[HOWTO] - Setup FTP access on your OSX machine.

[trickie]

does anyone know how to set default umask for ftp uploads?

At the moment every time someone uploads to my server, i have to go in an manually change the permissions.

[Ebonit]

Okay Nick,
there are two ways to do this

1 - through the http protocol

A - The nicest way
to do this is to make a webpage, that you put in the "Sites" directory of your home dir.
If you don't know how to make a webpage, then skip this and go to 2 OR try to get the knowledge to make a simple webpage(it isn't that hard, just buy html for dummies and off you go)
If you created your webpage, call this page index.html and save it in your Sites dir. Then people can just access that page by typing the url youripadress/~yourusername.

What to put in that webpage?????
In that webpage you put the title of your audiofile with a link to the file that you want to share. You do this for all your files. You can just drop those files in the same sites directory, as long as the link also point to those files. It is recommended that you stuff these files with dropstuff!!!

B - the crude way
is to just drop your files (stuffed!) in your sites directory and remove the file index.html . That way your friend just sees your directory with all files sitting there.

Now your friend opens internet explorer and types:
youripaddres/~yourusername.
Then she/he can see
a - your webpage
or
b - all the file that you dropped in your sites dir

if your friend just clicks these links or the files, the download starts.

2 -The other way to do this is through ftp
That is explained very well in the first entry of this topic


Then you asked what program to use for ftp
I use Captain ftp and I think it is just the best ftp tool for OS X right now. You can download it through
www.xdsnet.net/captain/CaptainFTP1.4.tar.gz
This is shareware but you can get a free registration when you are a home user. You'll have to register for that though.

Open Captain ftp.
Go to the menu Connection/addressbook
click new
type a session name (like "my friend's supercool G4"
type the-ipaddress-you-want-to-connect-to, or, if your friend has his own domain type www.yourfriendsdomainname.com
give the username that your friend provides you with
type the pasword
hit OK and there you go

Remember though that if you add ftp-access to your own machine that your friend can see and download everything that is in your homedir. If you don't want that you'll have to create a separate account with the name yourfriendsname an a password and drop all your files in the homedir of yourfriendsname.

If you're behind a router....just reply and i'll get you going.

[NickBurns]

Thanks alot, i really appreciate it.
I do know a little about html, and am looking to get a website up soon. Nothing fancy, just a way for my band mates to get certain tracks from my computer.

Thanks for taking the time to answer that question. Sounds like the http protocol is the way to go.

Wich of these ways will get you the fastest download times?? I realize there are alot of factors, but wich one is fastest in a perfect world???

Thanks again,

[jeroenvw]

Thnx for explaining the FTP option for OSX. But the biggest problem you've also mentioned: being behind a firewall. Or: we use a router, Vigor 2200E, and this router gives out the Ip adresses. But because of this router I cannot acces a OSX ftp server from elswhere. Could you help me out?

Thanx a lot in advance

Zig

[Ebonit]

Being behind a router is not a problem.

First of all you need to give your Mac a static IP adress because you have to direct incoming access to that address. You can give your machine any address in the 192.168.x.x range as long as it is not within the range that your router uses for its DHCP engine. Since you use a vigor 2200E I asume you use the 192.168.x.x range.

Changing you dynamic addres into a static address is done in System Preferences/Network. You can see an example here. (I use the 10..x.x.x range)

Next thing you have to do is get your router to redirect all incoming ftp traffic to your Mac. Also http could be redirected.
On the vigor 2200E you do that in Advanced Setup> NAT setup> Configure Port Redirection Table. (You're a lucky bastard that I have the same router ) You can find an example here. if you have a different brand router then it must be something like this. You'll understand if you see it.
In this example you see that my public Ports are 8080 and 2121. Normally that would be 80 (http) and 21(ftp) but my cable company won't allow trafic to those ports to get through so I changed it tot 8080 and 2121. That means that all incoming trafic should also be send to those ports.
Note: I had troubles to configure this on my mac so I had to do this in windows. For some reason the router doesn't like it when I fill in the private ip address on the mac (IE)

That's all!
Now you have to know the ip address that your provider gives to your router. Your friends can now fill in the url ftp://your-router's-ip-address or ftp://your-router's-ip-address:2121 and they'll have access to your ftp site. (if you set it up properly)
same with http:
http://your-router's-ip-address or http://your-router's-ip-address:8080
Note that if your provider gives you a dynamic address that it will change regularly so you'll have to checkup on that on a regular basis.

Offcourse you can get your own domain as well but that is a whole different story

success, Ebonit

[kuroyume]

Thank you very much for this gem of information. I was just going about finding info on setting up ftpchroots and ftpusers and so forth and so on. This makes the process sooooo much easier and is exactly what I was looking for!

Thanks again,

Robert Templeton

[kuroyume]

Sorry to say, I just tested a "test user" account from my Wintel machine using WinSock FTP32 and was able to ".." back into the rest of the system without any hesistation or complaints. Not very secure when anybody with FTP access can fiddle with the rest of my system. This "test user" does NOT have administrative abilities and all capabilities have been unchecked.

Anyway to prevent this?

Thanks again,

Robert Templeton

[kuroyume]

Originally posted by NickBurns
Thanks,



HAHAHA!!!!!!!!! Pee Cee..... i never heard that before....

How do i make it so if you type in my ip address in any browser window, you can access my computer via a username and password????

Sorry for all the questions,
Thanks again,

Don't know if you got an answer to this already (someplace else), but the way to do that from a browser is:

ftp://username@<ftp address>

where <ftp address:> is the IP address or DN (like ftp.myftpserver.xxx or www.mydomainname.xxx>. The browser should prompt for a password in order to log in. I also think there is a way to include the password in the URL, but forget how to do it exactly.

Robert Templeton