You might often want to send files to your friends, or anybody or host a file, and people usually resort to online storage service such as
Windows Live SkyDrive, or
Mediafire and the such. But those services do not give you full control on how the files are served and accessing those sites are usually slow and clunky or require registration.
This post will guide you step by step on how to set up a ftp server on your computer so you can access it anywhere.
Step 1.
Grab yourself
Filezilla FTP server and install it. After installing it, you will be presented with a login prompt. This is the login prompt for the server control interface.
Just leave the password blank and press 'OK'. Then you will be presented with the server control interface.
Now you will have to setup the server for use. Of course you have to start adding user first. Click the icon with one user at the top bar.
At the user account control dialog, go to the 'Shared Folder' page.
Then click on 'Add' under 'Users'
Then an 'add user account' dialog appears. Here you can enter your desired username. You can just leave the group as
none.
Tip: Use the username 'anonymous' if you want to make the server accessible without a password.
You can add more users later if you want by repeating the steps.
Press OK when you're finished.
Then now you have to assign the folder accessible by that user. You can do that by clicking 'add' under the 'shared folder'.
A 'Browser folder' dialog appears. Here you can specify the folder that is accessible by the user.
For example, you can choose to share 'My Music' folder. Press 'OK' when you are done.
You can choose to share multiple folders for that user by clicking 'add' and choosing another folder.
After adding the folder for that user, you can specify actions allowed to be done on the folder by the user. The tick boxes beside the 'shared folders' allow you to control what the user can do to the folder.
Description of the tickboxes.
Files
Read - allow user to see the folder
Write - allow user to put files into the folder
Delete - allow user to delete files in the folder
Directories
Create - allow user to create folders inside the folder
Delete - allow user to delete folder inside the folder
List - allow user to list folders contained inside the folder
+ Subdirs - apply the rules to the folders inside the folder.
Tip: You can set different rules and permissions for different folders by clicking on the folder and ticking the desired boxes. You can also set shared folders and their properties for different users by selecting the user from the 'Users'
After you're done, it's time to set a password for the user.
You can do that by first, clicking the 'General' page.
Under the 'account settings', tick the 'Password' box and make the password field active. After ticking, type in your desired password and remember. The other settings can be left as it is.
Tip: If you have more than one user, select the user from the 'Users' to view and change settings for the specific user.
When everything is done, just press OK.
You FTP server is now configured and ready to be used. To test out your server, simply go to 'My Computer' and type "ftp://localhost" at the address bar.
And then just press enter and a login prompt appears. Just supply it with the username and password you set earlier.
After logging on you should see the contents of the folder you shared for that user.
Part 2.
Your ftp server is now only accessible on the local network, that is only the computers connected to the local network can see and access the ftp server. In order to make the server accessible outside the local network, just follow the steps below.
Tip: If the computer is directly connected to the internet, you can skip these steps. How can I tell if my computer is directly connected to the internet?
We now will setup port forwarding for your router. Firstly, go to the router configuration page of your router, which are usually
http://192.168.1.1,
http://192.168.0.1,
http://192.168.1.2 or
http://10.0.0.1. Just click on one of the addresses and if one of it responds then use that is the router configuration address.
At the router configuration login, just supply it with the username and password. If you don't know them, just use the default credentials by referring it
here.
[If you happen to be a Malaysian streamyx user, and happen to be using a TM supplied router, the username is either "tmadmin", or "tmuser", with password "tmadmin" or "tmuser"]
You should look for something called 'NAT' or 'Port Forwarding' or 'Virual Servers' For my router, it is 'Virutal Servers' located under the 'Advanced Setup'.
At the virtual servers config page, click on 'Add'
Then you should see something like this.
Click on the 'Custom Service' radio button and give the forwarded port a name. The 'Server IP Address' is the address of your computer locally, just put in '192.168.1.254' as this address will be configured as a static address for your computer.
Next is to specify the forwarded port. FTP uses port 21 to 23, so under both the 'External Port Start' and 'Internal Port Start', put in 21, while under the 'External Port End' and 'Internal Port End', put in 23. Select the 'Protocol' to 'TCP/UDP'.
Next click on 'Apply/Save' to save your settings.
Next is to configure a static local IP address for you computer, this is done by configuring the DHCP of your router to give the same local IP address for your network card.
You should look for something like 'DHCP', 'LAN settings'. For my router it is called 'LAN' under the 'Advanced Settings'.
At the LAN settings page, there is an option for me to assign static IP address for my network card.
You should leave everything as it as, and click 'Add Entries'
You'll be presented with something like 'Static DHCP IP lease', and you'll have to enter your MAC address and desired IP address.
To get your MAC address, launch a command prompt by clicking on start and type 'CMD' and press enter.
Then a command prompt appears. At the command prompt, type in 'ipconfig /all' and press enter.
You should see a lot of things scrolling. Look for the MAC address of your network card. If you use cable, look for it under the 'Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection', if you're using wireless, look for it under the 'Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection'. The 'Physical Address' the MAC address.
Key in the MAC address from the command prompt, and the IP address as '192.168.1.254'
When you're done click on 'Save' to save your settings. And you should see your entry.
Now unplug and replug your LAN cable (disconnect and reconnect if you're using wireless).
We will now check if your FTP server is accessible from the internet. You can do that by going to
http://canyouseeme.org
Enter '21' at the 'What Port?' field.
And click 'Check Your Port' and you should see this.
If it's a success, it means that your ftp server is already public, your friends or anybody can access your ftp server from anywhere in the world.
However, you wouldn't want to give your friends a variable and cryptic IP address such as 115.135.65.128, so you have to setup a Dynamic DNS. Dynamic DNS makes hard to remember IP addresses to static and easier to remember URL.
To set up dynamic DNS, it involves a DNS provider and your router which will update the DNS provider about the current IP address.
Firstly, go to
http://dlinkddns.com and create an account for yourself. Once logged in, click on 'Add Host'.
Then create a desired URL for your dynamic DNS. Copy paste the Browser IP address to the 'New IP addres field'. Click 'Save' when you're done.
Go back to your router configuration page, and look for something called 'DNS' or 'Dynamic DNS'. For me it's under the 'DNS'.
Click 'Add' to add an entry.
At the Dynamic DNS config page, select your DDNS provider as 'dyndns,org', or 'dlinkddns.com'. They are the same for the two. Enter the URL you created earlier to the hostname field (without www and http:// prefix), and supply it with the credentials you used for the account you created at dlinkddns.com.
Click on 'Save' when you're done. You should see your entry.
You're almost done. Just reboot your router through the config page.
To access your ftp server from the outside, just type in 'ftp://[YOUR URL HERE].dlinkddns.com' into a browser's address bar or the address bar of 'My Computer'.
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