FTP Server suggestions?

[davidw55]

I am working as a consultant for a very small professional sevices firm. They want to setup an FTP server or site to allow both internal use by their 5 employees, and provide FTP access for their clients (not that many 5-10 at the moment). Based on those needs, what would those of you experienced with FTP servers recommend? I have looked into the following so far:

1. Using their hosts FTP account options (they provide 15), but that's really not the way we want to go due to security concerns and storage capacity. (They are with a Windows based host and don't want to move)

2. FTP server alternatives such as FilesToGo.com, etc.

3. FTP Server software such as WS_FTP Server, Cerberus, BulletProof, Filezilla, etc. running on a dedicated or shared pc.

4. NAS Devices such as Snap Server 2200, Tritton ASA2120, Linksys EFG120, etc. that provide a built-in FTP server among other things.

Oh, all of us work from home, and most of us have a cable/broadband internet connection, so options 3 and 4 would be installed in a home office with a static ip address. Has anyone tried this? Did you have much success or was it a pain to manage? Thanks...

David

[B&T]

Going back one step . . . why do you need to offer FTP services? Could you use upload and download through http? Then you could use any shared host (like here) and you could also have greater control over what is uploaded and downloaded (file types, size, etc.) if you wanted. If that would work you could use php scripts and use htaccess/htpasswd for password protection. Would seem like a better way to go to me. I think you only need ftp if you are going to change file permissions - not for simple file sharing through uploads and downloads. And when you allow ftp anyone can really mess it up for everyone else.

[davidw55]

Thanks for the suggestions. Can you point me to any robust PHP/Perl scripts for UL and DL? Since it would be something that clients would be using, we would want it to be well structured and easy for them to use. Don't limit your responses to just free scripts, if there are shareware/commercial ones out there that you know of that would be well suited to this need. Thanks...

David

[B&T]

I don't have one to recommend. I just wrote my own that:

> allows only predefined file types.
> limits file sizes
> has a max total size to be allocated (total size limit for all files that if exceeded no more uploads allowed until something is deleted)
> sends confirm emails
> does auto delete of old files at a user defined interval (and shows the date for all uploaded files)
> allows an optional delete link for files (can be shown or not)

They are not hard to create. And I am sure there are 100's that can be downloaded to do the job.

Much better than an ftp solution.