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

[swizcore]

This is actually quite simple due to OSX's GUI for creating users and turning on FTP access. Follow along and marvel at the simplicity of it all...

1. Open "System preferences"
2. Click on "Users"
3. Create a new user ( you may create either a specific user or a generic one for many people to have access to)- here I will create a user account which will be accessed by a specific person.
Username-johnny
Password- socko123
Do not give them administrative access unless you wish to flirt with disaster.
4. Next click on "sharing" in system preferences.
5. Click on "allow FTP access"
6. Now just give "johnny" your computers IP address (located at the bottoom of the sharing pane in "system Preferences") and let him know the username and password you set his user account up with.
7. Johnny can now access your system via any FTP protocol. But with this setup he only has access to his user directory-which should be fine for most users just wanting to share files.

Of course with Firewalls involved there may additional steps to account for but this will get you going nicely otherwise. If you are dealing with Firewall issues please respond and we will address the Firewall issues.

[swizcore]

Thanks bro. Somebody always has my back around here

[Asimis]

Thanks for your helo swizcore!

[liquidg3]

I'm on a lan, my local ip on the network:

10.0.0.2

the ip i get when i go to www.ipaddress.net is:

216.160.162.246

how do i get people who connect to: 216.160.162.246, routed to my computer at: 10.0.0.2

sorry i don't know any terms or anything more technical, just got into this ftp stuff..

thanx

[schehan]

I wonder how exactly one could do that via airport network. (since the laptop are assigned different IP than what is assigned on the base station). It'll be sort of hopping around.

Schehan

[pal6695]

>>how do i get people who connect to: 216.160.162.246, routed to my computer at: 10.0.0.2

Well, it looks like you can not easily do that, the reason is 10.x.x.x is a private address space. This means it will not be routed in the internet. By the looks of things 216.160.162.246 would be your Firewall/cable-DSL router/gateway address. The only way you would be able to set it up so that someone could access your machine via the internet is if your firewall/router/gateway supports port level routing. IE anything that is inbound FTP (ports 21-22) or telnet (port 23) etc... would be routed to your computer.

There are a few problems with this, anything that is incoming by IP/UDP port number will be routed to that machine and that machine only. The only way you could get around that is to have your ISP issue you a second IP address. Not all ISP's will let you and not all NAT systems support it.

Don@digits-its.com
iMac G4 15" 700 / 256 (ask U.h P.arcel S.omewhere what happened to my extra RAM...)

[pal6695]

This brings me to the question I have, I knew the answer last week but for whatever reason I just can think of it now (it might be the lack of sleep and the hour) Anonymous FTP sites, how do I create one with a "drop box"


Thanks,
don@digits-its.com
iMac 15" 700Mhz 256MB (should be more....)

[gobera]

I can't open the Sharing panel. Every time I try to do it, it quits System Preferences and says "The application System Preferences has unexpectedly quit".

I think this began when I downloaded Security Update 2002-08-23 from Software Update.

Any suggestions on how to fix this? It's frustrating.