a DynDNS with a DDN provider that WD accepts
2/ Link the IP to the DynDNS with an auto fetch IP app to get around the changing of the IP
3/ Open the port on the dashboard (tried multiple numbers)
4/ Forward the port on the router

But it did not work. :confused:

4

Ah.

So. . .does the WD Cloud app work correctly?

Note that you need to test this from OUTSIDE your home network. Like, with a cell phone that has the wifi turned off. If necessary, use a second computer using your cellphone as a hotspot.

Start by checking (from the dashboard) SETTINGS - > CLOUD ACCESS
It should say “Connected” and “Port Forwarding Established”.
If it says anything involving “Relay connection”, port forwarding is not set right, and if WD cloud apps work, it’s only because the EX2 is using a WD server to make it happen. (That one fooled me for awhile)

If you hit “configure”, it will prompt you for TWO external ports. The first is for HTTP and the other for HTTPS connections. These should be in the 84xx range for an EX2 Ultra (not sure that is critical)

The internal ports for the EX2 Ultra are 80 and 443 respectively for HTTP and HTTPS. (I have another WD device, and it uses the same internal port numbers - → which is fine and works- - → Changing these ports require you to go into the firmware of EX2). That information is a little hidden. . . you can find it under the “learn more” under the configuration button.

So let’s say your DynDNS is 24.100.100.100 (if you do a reverse DNS lookup on your web browser, those are the numbers that should pop up.
Let’s say your EX2 IP address on your network is 192.168.0.100
Lets say you are trying to use external ports 8450 and 8451

Then, you will point whatever device outside your network to 24.100.100.100:8450 and 24.100.100.100:8451
Then in your router, you direct “8450” to 192.168.0.100:80
Then in your router, you direct “8451” to 192.168.0.100:443

If you have a second device on the net work, it’s ok if the device uses the same 80 and 443 ports; since the IP address of the second device (had better be) would be unique. Naturally, it would need separate EXTERNAL port addresses, since your WAN IP address is from your router. . and common to both devices.

So. . .I hope this helps.
First check is make sure the WD apps work fine. . that means you have port forwarding working ok.
Then you can work on getting your remote server stuff working.

5

Thank you very much again for taking the time @NAS_user!

To answer your questions,

1/ so far the WD apps have been working fairly fine outside the home network, except for the occasional issues that is usually fixed by rebooting the EX2.

2/ As regards the port forwarding, I think we are onto something: I do have “relay connection”. I tried to change the number of the ports but no matter what I still have “relay connection” and not “port forwarding established”.

[EDIT]
I found the workaround and I have now “port forwarding established”. I had to actually forward the right combination of port to make it work.

3/ I now can access the NAS using the DNS.

However what I would like to be able is to mount NAS as a drive using the DNS, so that I can access my folders anywhere. This is where I am stuck now.

6

Well. . . glad you got that fixed.

I can’t help you further, as I have not sought functionality beyond getting the WD clouad app and Plex to work. I suspect you are looking for some sort of server software.

Huh. I suppose you can’t map a drive to a web address in the operating system? I am pretty sure you can do this in windows. (you just gave me something to try later. . .)
Isn’t this essentially FTP access?

Note: not sure you want to do a “drive letter assignment” to your NAS. Think ransomware.

7

Completely rewritten to eliminate rambling

I spend more time than I care to admit getting this to work last night.
The end result – in windows – was to map a network location in Windows Explorer, which enabled drag and drop access to the drive across the internet.
Fundamentally- > This is done through FTP. To get FTP to work, you have to do several steps.

  1. Enable FTP on the NAS. Go to “Settings - > Network Services - - > FTP access”.
    Once you enable FTP, a link to “Configure” will appear next to the on/off slider.
    Make note of the FTP port number. (Hint: Default is “21”)

  2. Enable FTP on the shares you want access to. By default, EVERYTHING is locked down. Go to “Share”, select the share you want get access to, then goto “Share Access” and enable FTP for that share.

  3. Configure the Router. Apparently, WD Cloud access and FTP use different ports on the NAS (logical). This allows you to turn them off or block them individually. You have to do port forwarding on the router to a different external port on the router WAN side and direct traffic to the FTP port on the NAS.

  4. Map a network location to your computer. You need to point to the WAN side external port on the router. When you first connect, the NAS will prompt you for credentials required to access the shares to which you have granted access.

To test all this, I enabled a hotspot on my phone, and connected the computer wifi to the cell network. To make life easier. . . . I was also able to enable dashboard access for the NAS from the internet (Turns out it uses the same “port 80” as the WD Cloud access).
So. . .ultimately, I was able to both CONFIGURE the NAS over the internet, and was able to have drag/drop access to files in a standard file view window.

Now. . let’s talk security. After testing, I undid all the permissions and port forwarding I described above.
There are known issues regarding WD NAS security flaws. Including backdoor access. The firmware patch last week was aimed at eliminating some. . not all. . .of the known flaws.

I think if you are doing this type of file access to your NAS, at a minimum I would connect to the router via a VPN connection. I am not sure I would trust non-encrypted FTP traffic to the NAS. I am not sure how much more secure things are using the WD Cloud access. . .but I have to believe it is better than naked FTP. For Certain, I would not allow Dashboard UI access across the net.
Frankly, if I really needed FTP capability, I would buy a second NAS box so as to limit my hardware exposure to the internet. In practice, I use external hard drives for extra storage and backup storage on the road. I also have a WD Wireless Passport Pro, which I use as a mobile file and media server. I routinely synchronize content to the NAS when back on the home network. The few times I have had to toss files across the internet (either for security, or to transfer to a friend), I used a cloud service like DropBox or OneDrive.

Hope this helps.

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