Re: Suggestions? A small webserver for file upload
On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 10:53 PM, Ron Leach <ronleach@tesco.net> wrote:
> List, good afternoon,
>
> What package would list members suggest for a small webserver that would
> enable co-workers to upload files to us?
>
> We exchange files with people we work with through email and attachments -
> that normally works well. During a recent weekend, a co-worker's email
> service failed and we were unable to receive several files. Fortunately,
> their email outage was repaired in 6 hours so we didn't lose too much time.
> During the outage I did look around for possible solutions and determined
> that we'd prefer to have:
>
> (i) our own webserver, preferably simple to set up and operate
> (ii) able to present a few simple unscripted 'about us' type of pages
> (ii) a file upload facility, but with some important (to us) restrictions,
> including:
> (a) access for upload only after entry of pre-assigned username and
> password
> (b) file upload into a nominated-by-us directory by that logged-in user,
> and with write-only permissions, if that were possible, so that any access
> breach through another method would not enable access to any uploaded files
> (c) access by us to all uploaded files, for inspection and subsequent
> transferring to appropriate file-system users or directories
> (d) file upload facility to be able to be disabled by us - this would be
> the normal state - and enabled solely on emergency occasions such as
> counter-party email failures
Are you sure you want an http server?
Most ftp servers provide one index page per directory. Also, while
they don't do all the url handling that http servers do, they can
server simple html documents with no problems.
ftp can handle authentication and use unix file permissions to provide
write-only access for some users and full access for others. You can
also prevent ordinary login for specific user accounts while allowing
ftp for those accounts.
There are numerous gui ftp clients to simplify both uploading and
downloading. For downloading, most web browsers access ftp servers
pretty much transparently.
If you have heard that ftp transmits passwords in the clear, you can
set them up not to.
As another option, ssh access would also be a way to provide this kind
of functionality with greater security, hiding not just the passwords,
but the data transferred, as well. openssh provides sftp access, and I
think there is at least one gui client somewhere, for file access.
For the web pages, you'd need to set up an http server, as well, and I
might suggest that it's a good idea anyway. It looks like you have
some experience with that, so it shouldn't be a problem.
As a third option, if you want to go all http, look at webdav. I
personally thing webdav is overkill, but you might not.
> As I understand it (I've previously prepared a few simple webpages so have a
> rudimentary understanding of HTML) we would need a script to perform the
> upload. A package that provided some scripting ability would be helpful,
> most especially if the package documentation would also cover the scripting
> aspects, that would be very helpful. Though there are alternative
> well-known methods of providing remote file upload, most of our co workers
> are using Windows systems equipped only with a browser and some office
> suites. We do not want to enable SSH logins (the co-workers probably do not
> have access to, nor know how to use, SSH; neither do we want to employ FTP
> because of both the large number of inbound ports that may have to be
> opened, and (again) possible difficulties for co workers in establishing an
> FTP link from their Windows system, especially when behind a
> partially-restricted FW and NAT. Email works well for them, and so does
> http.
Oh. Well, look at webdav. This is something regularly done with webdav.
But I really think you should give both ftp and ssh a closer look.
You can get ftp clients for MSWindows, of course. If you have firewall
and NAT problems, think of it as a learning opportunity that will save
you trouble in the future.
I'm not sure whether you can get a graphical client for ssh file
access for MSWindows boxes, but it's worth a look.
> We have a couple of Debian machines we could run this application on, Wheezy
> and Squeeze. What would people's preferred webserver package be for this
> type of application?
Not sure why you wouldn't want to use apache or lighttpd.
--
Joel Rees
Computer store is just fancy paper, the CPUs just fancy pens.
All is text, streaming forever from the past into the future.
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