Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with fileserver

I want my own FTP server (dammit).

bingo — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:00:18 -0800

I want my own FTP server. Looking for advice on possible solutions. Some requirements:

a) I need to be able to create users and give them different levels of access. Each user has his own private upload area, but he also has access to specific other areas that I've given multipe users access to. So if you're a user, you have your own private (except from me) upload area, and then you also have access to upload areas for certain groups. You may have read-only access in some cases.

b) I need to be able to map a directory from my own domain to it.

c) Some directories within it need to be viewable via a web browser, so that stuff can be uploaded directly to a staging area, and then viewed in a browser.

d) Some say the FTP is a dinosaur. I am not opposed to similar solutions with other protocols. But at the end of the day, I need something that allows people with low to mid level technical knowledge to upload and download files in an environment that I control. I am not afraid of using the command line stuff myself, but my users have to be able to do everything with a GUI.

e) I am willing to consider solutions that are already hosted, and I'm also willing to consider solutions that I have to install myself... but then I would have to also find the right place to host them. My site is hosted on Dreamhost, where I do have FTP access, but not at the level of customizability described above.

Happy to answer any questions. Thanks!

Keeping in sync with a file server when not connected?

philosophygeek — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:26:22 -0800

How do I synchronize local copies from a file server for when I'm not able to connect to its network or the internet? I'm looking at setting up a large external file server for hosting my digital media and data files. Most of the time, I will either be on the same LAN as the fileserver, and thus can simply connect to it as an additional drive, or will have internet access and will be able to log in remotely.

However, there will be some situations in which I want to access files that are normally stored on the server but will not have internet access. An obvious example is when I take my laptop on an airplane. What is the best way to put some selection of files onto the laptop and then resync the server when I again have access?

I am not looking to simply copy the entire server hard drive to my laptop--for one, I won't have enough disk space on the laptop. But I will want to, for example, have access to my iTunes library or Devonthink database.

Details: OS X on laptop, server will be a ZFS filesystem (probably running OpenSolaris).

500 MHZ PIII + FreeNAS + OpenVPN + m0n0wall = love?

pegstar — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 10:17:10 -0800

My girlfriend has expanded her theater management business, hired some employees, and wants to have a file server, have a firewall, and have remote access to the office network. Can I do all this with a Dell PowerEdge 500Mhz PIII? If so.. So I'm thinking to install FreeNAS and add m0n0wall and OpenVPN.

The server has:
- 4 17.5 GB 10,000 RPM SCSI discs
- one 8.5GB IDE drive
- an Adaptec AHA-2940U2W SCSI card
- 2 wired NIC's, one is 10/100/1000 Mbps and the other is 10/100Mbps
- 256MB of PC100 ECC RAM

There are 5 full time users of the network who run:
- one running Windows 2000 on a desktop and XP on a laptop
- one running on an Apple laptop
- one running an XP desktop and an Apple laptop
- two running an XP desktop and XP laptop

There are 2 printers that connect directly to the network. I have some switches and a wireless router I'll run behind this thing. They do most of ther work in MS Office & Outlook.

I'll install the OS on the 8.5 GB IDE drive, I'll use the SCSI discs in a RAID 1+0, i guess and use the gigabit card as the WAN interface and the slower card as the LAN interface.

I've never done anything like this before. This is what i've worked out to do, but please let me know what else to consider and where to revise.

Additionally, how do I limit some of her employees access to some of the files through a policy rather than a file by file chmod or whatever? Also, should I get more RAM?

How can I share a mounted NTFS volume over AFP?

DLWM — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 17:01:14 -0800

Networkfilter: I have a NTFS volume mounted on my OS X Server box. I'd like to access it over the net using AFP. It's not showing up as an available AFP share. What gives? The NTFS volume mounts fine on the server:



admin@os-x-server$ sudo mount_smbfs //user@windows-fileserver/SHARE ~/ntfsdir

Password: os-x-server-password

Password: windows-password

admin@os-x-server$ ls -l ~ | grep ntfsdir

drwxr-xr-x    1 admin  staff  16384 Dec 31  1969 ntfsdir

admin@os-x-server$ ls -l ~/ntfsdir

drwxr-xr-x   1 admin  staff    16384 Feb 23 05:27 dir1

drwxr-xr-x   1 admin  staff    16384 Jun  3 09:42 dir2

drwxr-xr-x   1 admin  staff    16384 Apr 15 16:24 dir3

.

.

.

