I have made a private network where any of my machines can connect to others.
But if I want to make a directory available on a raspberry pi for example, and make files available, is there any way to do this? Or once I add someone to my zerotier network, they can see any computer?
So first question, can I create a network where I just expose a single machine, and then I guess I could give them an account and sftp access which would just give them some files not everything
If they can see all my machines, but have no login, that’s still fairly secure, it’s just weird. Is this use case at all supported by zerotier, or should I be using something else for that?
In this case, I have a friend who is technical but not great with computers. She is curating technical videos and we are writing papers together. I want to give her a place on a huge hard drive where she can back up 1TB of videos, but I don’t want her to mess with my computer accidentally.
As an aside, it’s startling how professors of computer engineering can be terrible at basic document sharing. I’ve been in two ECE departments where files are copied back and forth because the professors are not used to a shared folder, never mind git.
Hey! Sounds like you’re on the right track.
Yes, with ZeroTier you can create a private network where only specific machines are visible to each other—it’s all in how you configure the network and your firewall rules. ZeroTier itself just creates a secure virtual LAN; what’s actually exposed depends on the services you run on each machine.
To your questions:
- Can I expose just one machine?
Absolutely. On the ZeroTier network, only devices you authorize (via the web dashboard) can join. Then, each device can still have its own firewall or service config. So for example, your Raspberry Pi could run SFTP and you give your friend a login that only allows access to one folder.
- Can she see all your machines?
She can only reach them if she knows their IP and if those machines are running something like SSH or Samba that responds. But even then, no login means no access. It’s secure by default, but yeah, a bit odd to have visibility without real access—it depends on your threat model.
- Is this a good use case for ZeroTier?
Yes, it’s a great fit. It’s basically like giving her a wire to your Pi—but not your other devices. Just make sure:
- The Pi has a fixed ZeroTier IP.
- SFTP (or Samba) is running and locked down to her user account.
- The rest of your devices aren’t exposing services on ZeroTier.
Alternatively, for a smoother experience:
If she’s uploading and accessing lots of files, you might consider running Nextcloud or OpenCloud on the Pi (or any always-on box). It gives a nice web interface, drag-and-drop uploads, sharing links, versioning, and even collaborative docs.
It takes a bit more setup than plain SFTP, but it’s much more user-friendly—especially for someone who’s not super comfortable with command-line tools.