Setting up online storage

[BaconFatty]

Hello,

So I have a computer set up to host my website, but I was thinking the other day how nice it would be to hookup an external hard drive to my server and be able to upload stuff to it and take stuff from it from where ever I am. Does anyone know for a way to set this up? Or a good program that will allow this?

Also is there any way I can set it up so some of my friends can save stuff to it as well with limited privileges so they can only read/write there own stuff and not not be able to read/write any of mine?

Im running the server off of windows xp right now.

[I.M.O.G.]

Sounds like your asking for an FTP server to me - filezilla server should do it fine for free. Set it up with user accounts, and assign the rights to appropriate folders, forward a port on your router to the PC hosting filezilla server, done. If your familiar with it, you can do it in 5 minutes. Being completely unfamiliar, it still shouldn't take more than an hour to figure out everything you need to do.

FreeNAS referenced above is FTP and like 5 more things you didn't ask for, but it would also do the trick I imagine, tho with more configuration.

[photogray]

I was a cookie stuffer, now I'm perma-banned! Yay for posting in a thread right after a moderator! Darwinism for the win!

-IMOG

[Divvichild]

Like IMOG said, I believe Filezilla (http://filezilla-project.org/) is what you are looking for. Just download the server side installer, follow the directions while installing (tell it what port to use and then forward it to your router), setup your user accounts and which directories they are allowed to use, and walla!

For client side, if you are running vista, you could use the built-in network locations to download/upload your files. I use this for multiple FTP servers and have not found fault with it yet.

If you have any questions, feel free to PM me and I will see what I can do to help.

[BaconFatty]

For client side, if you are running vista, you could use the built-in network locations to download/upload your files. I use this for multiple FTP servers and have not found fault with it yet.


Havnt tried it yet, I will here in a few minutes, but for client the people who are using it are using it are a combination of OS X, Ubuntu, Windows XP, and Free BSD.

Looks like it will work for OS X and XP, anyone know if it will work for the other OS's?

[BaconFatty]

This works like a charm. If anyone needs some space to swap files PM me.

Thank you Thank you.

PS. Is there any way to not give out my IP for host and still have them connect?

[I.M.O.G.]

Every enduser OS has clients which support FTP, so it will work with any system.

There is no way not to reveal your IP. Even if you give them a hostname, it could still resolve to your real IP and its more trouble than its worth trying to obfuscate it.

[||Console||]

You can use a DNS program like http://www.everydns.com/ and then just give out baconfatty.everydns.com

[bLack0ut]

This works like a charm. If anyone needs some space to swap files PM me.

Thank you Thank you.

PS. Is there any way to not give out my IP for host and still have them connect?

It's like saying "Come visit me, but you can't know my address", doesn't work.

Also, don't use passworded FTP accounts... FTP sends its passwords in cleartext, which means they can be sniffed very easily. Use SFTP if you're actually want passworded accounts.

[BaconFatty]

I went with dnydns, easy to set up, and should do what I'm looking for.

Thanks for your help