File server for non-programmers?

Question

File Server

Good afternoon. Tell me the best way to organize file storage for designers if there is a lot of space on the Hetzner server. Install SAMBA? FTP? Or are there philanthropic interfaces to make it convenient and not have to remember a million passwords?

Answer 1

If the designers are sitting under Windows, you can mount a network drive, enter and remember the credentials when connecting. This is samba. Another thing is that there is no SSL support in samba older than 3.0 and you need to encrypt traffic additionally. For example, lay a VPN / IPSec tunnel between the server and the client, but then you have to separate the routing for the simultaneous operation of a private network and Internet access. But the designer will be able to conveniently work with the repository through the explorer.
Another option is to install software to synchronize the storage of the server and all clients. Then the designer will be able to work without a permanent connection to the network. For linux, I know rsync, what clients are available for Windows and Mac - I'll have to look. This is again an easy way to run a script once, which will, for example, drive traffic via FTPS.
The third option is to create an SVN / GIT repository and again install a client like TortoiseSVN / TortoiseGit (Win), RabbitVCS (GNU / Linux), there are also convenient clients for Mac that are built into the file manager. Probably the best solution for simultaneous work with a remote file cleaner.
Although in general I am somewhat confused by the need to drive hundreds of megabytes from Germany instead of a local office NAS, accessible via the Internet, if necessary.

Answer 2

Traditionally, office designers use FTP (although 95% of them do not know how to do this - you need to set it up once and forget it)
The easiest option is FTP with display in nginx, with Basic Auth

Answer 3

ownCloud has support for WebDAV and local sync similar to Dropbox

Answer 4

> Now we use Dropbox - everything is ok, except that the place is running out)
Then maybe it's easier to buy a business version of dropbox?

Answer 5

+1 to Wott : I think WebDav will come in very handy, very simple, lots of manuals + features.
P.S. You can even connect a Yandex disk .

Answer 6

The server is running ssh.
1) create a new account.
2) restrict its access to a certain folder (which will be the storage)
3) set up edquota (so that the entire server is not blocked).
4) through lshell, you can limit the commands that a smart designer can try over ssh.
5) configure any sFTP client (FileZilla for example).
I also note that if these are web designers, then Dreamweaver has support for storage (aka a site) using the sftp protocol.
Such a bunch works great (people far from the computer upload their photo and video files for sharing).
If you go further, you can fasten the script (so that it periodically packs some information into an archive, if there are a lot of small files) and fasten nginx + ssl (with a password that will be hammered into browsers). Samba did not install, because there were precedents when the client's windows (there are also those who sit on Vista) hung up. I probably configured samba incorrectly (everything worked under ubuntu and xp ..).

Answer 7

If there is interest, you can try to install on the server OpenAFS (Andrew File System). As far as I know, it is quite alive and, unlike its counterparts, is filed to support modern OS.
It has an access control system that is independent of the built-in OS. Has support for caching and offline work. Supports Kerberos authorization, so maybe you can cross to Active Directory.
Personally, I didn’t deal with it, mainly due to the fact that, unlike FTP, SAMBA, AFP, NFS, this file system requires an HDD partition. And even on the server, if you need access to this FS, this is done as an AFS client.