How to share a file in a network and from outside?

[Darkcast]

Hi,

 

 

I Want to know (detail if could be possible) how to create a share folder in my CentOs distro that could be accessed in my home network as well from outside my network>?

 

Thanks in advance :)

[inittux]

Hi,

 

 

I Want to know (detail if could be possible) how to create a share folder in my CentOs distro that could be accessed in my home network as well from outside my network>?

 

Thanks in advance :)

 

Hello and Welcome. I don't know much about sharing files cuz haven't done anything with it yet. But I know you can use samba server to share files. Maybe this instruction will help you out to get started. I'm sure Dave or Hybrid or |Anyweb will reply to this topic and will be able to help you out a bit more.

[hybrid]

With what kind of operating system do you want to share the folder?

 

Samba, as feedmebits suggested, is a great solution for this as it works with Windows, Linux and Mac as clients -- all of those systems can access your shared folder.

 

Having access from outside your network is more challenging though, as most ISPs block the ports used by Samba for historical security reasons when a lot of people unwittingly shared their entire C drives on Windows with the whole world! In this case, you might actually be better off looking at a web server, perhaps with something like WebDAV/WebDAVS. This should also have pretty good support too.

 

So this really depends on what is important to you -- Samba is very convenient just inside your LAN, but if it's really important to have external access too, you might need to go with WebDAVS.

 

Let us know exactly what kind of thing you're going for -- do you need security, users and passwords? Is the remote access absolutely crucial? As much detail as possible about what you're trying to do would be helpful in working out exactly how to approach this.

[Dungeon-Dave]

I'd try to answer the question by making the problem client-driven, rather than server-driven.

 

What client needs to see shared files? If it's another linux distro (or MacOS) then using SFTP (ftp over SSH) or NFS will work between both and over the internet, although NFS will not be encrypted (and can be a bit of a pig to set up).

 

If you're just after dragging files down off the server to a client and not worried about uploads then some HTTP/HTTPS is fairly easy to set up - I've created plenty of private encrypted stores for others to view my gallery or download my CV, etc.

 

If it's a windows client, then SAMBA is probably the easiest on a LAN. I'd not recommend that this be used over the internet, though (despite the number of people that do).

 

Some more details of how the files are intended to be shared (read/write, read-only) as well as client type may assist in narrowing down options.