

Ask HN: Setting up a small office server? - Rabidmonkey1

Hi HN,<p>I have a quick question I'm hoping someone will be able to help me with.  I intern at a Hi Def production company in NYC. We're small but very capable and we want to create our own server that we can use to allow clients to FTP large files to and from - our web server simply doesn't cut it for this purpose.<p>I have an old G4 Mac at my disposal, and am pretty familiar with Linux. We need the server to appear visible on a Mac network, and be accessible through FTP software from anywhere in the world, by our clients (who we'd obviously give a user name and password to, to allow them to access specific folders).<p>What's the best way to go about this?  Any tutorials you can recommend? I'd really appreciate anyone who can steer me in the right direction.
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RobGR
I'm not sure what you mean by "visible on a Mac network" and why that is
necessary . . . won't an IP address and maybe a domain name do ?

If you were doing this with Linux, you should install a common linux
distribution (to make sure it won't have security problems out of the box) and
then go through and turn off anything that doesn't need to be on, and check it
using nmap to see what ports are still open. If you want to educate yourself
and go further then download metasploit and see if you can break into it.

Install vsftpd as the ftp server, and make sure it does not allow anonymous
login, and make sure the passwords are long and random. If you have ssh on it,
which you probably should because you should encourage your people to use scp
instead of ftp (graphical tools exist for the mac), make sure you install
denyhosts or something similar to keep out the brute-forcing attacks. Try not
to have commonly guessable usernames, such as "tom" or "joe" and disallow root
login.

But if you have a Mac, can't you install or turn on the Mac's ssh or ftp
server and do the same ? That might be simpler.

You might also google for "The Perfect Ubuntu Server" -- there is a series of
howto's on how to set up the "perfect" server in various linux distributions.

~~~
Rabidmonkey1
First off, thanks for the response.

To answer your question and maybe clarify things a bit more - the owners want
to be able to simply drag and drop large media files that have been sent by
clients onto their local machines (Mac desktop Pro setups with Final Cut
Studio 2), where they can then edit the clips, if possible. Our current
hosting provider for our website only allows for FTP of files no larger than
20 mb at a time, and when you work with video, you have gigs upon gigs of
files - so most companies would simply mail over hard drives, but obviously
this is a major hassle. Thus the need for a new solution.

Of course, if you're suggesting that I might be able to accomplish this with
mac software, out of the box, I would consider that...

~~~
bittersweet
Just using OS X would be a good option for you.

If you check out Sharing in the preferences menu you will see you can set it
up to allow ftp connections and from within your own network, easy as that!

Hope you have a good connection over there! ;)

