Share Airport Disk over WAN via iCloud

Have you configure the Back to my Mac settings? Using AirPort Utlilty v6.0 you need to enter your iCloud Account Name (Apple ID) and Password in the settings under the Base Station tab.

No, configuring Back to my Mac on an AirPort router allows you to connect to it over the Internet from the WAN side. If it is an Extreme with a Disk attached or a Time Capsule you can access the disk using file sharing as though you were connecting to it on the LAN.

See the screen shot below for the settings screen I am refering too.

iCloud IDs are Apple IDs!

When you are at a remote location and you are connected to the Internet, your AirPort disk will show up on the side bar in Finder windows the same way they show up when you are on your own LAN. You do not need to do anything special, you do not need to know your router's public IP address. Just select the disk in the Finder to connect to it. Of course, since you are accessing it over the Internet it will be slower than when you access it on your LAN. Back to My Mac is very easy and seemless to use.

In some cases the router you are connected to at the remote location will have firewall settings that will not allow Back to My Mac to connect. In those cases there is nothing you can do.

I should also add, on your Portable Mac, make sure you are logged in to iCloud and that Back to My Mac is turned on. You do that in the System Preferences.

I would like to know if this method would work for a PC to access the attached drive on the airport extreme.

INFO ON MY SETUP:::

I have couple PCs and Couple Macs at home. I have an NTFS hard drive and HFS harddrive formated and attached to the extreme with a USB HUB, mac sees both but only capable of viewing the files on the HFS drive and the windows see the files on the NTFS drive.

Everythings working like a charm but i wanted to be able to access the attached drives over the net when needed and with Mobile me closing is there another way. wether its to set it up with a Dyndns or with icloud or something. How can i get my files from the extreme online ??????

Any help would be appreciated

thank you

Hello!

I have the problem with 7.6.1 firmware of Extreme.

BTMM is turned on both airport and remote mac.

I have access to airport from remote mac via airport utility.

I see my Airport Extreme in left column in Finder.

But I can't connect to it and its hdd! There is connection error.

Checkboxes "Allow setup through WAN" and "Share disk through WAN" are enabled.

No firewall restrictions.

I don't have public IP, only provider's NAT.

Can anybody help me?

Sorry, unfortunately Back to My Mac only works on Macs.

AirPort routers support a service discovery method called Wide-Area Bonjour which works similarly to Dynamic DNS services like DynDNS. This is the service that Apple is using to make Back to My Mac work.

Dyn does have experimental support for it. You can find more info here:

AirPort and Time Capsule with Dynamic DNS

I don't have public IP, only provider's NAT.

That is your problem right there. The AirPort Extreme must be the router that is connecting to the Internet and receiving the public address from your ISP.

If you have a router provided by your ISP try configuring it to be a bridge only so that your AirPort Extreme is making a direct connection to the Internet. In this configuration, your Extreme receives the public IP address and becomes the DHCP server for your LAN

Maybe I described it wrong.

Ethernet cable from my ISP connected direct to Extreme.

I have IP address like 95.220.xxx.xxx from ISP (but it _gray_ ip because my neighbour has the same).

I thought that iCloud ID makes tunnel and I don't need public IP that is unique for me.

BTW outside my house (e.g. from work) I have access to my home's Extreme and can configure it remotely.

The problem is only I have no access to hard drive.

I understand now about the IP address but every address that makes a direct connection to the Internet must be unique so I don't understand how you and your neighbour can have the same IP address. You may be on the same subnet, first three groups of number in IP the same, but it is impossible to have the exact same address otherwise the Internet would be broken for both of you. Are you sure the last group of numbers is not different? In the following sequence the number represented by DDD should be different between you and your neighbour.

AAA.BBB.CCC.DDD <-- DDD must be different

Anyway, it appears that things are mostly working. If you can access the Airport base station to configure it remotely then you should also be able to access the hard drive remotely.

When you are at a remote location does the name of your Airport Base station stay on the Finder sidebar? If it does what happens when you click on it to select it? If your AirPort disks are protected by a password it should ask you for your password and then the disk should become available.

Of course I know what is IP. I meant that me and my neighbour have same external ip (provider's gateway) and different internal ip.

But it seems that problem is not with ip.

So, i can remotely configure airport and hard disk presents in disk tab in airport utility. Airport station is visible in shared devices in Finder's left panel.

But when I click on it, i get connection error message. So button to enter different credentials is inactive.

I understand but I don't have a solution. My testing shows that it works when testing with my equipment. I presume that if you can connect to the router to administer you should also be able to connect to the disk. The only other thing that I can think of is that a port is being blocked somewhere.