2008 notice: up to date, the most complete and freeware FTP server is FileZilla. I do not have time, will, and resources to re-edit the whole guid to this software, anyway you can follow the same basic principles to setup a server

This is dedicated to all of you who would like to share with others their files, such as MP3’s, Movies, Pictures, FREE Programs, and… well whatever else you think it is a good idea to share .

Since there are many different FTP Server softwares out there, and as happened for FTP clients, some of them are free, I’ll put in here a tutorial on how to start from scratch with a free one (for instance WarFTPDaemon, which is, if not the most userfriendly, at least the most powerful; I’ll put available for download also GuildFTP, which instead is quite nice graphically, plus offers a very flexible interoperability with mIRC). Visit the Dowloads/Internet section of this site to get the installers.

Install and run the thing.

Let’s come to the tutorial itself.

After the server is installed and running, we’ll have to set how many people can login, what port the server will be listening on, blah, blah, blah.

You have right now the chance to change the port the server will listen on, just put another number in place of 21 (the IP near the port can’t be changed, it logs your IP when you’re connected, and is 127.0.0.1 when you are offline). You can use virtually any numer, but avoid to use 23, 25, 80, 110, 139, which may (actually in very rare cases) interfere with your current other running services, and in general, choose with no problem any number from 1024 to about 65000. Then, the max decent number of users, unless you are on a T3, is 2 max for a 56k, even 3 for a 64k ISDN, 5-6 for a 128k ISDN, 8-10 for an aDSL, even a bit more for cable users. But still it’s your choice, the more users will connect at the same time, the slower they’ll go .

Next, you need to set users. One choice is to make an account for each person you want to access the server, asking them what username and password they prefer; or, if you, for example, serve songs in an IRC channel, it is much better to create a single account, with a standard username/password, like channelname/napstersux0rs (hey ’tis just and example ). Then you need to set the folders each user will be able to access, and what rights will have in those folders.

When you setted the user parameters, you need to adjust the overall server options, by doing [Properties > Options]. I won’t paste in here a screenshot for every panel, since you can follow the instructions by reading in here, and also because this page would get simply HUGE to download. So, you have the [Options > General] panel in front of you. I suggest you to enable Go online when started and minimize so the server, will be there ready to act. The rest if left to your will, only remember that selecting Advanced. Please enable all options you’ll find the Edit User panel a but more messy. Just use this option when you’ll become more acquainted with the program .

Switch to the Server Name panel (we can ignore for now all the other panels, which control the advanced options, and are not supposed to interest a first time user). In that panel, put a nice name for your server, like "FrAnKiE’s FrEe FoR AlL FiLeZ SeRvEr", and if you want insert your email, or leave the invalid default one.

This is done! I mean… almost… actually the two great capabilities of WarFTPd are folder mapping, and especially the Virtual File System. Since you can now start sharing your files, you can avoid reading further. But if you want to add more folders located on different disks/partitions (for example one with songs, another with pictures, another with programs and so on, and also a folder to let users upload files to you) it may be VERY useful to activate the disk mapping (I’ll avoid explaining how to use the Virtual File System, both because it should be used only by advanced users, and beacuse… err.. well… I still gotta fully understand how it works … but hey! I had to learn WarFTPd JUST to write down this tutorial!).

Now, let’s make an example: you have all your songs on the partition G:\, some pictures in F:\Docz\Images\…\, and want to add an Upload folder in F:\Temp\Uploads\ (well, this is more or less how my disk is organized, I suppose you don’t have so many partitions, but it will make the same, just change the example folders to the real names ).

Now, it would be a nice idea to create an empty folder just for the FTP (which will work actually only as a container for the links to the other, external, folders), let’s say F:\FTP\.

What will you have to do? Add the empty container folder in the File Access panel as I explained before. For this one, set the Read and List (dir) rights, plus the Recursive, Root and Home attributes. Then simply keep adding the other folders you want to share, selecting Read, List (dir), Recursive and Mapping.

You can add as many folders as you want, building a very complex server.

Pheewww it’s done for real now.

Wait! Not yet! Do you want to know how to test yor server, even if you aren’t connected to the internet? Use an FTP client, and put all the data of the server (port, username and password), BUT use 127.0.0.1 as the IP. You will connect to your own computer, and see how the server works on the user-side.