Web-based SMB/CIFS file server

Question

I am looking for a web-based file server which can be used to browser SMB/CIFS shares.

I want something easy to deploy (can be Windows or Linux software) and which can be used to download/upload files from network shares.

Any hints?

Answer 1

I would use WebDav. It is a standard to share files over the internet and actually it can be used in the place of SMB/CIFS too

Answer 2

I came across this after looking for something similar for remote workers to be able to access our NAS outside the office.

Firstly of course you can look at VPN for those NAS shares but SMB over VPN is slow and breaks (a lot).

There is a product called the File Fabric which has an SMB connector. The way this works is you deploy a software VM in the same DMZ that has access to your NAS and hook up the connector. It exposes a secure web url where users can go to then access their SMB files from a web browser. There is also additionally the equivalent of home drive shares using a desktop software drive product for Mac and Windows except that it connects over HTTPS not SMB so is faster.

There don't seem to be many products out there that offer this capability.

Answer 3

Ajaxplorer might be what you are looking for, there is an SMB plugin for it.

from the description:

Connect a Samba share and browse its files and folders. This plugin is based on a php wrapper around the command line tool smbclient. This tool must be installed on the server. The wrapper was first developped by Victor M. Varela. Like the ftp access driver with the auth.ftp, this smb driver can be used in conjunction with the auth.smb plugin to authenticate users directly against the samba share.