I’m trying to set up my a home FTP server in linux and/or windows XP (home), for educational and practical purposes. I want a convenient way to share files with family and friends (photos, short videos etc) and to be able to grab files off my computer when I am away. Maybe someone who has done that here can give me a few pointers or send some links to some good websites to help. I’ve tired Filezilla server but with no success. Does Hinet block port 21?
No, hinet don’t block port 21. Do you have your own router on the end? If so, did you set up the NAT to forward port 21 to the correct box? Did you open it on your firewall?
Filezilla is excellent (server and client), but the server can be a little hard to configure at first - there are several steps and it doesn’t lead you through them. Are you able to connect from an FTP client on the same box? If so, it’s a network problem as above. If not, it’s a configuration (or local firewall) problem.
Meanwhile, if you only want to let people get files (not put them), a webserver might be the easiest way. You can install Apache (on either Linux or Windows), set up a folder with basic auth (so it asks for a password), turn on directory listings, and voila - easier to use for other people than ftp, no special software required.
You should considder ssh instead of ftp.
As easy to use but much saver.
[quote=“robi666”]You should considder ssh instead of ftp.
As easy to use but much saver.[/quote]
And not a way to transfer files. Perhaps you mean sftp, which is the standard FTP protocol, but over an ssh connection. Filezilla supports it.
no
i mean ssh, so if you dont want to use the command line there are some programms that will enable drag and drop
[quote=“robi666”]no
i mean ssh, so if you dont want to use the command line there are some programms that will enable drag and drop[/quote]
Perhaps you mean scp, then?
ssh is not a way to transfer files, which is what the OP wants to do. ssh only establishes a secure connection (for any kind of use). In order to transfer files, you then need to run some other protocol over that connection - sftp and scp are the two most common ones. There’s also rsync, svn+ssh, SSHFS, and a host of others.
More information here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ssh
Thanks for the advice. I got pure-ftpd up and running (in Linux). Works great. My goal was to have my family able to swap files back and forth to my computer. This is the best solution I’ve found so far. It’s on a partition of it’s own and each user is chrooted. Only the user and root can go into the directory. Think that is safe enough?
Now on to Apache. Know any good guides for newbies setting up a home web server?
I occasionally use ssh - nautilus over the web. But i am considering closing this port as it seems a bit dicey to have it exposed to the web and I didn’t want my family and friends access to ALL my folders…
Yep. FTP itself is fairly insecure, but at worst a cracker sniffs one of your user’s logins. Not a big deal.
Which Linux distro are you running? There’s a good chance it’s already installed and perhaps even running. See if “ps -A” throws up apache, apache2, or httpd. If you don’t have it and are using a decent distro, your package manager (eg aptitude, yum) should be able to get it installed for you. I’d suggest apache 2.0 … 1.3 remains more prevalent but is really not as good.
Once it’s running you can just stick files in the web root and they’ll be accessible. The default root is usually something like /var/www. If you can’t find it, look for a DocumentRoot variable in the apache config file, which itself will be in something like /etc/apache2/sites-available/default (or 000-default or such) for apache2, and /etc/apache/httpd.conf or /etc/httpd/httpd.conf for apache1.3.
After that, the official apache docs are comprehensive and readable. Here’s the article on basic auth: httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/howto/auth.html
Basic auth sucks, incidentally, but only for the same reasons as FTP - plaintext passwords over the network, and stuff.
Which port? 22? That’s probably the least dangerous port you could have open. ssh is very secure indeed. Just don’t give out important passwords, or let people write ssh private keys in your home folder 
If open up the port 22 to ssh, and someone finds out the password, then they have access to the whole system. Is there a way around this? I mean to limit the areas areas of access. My file permissions are pretty easy as it is just a home system. How is this service and port safer? (sorry for stupid questions)
Running openSuse 10.2. Apache is installed, configured (through Yast) and running. Have webmin installed for configuration. The default folder is in /srv/www. (FTP is /srv/ftp) I guess I am stuck on where to stick the html files, the file structure, and permissions. Need a descent guide for that.
Thanks for the response. Much appreciated 
.
On a side note, making the ftp site has been great for my adult classes. I can easily post big files such as movies, tv shows and what not and share them with my students (trusted ones) which we can later discuss in class. Also they like the flexibility to post content they want to share with others. All without the hassle of burning CD’s and DVD’s. Plus they think its cool for their teacher to go through the hassle of providing such a service.
Let me ask a simple question. Can a Linux newb like me set up a file server or not? Is there a walk through? I tried to set up MythTv and failed so the box is sitting there. Probably needs updating too so what form of Linux should I get?
I shouldn’t be trying to do this after X beers, but…
I don’t know THAT much about Linux and I had no trouble setting up and an FTP and a web server with:
ubuntu.com/
and
mepis.org/
Mepis is one disk that is bootable (so you can check it out) and if you decide to install it, thre’s just an icon on the desk that does it. Unbutu as a boot CD (for test) and a separate install CD (or DVD, whatever.) Both are very easy to use and have good documentation and community support.
If open up the port 22 to ssh, and someone finds out the password, then they have access to the whole system. Is there a way around this? I mean to limit the areas areas of access. My file permissions are pretty easy as it is just a home system. How is this service and port safer? (sorry for stupid questions)[/quote]
It’s safer in that neither passwords nor files get sent over the network in plaintext. Everything is securely encrypted so that people sniffing your wire can’t find out anything.
You still lose security if people find out your password some other way. You could forbid ssh access to the root account though, which would make that much less dangerous. A google search can tell you how, I’m too drunk
Running openSuse 10.2. Apache is installed, configured (through Yast) and running. Have webmin installed for configuration. The default folder is in /srv/www. (FTP is /srv/ftp) I guess I am stuck on where to stick the html files, the file structure, and permissions. Need a descent guide for that.[/quote]
It depends entirely on what exactly you want to do. Which is a pretty useless answer. But until you have an idea of what you want, finding appropriate guides will be tough.
[quote]Chicken wrote:
Let me ask a simple question. Can a Linux newb like me set up a file server or not?
[/quote]
miltownkid’s links are great too. Those distributions are ace. I would also suggest the following:
lt.k1011.nutime.de/ (linux Mint, Ubuntu based but easier to set up multimedia and wireless for newbies plus doesn’t have the default brown color scheme in Ubuntu)
or
ftp://ftp.novell.co.jp/pub/opensuse/dis … .2/iso/dvd (openSUSE 10.2 nice polished OS and has great system tools to avoid having to deal with editing scripts, best distro to deal with 64 bit machines without too many hassles as well)
[quote]It depends entirely on what exactly you want to do. Which is a pretty useless answer. But until you have an idea of what you want, finding appropriate guides will be tough.
[/quote]
Just a simple web page with some links to share posted files and pics. Password protection to some areas. Nothing fancy at the moment.