Hey guys,

I have a question regarding file serving. I live in a frat house with 50 other guys. We have an email list to communicate, but recently, I have decided that I want to set up some type of file server. A simple FTP server would be great, or a Usenet server could work also.

Is there a way to easily do this in our house. We are all connected to the Internet via a huge router in our basement, but we do not have administritive power on the router, it is set up so our ISP can have more control on our internet. I have talked to our ISP about a server, and they said that it should work, I would just have to keep in mind that IP addresses are reassigned every month or so.

I have tried installing an ftp server on my computer, but I find that other computers cant connect. I really dont know to much about this topic.

Is there an easy way to set up a local newsgroup server or an ftp server? We actually dont want out of house access, since this violates the terms of use with our ISP. Can someone just describe a way to simply share files amongst the house? Ive originally had an ftp server in mind, but lately, I have been thinking that it would be great if this new server could replace our Yahoo email group. Something such as a newsgroup would be great, or, a web server that had a local website for the house to have access to.

If people could give me any insight, or at least point me in the right direction, I would greatly appreciate it. I really just have no hands on experience with this subject, and despite my efforts and my reading, a simple solution eludes me.

Thank you.

Chad

Another option: using a webserver (within the network)
if you have windows xp professional then you can use IIS to run a webserver on your computer. If you do not have win xp professional then you can download apache httpd

another option which I think would be the easiest, is just do a windows share. IE right click on the folder you want to share, then click on properties. You will see a sharing tab, in that tab click share this folder. The nice thing about this option is someone can right click on the folder when they see it as a network share, and select the option to map the network drive, so then it would show up as a hard drive on another users computer.


in the ftp case you said, windows is probably blocking you in the firewall.
Goto the control panel, click on (switch to classic view if it isn't already).
Click on Windows Firewall
If the firewall is on, then click on the advanced tab
find which network connection you use to connect to your router, then click settings.
Under the services tab you should see FTP Server check it off.
If you changed the port then click edit, and enter the port number in their.

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