I have a quickbooks database on my linux server at home. I have an accountant that wants to access said database from her home on her windows machine. If it was your system, how would you grant her access? I imagine there’s some kind of SSH unique key setup, but I don’t have practical experience. Just enough knowledge to be trouble.
I would probably do a VPN of some sort, depending on your router/firewall - but I am interested in what others would come up with.
Something like this?
https://www.linode.com/stackscripts/view/8517-chenxs-Ubuntu+PPTP
I’m not educated enough to know what won’t work in this example.
Option 1: Share the files from your linux box
This requires running Samba and creating the CIFS share on your linux box, and then configuring network access either by port forwarding (not recommended) or VPN (recommended). I would use OpenVPN. Plus, I’m sure you would find many other convenient uses for having unfettered secure remote access to your linux computer.
Option 2: Put the files in a location accessible by both parties
It might be as simple as putting the QuickBooks files in a shared DropBox (or similar) folder and inviting your accountant to share it. Of course this depends how QuickBooks manages its files, how it does locking, etc. You might end up with a mess of conflicts from simultaneous access. Might be worth a try.
Option 3: Switch to QuickBooks Online
This isn’t really an answer to your question, but it might solve your problem. I use QBO for my business and am able to give my accountant the access she needs. If you’re already using QuickBooks Desktop, then migration should be fairly painless.
The VPN’s I configure are at the router level, not the Linux level. But is Luke suggests OpenVPN could be an option off the Linux box with port forwarding done at the router level.
I’ve recently been testing out Ubiquiti Edgerouters, the router to router VPN is simple, however I haven’t tested client to router yet - but will be doing so in the near future.
I have found in the past that Quickbook (and Simply Accounting) files shared on a Linux/Samba server tend to corrupt, probably something to so with file locking or multiple access to the same file from different PC’s. It used to be a way I could save a small office a dedicated MS Server - by using a Linux box with Samba. But a few years back both QB and SA changed their database setup and I noticed file corruption starting to happen on a regular basis at a few clients and had to switch them to MS servers.
If you choose to go with Quickbooks Online, pm me. My wife is a Quickbooks Pro Advisor and can get you a deal.
In this case, if it is once a year, I personally ally would give them an ssh user account on your Linux box and thry can use Putty or SCP on Windows to securely connect to it.
I like the openVPN option. Google has suggested several tutorials. none
of which made sense, none agreed on the best method.
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