which server to offer files to friends

[Karl Auer]

On Thu, 2011-02-03 at 00:18 +0100, Franz Waldmüller wrote:
> I am looking for a solution to offer files on my ubuntu server to my 
> friends.

Run VirtualBox on your server and set up a virtual machine running
Ubuntu (or whatever). Give your friends access to the VM via ssh. You
can turn the VM off and on easily, or even under program control (e.g.,
cron).

Yes, you will have to copy your files to the VM for your friends to
access them, but they can all use the one copy if you set up a
group-readable directory on the VM for them. Of course, you could allow
only particular users to access particular files by copying the files to
specific home directories or by using more granular groups. If you set
upa  shared directory for the VM (shared between the VMand the host) you
might be able to use links rather than copying files, but I haven't
actually tried that. Not sure if one can make a shared directory
read-only...

With ssh set up, they can use direct SCP, tools like WinSCP, or (if they
are Ubuntu users) they can mount their home directories (or any other
directories to which they have permission on the VM) as filesystems.
Very flexible, all encrypted.

There is no way you can offer secure access to your own computer without
having some kind of access control (accounts). Nor is there any way
around some form of pre-processing of the files you make available -
either by copying them to some accessible location or something else as
suggested below.

Any other of your suggested solutions would work just as well on a VM as
directly on your server. If you do <whatever> on a VM, you are at least
limiting any damage to the VM. Except of course for losing control of
your data, but as soon as you give a copy of a data file to anyone, you
have effectively lost control anyway.

If your friends are computer-literate, you could use GPG. Each friend
generates a key (better still, generate the keys yourself) and you
encrypt the files for that one friend. Then you can have a single login
for everyone, because each individual will only be able to decrypt the
files intended for that individual. You could even make the files
world-readable and let anyone at all download them, because they are
useless to anyone without the key to decrypt them.

With (say) SeaMonkey installed on Ubuntu, your friends could just
download the file, and click on it to decrypt it. For very large files
this is not a great solution, as your friend ends up with two copies of
the file, one encrypted and one decrypted, although they can delete the
encrypted version once they have decrypted it. 

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)                   +61-2-64957160 (h)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer/                   +61-428-957160 (mob)

GPG fingerprint: DA41 51B1 1481 16E1 F7E2 B2E9 3007 14ED 5736 F687
Old fingerprint: B386 7819 B227 2961 8301 C5A9 2EBC 754B CD97 0156
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 198 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-users/attachments/20110203/578dbc77/attachment.sig>