Today I freed 150GB of space from my Macbook by moving my music to my Mac Mini that sits below my TV, at home, behind two firewalls.

First, I hardened SSH on the mini and setup my laptop to log in without a password, but I didn’t go through the SSHFS stuff, as I like AFP better (for the moment). Now, I can access my Mini by running:

``` shell LAPTOP$ ssh -f -N -p PORT USER@OUTSIDEIP -L 1202:localhost:5900 -L 1203:localhost:548

Where PORT is the random port I choose when [hardening SSH][1], USER is the
username on my mini and OUTSIDEIP is the external IP of my cable modem.  Then,
I can exit from Terminal on my laptop, press command-K and run:

``` shell
afp://localhost:1203

and get the list of shared folders. Or I can run:

``` shell vnc://localhost:1202

and get Screen Sharing with the Mini behind all those firewalls.

Finally, I [moved my iTunes Library to an external harddrive] [2] and hooked up
that beast to the Mini.  By SSHing into my Mini and then running the AFP
command, I can now access my very large iTunes library from anywhere with an
internet connection.

If I would like to end the SSH tunnel, I run:

``` shell
ps auxww | grep -i ssh

After finding the ID of the process I do:

shell kill -9 SSH_PID `

with the SSH ID.

I will use some applescript to make this “connect, mount, launch iTunes” dance a little bit more simple, but I think this is progress, as it has breathed new life into my 2.5 year-old laptop.