So it's mounting fine and the permissions look okay. In the Workgroup Manager for the OS X Server, ~/ntfsdir is set as a share point, owner is given read and write access, and AFP is enabled for that share. But when I try to mount the AFP share on my local machine, I get the following error:



user@os-x-client$ sudo mount_afp afp://admin:password@os-x-server/ntfsdir ~/afpdir

Password: os-x-client-password

mount_afp: the mount flags are 0000 the altflags are 0020

mount_afp: AFPMountURL returned error -5019, errno is 2

user@os-x-client$

Google says that error -5019 means bad share name. And indeed, when I use Connect to Server... from the the Finder on the client machine, the share ntfsdir doesn't show up, even though it's enabled in the Workgroup Manager, AFP access is on, and owner has full read/write permissions to the share (both in AFP share config and in the server's filesystem itself).

Even weirder, the I can't even mount the share over AFP from within the server itself! I get the following error:



admin@os-x-server$ sudo mount_afp afp://admin:password@localhost/ntfsdir ~/testdir

Password: os-x-server-password

mount_afp: the mount flags are 0000 the altflags are 0020

mount_afp: AFPMountURL returned error -5019, errno is 32

admin@os-x-server$

So for some reason this share is not being advertised properly. I've tried making other test AFP shares, and they work fine... it must have something to do that I'm trying to share a directory that is itself a mount point for a mounted NTFS share.

I don't see why the AFP service even knows that ~admin/ntfsdir (on the server) is an NTFS mounted share... seems like it should just be another directory in the filesystem, from its perspective. Unless it's a permissions thing that I'm missing, although, like I said, the permissions for ~admin/ntfsdir look good; I can browse the mounted NTFS volume on the server through the command line, etc.

Any clever suggestions for me?

Mac connected to server gets strange filenames, sometimes.

Wild_Eep — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:03:22 -0800

A mac on a network connects to a share point on the server and sees this instead of seeing this. Restarting the client makes the problem go away, for a while.

Server is a DualG5 Xserve. Client is a G5. Both are running fully patched 10.4 server and 10.4, respectively.

What's going on?

Stop synchronizing my files every time I'm online!

desjardins — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 11:22:12 -0800

I don't want to synchronize my files every time I connect to any wireless network. Make it stop! I'm on a laptop (Windows XP) that is set up to automatically synchronize with my home file server upon booting up and shutdown. When I'm at school, I'm obviously not connected to our home wireless. Therefore, any attempt at synchronization will fail. The school wireless can be kind of flaky, so when it drops off and picks back up, it attempts to synchronize again. This is annoying and interrupts what I'm doing. In the "setup" dialog box of the Windows synchronize utility, it's set to "LAN connection." How do I get it to only synchronize when I'm connected to my home network?

cheap Mac file sharing?

cccorlew — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 06:54:29 -0800

I'm looking for a cheap (or better yet, free) software to run a simple file server in my journalism lab. I have a G4 mac to use. I've been using AppleShare IP running OS 9, but there are issues now that all the clients are OS 10.4. (file name lengths, etc)
Apple's Personal Sharing limits me to 10 users and I have 20.
Mac server software costs a ton and does a lot more (web, mail) then I need.
Is there an in between solution?

Which OS should I use on my fileserver?

pombe — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 14:44:30 -0800

I'm in the process of setting up a file server that will interface with 12 windows XP workstations. I want it to be directly mountable on those workstations, and (the catch) I also want it to work with Active Directory. I'd like to install Linux on the server, but should I use Windows instead? I've always used Linux on servers in the past, and I want to do the same here, but it sounds like getting Linux to play nice with Active Directory may be not so easy. I could get a copy of Windows 2003 Server but I'm more familiar with administering Linux than Windows, and I feel like Linux is more reliable. I'm setting this up in a university without a lot of IT support so I'm sort of on my own.

I already have Active Directory set up for the workstations and my users have accounts set up in Active Directory that those workstations can authenticate against. I'd like to have the server do the same. Can I do this in Linux or should I bite the bullet and get a copy of Windows Server?

Help me choose a file server OS

humuhumu — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 10:35:34 -0800

Home network consists of two XP machines, an OSX laptop, and an Ubuntu laptop. Have just been given an old PIII to use as a file server. What OS should the file server run and what should I use to format the disks?

Windows XP Home as a file server?

kables — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 14:58:41 -0800

I just bought a smokin' new laptop with a 60GB hard drive, replacing my aging-but-serviceable desktop. I have about 90GB of files in total--too large to fit on the laptop. My just-replaced desktop is running XP Home, while my laptop is XP Pro -- can I use my desktop as a file server, or is XP Home too limiting/insecure? Am I opening myself up to a world of hurt? If possible, I'd prefer not to install a different OS.

FYI, I have a removable hard drive that I use for back-up purposes, but don't want to be tethered to it when I'm accessing my password-protected wi-fi network from the coffee shop in the bottom of my building. Also, I'd like to be able to map a network drive that reconnects at login. Google has confused me in regards to all this.