I had a Covid related discussion about a situation where files are on a local napp-it ZFS filer. Locally all are working directly on the server via SMB. The local multiuser access with all the permission restrictions should be preserved. Some of the files should be accessable from home via internet with a two way sync of newer files. A complete move of all files to a Cloud approach (Amazon S3 or compatible, Dropbox, Gsuite, or Owncloud) is not an option due the above and due data security and privacy rules.
The first idea was a VPN. This is secure and offers access to all files the same way as when you are working in office/ on LAN. This idea was discarded mainly because of the limited performance and the hassle with VPN clients.
The second idea was a Titan sftp/ftps/https server that gives Internet access to selected local files on internal storage servers based on Windows AD user/groups with all local permission settings intact. This was discarded due the price of Titan with https (around 2k Euro with https, 600/1200 Euro without https).
The current idea is to share one or some ZFS filesystems via minIO/S3. This gives secure https and ultra easy and ultra fast web access from the internet with sync options via one of the Amazon S3 client apps for user or groups who know the name/pw of the S3 share. While it would be possible to share and access the same files via SMB and S3, this is not recommended as there is no common file locking option and you may want to S3 access only some files. For a single user or homeserver sharing a filesystem via S3 and SMB concurrently may be the easiest option.
The missing link is a sync option of these S3 files with the most current files normally on the regular SMB area of the NAS. This can be done by a simple two way local rsync script that syncs the wanted files from the normal SMB storage to the S3 filesystem based on date with ZFS snaps/ Windows previous versions for undo/versioning.
You can start such a sync script via an "other job" in napp-it ex once or twice a day. You should publish these sync times to avoid open files over SMB during a sync, otherwise use a snap as source for rsync to S3. A rsync S3 -> SMB area may simply fail with an open/locked file.
With rclone it should be possible to keep a local folder in sync with a regular Cloud offer like Google or S3/Amazon ,
Google drive.
