which server to offer files to friends

[Franz Waldmüller]

Hi Karl,

Am 2011-02-03 00:48, schrieb 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.
>

Virtual Machine is a good idea. My server has just 512 MB of RAM and has 
no hardware virtualisation (It is an old Pentium 3 Laptop). I will have 
to figure out if there are some resources left. The virtual machine has 
another option: If the host fails I could transfer the virtual machine 
to another machine.

> 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.
>
Encrypting all files. Unfortunately I am afraid that my friends are not 
computer literate enough (At least some of them).

Thank for your long list of options.

I think at first I will try the rssh option suggested by Pedro. I 
dropped ftp with tls because nautilus does not support it. Once I got 
some spare time I will try to work on your virtual machine suggestion.

Thanks,
Franz