I guess the "\\$HOSTNAME\$DIR" URL syntax in Windows Explorer also works for WebDAV. Is it safe to have SMB over WAN?

I just tried https://live.sysinternals.com/Tools in Windows Explorer, and it also lists the files, identical to how it would show the contents of any directory.

Even running "dir \\live.sysinternals.com\Tools", or starting a program from the command prompt like "\\live.sysinternals.com\Tools\tcpview64" works.

"\\server\share" is called a UNC path, which can be served by SMB, WebDAV or another type of server.

(old ref, but the architecture hasn't changed AFAIK)

Ref: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/...

IIRC, Windows for a while had native WebDAV support in Explorer, but setting it up was very non-obvious. Not sure if it still does, since I've moved fully to Linux.