Mission Impossible - Ditching the Desktop Edition

The mandatory why

Well, I'm moving to a new city for my new job. If you know me, you also know that I'm not a huge fan of taking too many things with me. The effort to carry and manage multiple bags and devices is too much. Since I'm moving to a new city where I don't even know the local language, I want to worry about securely moving and storing my belongings. T

It's a challenge this time around because I'm relocating to a faraway city and that too possibly for a long period. In usual cases, leaving the desktop and accessories at home is a no-brainer. Not this time.

What can I do about it?

In all seriousness, there is little I can do here. There is no replacement for having a dedicated laptop or desktop for personal use. However, one can always benefit from having access to critical files that aren't stored on the cloud. This is what I want to achieve. I want access to my personal files and project repositories when required.

The solution

The solution itself is straightforward. Have an SMB share of a folder with all the important files. The challenge is with being able to access it from a remote location. It is easy to do so on a local network or when hosted on a server with a static IP address. Not so much when you are on a budget and the desktop is behind a NAT. Sure, port forwarding is an option. But it is insecure and an absolute pain to setup depending on how old the ISP router is. This was my case.

This is where Tailscale comes in. I would be lying if I didn't say that tailscale is one of the most beneficial tools in modern history. It is easy to set up and manage and an absolute joy. Apart from a minor inconvenience, it was set up and ready to be used in less than 5 minutes. Setting up my SMB shares took more time!

Setting up Tailscale

I haven't felt this conflicted before when deciding whether or not I should write down the instructions to set up something. That's how easy it is to set up Tailscale. It's just 3 steps:

Sign up for Tailscale
Run the command/executable on the machines you want to add to the network.
Turn the service ON.

That's it. It is that easy! It's so easy that I'm just going to leave the link to the Tailscale site here and let you do the rest on your own: tailscale.com

Good luck!

SMB Shares: Setup and Access

Ironically, this is easy too. There is a well-written blog by the folks at NordVPN that walks you through setting up all major desktop and mobile OS. Here are the reference links:

Skip setting up the meshnet mentioned in the article. You don't need it.

In addition to Cx File Explorer for Android, another good-looking option is Material Files. There are a few places it fails though. Like if you try to access the shared folders after disconnecting from Tailscale, instead of showing a "Disconnected" error, the app shows a part of the Java IO error.

Things that didn't work

For the most part, this solution works perfectly fine. The only place it did fail is on my Android phone. When Tailscale is turned on and connected, it overrides the default Private DNS. If you use a private DNS like AdGuard, you will lose your access to the internet. While you can access the devices in the tailscale tunnel, you can't connect to the internet. The solution to that is simple too. Just change the setting for Private DNS to Auto. While annoying, it solves the problem.