I have a small amount of users in my family who I wish to have access to my books, movies and audio files. I have been mixed on whether I should set up an SFTP or a web server. I don't know which would be easiest. -----Original Message----- From: blinux-list-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:blinux-list-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Linux for blind general discussion Sent: December 6, 2017 07:30 AM To: blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: linux newby (Tim here, reply below) On December 6, 2017, Linux for blind general discussion wrote: > I am learning how to use debian linux. Where can I find a good > tutorial that will help me eventually set up an ftp server? Depends on what you plan to use your FTP server for. If it's just internal on your network, it's pretty easy to do, setting up something like vsftpd. If you plan to expose it externally, it may take jumping through a few hoops: - Unless it's only for anonymous access/download, you'll need to establish users. And FTP credentials are sent across the wire in plaintext making them pretty insecure - if you have users, you likely need to fiddle with settings to ensure their personal stuff stays private while public stuff remains public - If you're behind a NAT router (like most home routers), you'll have to mess with your NAT settings to allow the external ports to be redirected to your internal FTP machine - you have to deal with "active" vs. "passive" connection issues In short, if you're setting up just an anonymous FTP site for people to download from and are directly attached to the internet (rather than behind a NAT router), it will be easiest. Diverging from any of those elements introduces more and more pain. As such, I strongly recommend SFTP (part of the standard SSH/SCP/SFTP suite that comes with most Linux/BSD/Mac boxes, and freely available from the makers of Putty) which allows system users, can be locked down to just SFTP (instead of full shell access), and all credentials and file contents are encrypted instead of transmitted in plain-text. But if you want the pain and have more details on the above variants, I'd be glad to write up a getting-started guide. -tim _______________________________________________ Blinux-list mailing list Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list _______________________________________________ Blinux-list mailing list Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list