Large organizations often maintain an on-site office network and separately offer their users remote network access, e.g, with a VPN. A simpler alternative — if the user pool is a bit more tech-literate — is to run a Linux/Unix-like environment and allow SSH access. Users authenticate with the same credentials whether on- or off-site, and who-gets-access-to-what is already handled by filesystem ownership/permissions.

For the user, gaining remote access is as simple as choosing an SSH client. Linux natively supports the SSH protocol and comes with the OpenSSH client pre-installed. There are a handful of SSH clients available for any desktop or mobile OS. PuTTY, for instance, is a popular Windows client that is even available as a standalone executable.

VX ConnectBot is a good SSH client for the Android mobile OS. To access server data on-the-go, one simply installs the app, enters the server's address/port, and connects. In addition, installing an input app like Hacker's Keyboard makes special characters frequently used at the command line (~/<|>) readily available.