HOWTO Ridiculously easy home file sharing with FTP and Zeroconf

[powder22]

I can't see any directories when I connect to my host. I connect just fine but see no directories. I don't know how to share directores, like Home folder, ect. Can someone please tell me what I need to do to get this working?

[dyssident]

I can't see any directories when I connect to my host.

are you connecting with the same username that you normally use on that box? when you connect to the remote host, you start out in the home directory of the user whos name you supply. so if you log into the remote box as USER1 when you are setting in front of it, and you log in as USER2 when you are connecting via FTP, you will not see USER1's home directory, you will see USER2's empty home directory.

so basically, if you created a special user to log in via ftp with, just use the username/password that you would normally use.

[Delerious]

Hi, thanks for this HOWTO thread it let me do exactly what I wanted to do.
I followed all the directions exactly, but did encounter one problem. First my situation:

I am using an Ubuntu linux box as a local music server which I have all my mp3s stored that is running a surround sound audio system. I wanted an easy way to transfer files from my windows gaming/work machine to my linux box. This helped me tons and I followed all the directions as stated above.

Once I set up my old wsftp pro client on my windows box with my ubuntu log in name and password, I recieved an error that I could only log on as anon, but when I did so, I could not view any files on the linux box. To fix this I changed this line

sudo /etc/init.d/vsftpd start

to

sudo /etc/init.d/vsftpd restart

because upon installing it started the server and failed to start (because it was already running) and following along the HOWTO, you are editing the conf file and not getting the server to restart using the new conf. Anyway doing the restart fixed my problem

[igor4u]

Thank you!
It works!

I connected 2 Ununtu PCs by crossover cable in order to make local network.

PC 1:
IP 192.168.0.1
FTP
Zeroconf

PC 2:
IP 192.168.0.2

Only one question. Why do I need Zeroconf?

[dyssident]

Edit 2006/08/26: Made zeroconf service announcements optional. Added mounting instructions for OS X and Windows. Grammar.

[natgwil]

I wanted to connect my laptop to my desktop PC and share files. I had Kubuntu on both and followed the HOWTO and things worked very well. However because my laptop is not very high-powered I changed over to Xubuntu. Now I'm not sure how to setup the final stage "Connecting to your shared files." Can anybody help?

[Sandman32]

This is a little old, but I am hoping someone might be able to help out. I'm really trying to share my /media folder (so I can get to my mounted drives) more so than my home folder. Is this possible using this method? Thanks for any help you can offer.

I tried mounting my drives in my home folder but for some reason couldn't get that to work...

[lhtown]

Has anyone gotten this to work on Edgy?

I followed the instructions to the letter, but it doesn't connect with or without zeroconf.

I have two computers running Ubuntu Edgy through a netgear wired router.

[lhtown]

I think I have it working now in Edgy.

Under System>Administration>Networking I went to the General tab and selected the option "Scan for available services..." on both machines and then rebooted both machines.

I haven't tried it all out, but at least they are seeing each other and allowing me to browse around.

That is with the zeroconf services.

[rcatman]

Works perfect on feisty. I followed each step exactly.

I have a iMac G5 in another room and an ubuntu fiesty fawn computer connected to the internet through a linksys router. On the macosx computer I went into finder and typed ftp://ip.of.ubuntu.computer.on.network and connected, it worked great! I logged in using my username and my home directory popped up.

Although its read only I'm going to work out how to upload files aswell. Because after all, file-sharing is both ways!

Thanks for the great tutorial!