[AccessD] Virtual Server and FTP Server

Jim Lawrence accessd at shaw.ca
Mon Mar 5 11:21:25 CST 2007


Hi John:

It is not difficult but there is a fair bit of resources used up with
Virtual Server. Do you have IIS/Apache?

MS Virtual Server
(http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/software/default
.mspx) and VMWare Server (http://www.vmware.com/download/server/)are both
free.

Once a share is opened up on your computer you will direct incoming call to
your FTP IP by setting up a subnet off your DNS.

Example:
Domain name is www.ColbyConsulting.com
Subnet can be: http://ftp1.ColbyConsulting.com
The subnet has to be configured at your DNS provider where you add in a new
subnet.

Go to your Router to the Virtual server area and create a new entry by
opening your port 21 and setting the IP address to point to your new virtual
server 192.168.xxx.2 (what ever address it is.)

On your new virtual server you have IIS/Apache installed (it is mostly by
default anyway). If you are using IIS then go to the computer management
console > Internet Information Server > ftp Site > (Add a new entry).

If you setup your subnet as shown above the new entry will be named ftp1.
Right-click > properties > Home Directory Tab > local path (What ever you
would like but generally set to 'c:\inetpub\ftproot' by default and you want
to change it to something simple like 'c:\inetpub\ftproot\colbyconsulting'  

Restart IIS and your good to go. After that you can limit access to the ftp
site by adding and subtracting users. 

You can test locally by entering in your browser something like:
Assuming you added new user like john with a password Colby then the access
string that should work would be:
ftp://john:colby@192.161.xxx.2

...and externally that would translate to
ftp://john:Colby@ftp1.ColbyConsulting.com 

I do not use ftp clients any more after I was hacked once so I use another
system. I use Hamachi (a free basic VPN that can walk through any firewall:
http://www.hamachi.cc/download/) and add a Windows share to my virtual
server. When some one wants to access my server they have to also have
Hamachi installed on their computer. I create a new network in my Hamachi
with a user name and password, send them the settings, they attach to the
network, then login to the Windows share. At that point they can actually
add the connection as a network directory in their File Explorer. Then it is
a matter of drag and drop or cut and paste. This link can then be opened or
shutdown at any time. It is currently the most secure VPN available at any
price with 256bit encryption...     

HTH
Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of JWColby
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007 3:58 AM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'; 'Discussion of
Hardware and Software issues'
Subject: [AccessD] Virtual Server and FTP Server

I want to set up an FTP Server on my server at my office.  One option is to
set up a virtual machine under Windows 2003 and then set up the FTP server
on that virtual machine.  In fact my motherboard has two NICs on it and can
thus have two IP addresses, so I could assign one of the NICs to that
virtual machine and the other to the real base OS / machine.  Setting up the
FTP site on a virtual machine helps to isolate security issues to that
virtual machine since the FTP server would no longer be running on my main
server / OS.
 
Does anyone have any experience running Virtual Server 2005?  A download is
available.  Is this a permanent license or is it time limited, and if so
what is the term / cost to license.  Is it possible (using WFW) to publish a
share on the virtual server so that other machines on my network can drop
files onto the share but still limit the virtual machine's access to the
other machines on my network?  Is this a workable / useful idea?
 
Any thoughts in general about this idea?
 
John W. Colby
Colby Consulting
www.ColbyConsulting.com
 
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