Ok here's my situation. I have a Patriot Valkyrie NAS model PCNASVK35S2 that I want to give internet users access to the data shares on it just like I do from my LAN. SMB/CIFS access for starters; I thought forwarding VPN access to it would be a good idea. I'm using a Siemens SpeedStream 4200 in PPPoE router mode, originally from Bell Sympatico that I loaded with firmware D240-A8M-1210. It's connected to a NetGear WNR3500L v1 set in static WAN IP since the SS4200 is doing all the PPPoE processing. Both have DoS & Port scanning SPI firewalling enabled. The NAS is plugged to WNR3500L, all 3 devices are using static LAN IPs and the WNR3500L is also set to assign the NAS the same IP that it has staticly set too.

So SS4200 is 192.168.2.1, WNR3500L 192.168.3.1, NAS 192.168.3.4. I tried forwarding PPTP TCP:1723 in SS4200->WNR3500L and in WNR3500L->NAS. Tried the same with TCP:445, also tried the same with TCP:137-139. Then I tried putting NAS on WNR3500L DMZ. None allowed internet users to VPN to the NAS. The DMZ and forwarding 445/137-139 allowed me to access shares with \\192.168.2.2 (WNR3500L WAN IP).

I searched google and youtube and all the videos suggest I have the right idea but there are no results that match even half of my exact situation. I can't find anything to tell me where/what I'm doing wrong. Also all the vids on youtube demonstrate VPNing to a PC but none directly to a NAS without a proprietary software service in the middle.

I was already able to setup FTP forwarding when I was learning how to forward access but FTP is not good enough because FTP only shares a dedicated isolated FTP folder and does not allow access to the main data shares of the NAS (shares used on LAN). 2nd problem with FTP is it only shares the FTP folder dedicated to the user's login and no other FTP folders. Each different login has its own isolated FTP folder (admin, guest, various other logins I create). Which also means no control on restrictions per FTP user; it's either read-only or write-access for all FTP folders. DynDNS will be my final step once I am certain the NAS is even accessible over the internet. Forwarding FTP ports works correctly in my network. I was doing this before with this NAS. If I give out my IP address its FTP shares are accessible across the internet, even my mobile phone using Opera Mini 6 can access the FTP shares.