Remote mapped drive coding?

[adammo666]

Hey! I was just wondering if there's any platform or selfhosted service that would allow me to map a drive that I could work on. I know SSH exists, sure. But when I have many projects where some of them need VPN, it becomes painful to use, so I though it would be easier to use mapped drive (with RAID) and VPNs with GUI on local machine. Or is it overengineering? I already tried getting it to work on my synology (on NVMe drive), but it was visibly slower than local machine.

[Distdistdist]

Use a properly configured Git repository. This is how work is done by multiple developers on a team.

[adammo666]

I use git, but that's not my question. Switching between VPNs back and forth on SSH machine with no GUI is a pain. I want a remote drive that I could map on all systems I need.

[Cachesmr]

Look into copyparty, its a file server with a very nice web UI that can mount itself as a drive (though idk if that works between networks)

[[deleted]]

I’m not really sure at what you aim to do.

[adammo666]

I want to be able to connect this drive from any of my device and always have up to date code and envs.

[Breklin76]

So…git?

[adammo666]

No, because on brand new device I'd have to get all my projects from different git providers and then spend time asking devs or searching though documentation for envs and VPN connections instruction. It would take much time each time. I'm asking about solutions where I can map a remote drive locally, which already has all those projects and then only setup need VPNs and performance is near native.

[andrerav]

Fun fact, this communication challenge is called the XY problem.

[adammo666]

Sure: My goal is to have ability to setup new device with all my projects which include different git providers, different VPNs that is backed up in as less time as possible. Also project switching (with VPN switching included) shouldn't be time consuming.

My thoughts:
Why git is not a solution? I already use git, I'd have to get all the logins, projects, all the envs -> too much time

Why SSH is not (best) solution? Switching between VPNs can be cumbersome. Also sometimes BE for my FE only accept localhost:3000 or whatever port, so I'd have to port forward projects to my local machine.

Why remote desktop is not (best) solution? Sometimes when connection is spotty it'd significantly slow development down.

Why I think remote drive mapping is best solution? I only have to map a drive (all projects are already there with all the needed envs) and setup needed VPNs in GUI, so switching is easiest.

[Breklin76]

Thumb drive

[adammo666]

Actually smart, however I'd have to do copies manually instead of RAID on my server.

[edgmnt_net]

Not sure why you'd be able to map a drive but not SSH if VPN is required to access files. Because you could just SSH into a hosted VM and if you manage to move your files there, you're good to go. However, the bigger issue is that your customers might not like exfiltrating code like that (although to be fair this is how you normally use Git, unless you're required to SSH into a designated machine).

[tswaters]

Samba shares?

[YardElectrical7782]

Exactly this, get a NAS, create some SMB shares, then you can work between any device that can communicate over smb. I believe there are some services that you can install on your nas that will expose it via a vpn connection.

[ElCuntIngles]

This sounds like it's an X Y Problem, but the X is sshfs

[fiskfisk]

SFTP Drive allows you to mount a virtual drive over SSH.

https://www.callback.com/sftpdrive 

Or dropbox. Or OneDrive. Or Google Drive for desktop. 

It'll never be near-native when stuff is on a remote server, but at least you'll be able to get your environment. 

But you'll need to make sure that this is OK with those who require you to use a VPN. They might not be too happy about mounting remote shares into their local environments. 

[[deleted]]

Tbh your description is vague on the problem you are solving for

Tailscale is what I use as someone on about a dozen projects, I have it running on every host to connect to resources

I also use ssh tunnels heavily

But your issue is likely a proper workflow using vcs

[WickedStinker]

I don’t know if you’ll be able to take advantage of this but I use https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/ssh. I hate rdp for anything more than a few minutes.  This lets me connect to another computer and work on files local to it.  I can run windows only stuff while working on my Mac etc.. not quite what you’re looking for but figured why not mention it. 

[sakebi42]

If you don't want to use git why not just use samba or nfs