Filezilla Server with network mapped shares [guide]

[seePyou]

Hello all,

I do not know if everyone will have the same experience as me, but I thought I'd offer up a complete walkthrough of how I set up my folders with Filezilla Server on Windows.

I will be using fake directories just to make them generally used.

Assume a network location \\storage which has the following directories: Photos, Music, Public, Private, Software

So all are accessible by these long addresses:

\\storage\Photos
\\storage\Music
\\storage\Public
\\storage\Private
\\storage\Software

You want three groups:
Admin (full access to all)
Friend (can see some directories, can only read files, but full access to "Public")
Guest (can only see one folder and only read)

Preparation:
1) Your computer that is running the FTP server has a user and password as the sole user and is an admin: nick / qwe123
2) Your remote network location also has the same user and password setup and that user has full access rights to your files.

Execution:
1) Install Filezilla (you can select any admin password you want for the interface - I also assume your port forwarding is done and people can connect to your server)
2) hit WinKey+R
3) type without the quotes "services.msc"
4) find the service "FileZilla Server FTP server"
5) right click on it and select Properties
6) Click on the tab "LogOn"
7) Select the radial button "This account"
8) click on the button "Browse..."
9) In the "Enter object name to select" text box, type without quotes "nick"
10) Hit the "Check Names" button and you should be presented with a logon name that has the form "<computer host name>\nick"
11) Click the button "OK"
12) fill in the password field with nick's password "qwe123"
13) Click "OK". You may be presented with a window alert telling you that this change will not take effect until you have restarted the service. Click "OK".
14) Restart the service. This should not produce any problems. If it does, check your typing in password and username.
15) Launch the interface
16) Select the button to edit the group settings (looks like two people's busts in front of a computer screen looking to the right)
17) Press the "Add button"
18) type "Admin" and press "OK"
19) click on "Shared Folders"
20) Click on the "Add" button that is bellow the section with two columns with the headers "Directories" and "Aliases"
21) Double click on "Network" - this should expand the list of locations in your network, one of them being "storage"
22) click on "Storage" and press "OK"
23) Click on the "Set as home dir" button
23) check all checkboxes (Read, Write, Delete, Append, Create, Delete, List, +Subdirs)
24) Click on the "Add" button in the "Groups" section
25) Type "Friends" and press "OK"
26) Click on the "Add" button that is bellow the section with two columns with the headers "Directories" and "Aliases"
27) Double click on "Network" - this should expand the list of locations in your network, one of them being "storage"
28) click on "Storage" and press "OK"
29) Click on the "Set as home dir" button
30) check these checkboxes (Read, List)
31) Click on the "Add" button that is bellow the section with two columns with the headers "Directories" and "Aliases"
32) Double click on "Network" - this should expand the list of locations in your network, one of them being "storage"
33) Double click on "storage" - this should expand the list with the folders in your network location, namely the Photos, Music, Public, Private, Software directories.
34) Click on "Photos" and press OK
35) check these checkboxes (Read, List, +Subdirs)
36) Do steps (31) to (35) for all other directories your friends will see. Here is where I chose not to include "Private" in this group's visibility. That is only for Admins, so I do not add the directory in the Friends shared folder list.
37) Select the share \\storage\public (I assume you added that in the instruction to add all folders of step 36)
38) modify the checkboxes so that all are checked
39) Click on the "Add" button in the "Groups" section
40) Type "Guest" and press "OK"
41) Double click on "Network" - this should expand the list of locations in your network, one of them being "storage"
42) Double click on "storage" - this should expand the list with the folders in your network location, namely the Photos, Music, Public, Private, Software directories.
44) Click on "Public" and press OK
45) check these checkboxes (Read, List)
46) Click on the "OK" button on the lower left side of the window, over the "Cancel" button

Now when you add people to the groups, they should be able to see your shares.

comments:
* When you added the \\storage in the friends group and made it only "read" and "list" and set as home dir, you do that so that their landing page is something outside the structure of the folders you want to give them access to, they cannot write to it and there is no reading of the subfolders that would otherwise present them with double listings of folders.
* Admin group is seeing all, and that is why they only have one share, which is the home dir, and has all rights. They need nothing else.
* Guest group only has one folder visibility (single share as home dir) and can affect nothing (read only and not even subdirs). They can still download off the root of the directrory "Public" but will not be able to traverse it.
* the directory names, and username and password I used should be unique in the walkthrough so if you want to use your own, simply copy to a text editor and replace the storage and the directories and the user name and password with your own - that basically makes this guide your own.


Hope this helps you.