In this day and age, the transmission of digital documents and images is important in order for a business to have a technological presence. Millions of electronic files are moved around daily between corporations worldwide. Some choose email as a primary method of sharing files, while others may burn CDs for transportation of large amounts of files.
Certain businesses have the need to send numerous files to their contacts in such a fashion where email attachment files size is limited, and CDs take too long to send through a shipping service.
In instances like these, an FTP (file transport protocol) service, whether hosted or run internally, becomes a preferred method of file transmission. With FTP, files can be easily, and quickly, exchanged with less obstacles.
If you already maintain your own computer servers, you could save some money by adding FTP as a service for your customers. Microsoft’s IIS has this capability, and there are other open source type applications, which can handle FTP services.
These are good if you have someone on staff that is familiar with those type of products. However, if you desire to run internal FTP, versus outsourced, and have limited technical staff, you may want to consider the following program.
ServU (found here), while not the cheapest FTP program, makes up for it with usability. Not everyone can setup their own FTP server in short order, however, with ServU, all you need is public IP address and domain name, and you are off an running in minutes, rather than hours or days. We will cover the basic setup. If you want something totally free, you can setup your own FTP server using FileZilla.
Firstly, you do not have to be running IIS, Apache, or other website service. ServU is its own service. After installation, you will first be taken to the main console. This serves as a dashboard to locate all the functionality of the ServU program.
Keep in mind, that the above screen shot is a small portion of the options available to you. For the time being, we are concerned with setting up a New Domain for your FTP service. To start the process, click on New Domain.
This takes you into a Domain Wizard screen. As a side note, you will probably want to have a true domain name address (such as ftp.thisdomain.com) already registered with your public IP address. For now, add a name and description in this view. You can uncheck the Enable domain box if you are not quite ready to go live with your service.
If you are not running any other web type services on the server that ServU is running on, you can simply click Next on this screen. However, if you are already running a web server service, or other application that utilizes the port numbers in the above screen shot, then you may need to adjust as necessary. It would be practical to take note of which ports you will be activating here though.
When it comes to Step 3, you have to consider your target audience. If you will only be running ServU internally, you can skip this page. You will not be making any changes to your firewall as well, as this service will be kept inside your LAN / VPN network. Should you be publishing this service to the Internet though, this screen is where the public IP address is placed.
Step 4 consists of the ability of allowing ServU to recover passwords. This decision is one that should be weighed carefully. If you allow users to recover their own passwords, someone may be able to steal their password, and use it without the real user knowing, since the original password is still in play.
A safe method here is to turn out random passwords if a user is unable to access their account. If a malicious user gets into their account, it would be easier to spot when the real user is unable to login using their current credentials.
Now that we have successfully created a new ServU FTP domain, ServU will prompt you to create a user account. Clicking on Yes will take you to the User Wizard. Simply follow the directions here, just as was done with the Domain Wizard.
In Step 1 of the User Wizard, enter the Login ID of the new user. This does not have to be (and is not recommended) the real name of a person. The other fields in this step are optional, but can be helpful for record keeping purposes.
Now you may assign a random password for the account’s initial use. You can make it as easy or as complicated as needed, in order to keep with your company’s security policies. One quick note: Though one can use Windows authentication for user access, accounts made with ServU take precedence.
During the new user creation (Step 3), you will be prompted to create a folder for the user. This folder can be placed within the FTP service file directory. If you have created other virtual directory, you may use those as well.
Before completing the User Wizard, you will have to determine what type of access the user account will have in their folder. With Full Access, a user can add, remove, or edit files. This type of access would be good for your employees who are outside the office, for instance. However, if the users are customer who only need to download updated files on occasion, Read-Only access would work for them.
When finished with the User Wizard, you will be taken to a screen where you can see the completed user account. You can edit any detail to the account from here if needed. You may also click on Add to enter additional users.
Now that you have user, or users, created, you will go back to the home screen, and probably add additionally directories for user access, perhaps create restrictive IP address rules, and maybe add SSL certificates for secure access.
There are numerous other options to choose from in order to enhance the FTP service or tighten down on security. There is no doubt that ServU has plenty of things to keep the operator busy, but it is nice to know that setting up the service is uncomplicated, and that it can be put together quickly to serve file transport needs. Enjoy!
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