ftp dropbox code? 1

[thedaver]

I need to provide an ftp dropbox service for a few customers...

DEFINED:
party 1 wants to send a >4MB file to party 2. Party 1 uploads (FTP) to the service, and party2 is notified by email with a link to come get the file. Party 2 gets the file, PArty 1 is optionally notified that the deal was closed.

I run 'vsftpd' on linux and would prefer to not exceed that boundary. However, this is mucking about with web interfaces so I've probably lost that fight already.. Help appreciated.

Surfinbox.com Business Internet Services - National Dialup, DSL, T-1 and more.

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[siberian]

I would run a cron job that checks the ftp logfiles and manages notifications appropriately.

Other then that you'll have to find an ftp server that supports custom actions.

Or better yet have the user post upload send the message via a website. You dont see a lot of ftp notification tools like this, ftp is insecure enough as it is (generally speaking).

 

[thedaver]

Take a look at "dropload.com" for exactly what I want to do. It's more of an application that uploads and downloads. It's not FTP per se.... I cannot find an opensource project that does this. Thanks for your help.

Surfinbox.com Business Internet Services - National Dialup, DSL, T-1 and more.

http://www.surfinbox.com/business/

 

[siberian]

Correct, they do this through a web-interface, not ftp.

Web interface is trivial, you specifically said 'I want to use vsftpd'.

 

[thedaver]

OK, let's back up. I run a linux server that has 'vstfpd' installed on it. I want to run a "dropbox" service for customers. I want this dropbox to include the core functionality of "dropload.com", including email notification and file upload/download.

Q: Is anyone aware of any open source code to accomplish this?

Surfinbox.com Business Internet Services - National Dialup, DSL, T-1 and more.

http://www.surfinbox.com/business/

 

[siberian]

I checked freshmeat.net and sourceforce and did not see anything like this.

Its actually a fairly trivial application. Simple user management, an email gateway and a file system to store stuff on and your done. At its most basic I see two SQL tables, USER and FILE.

USER holds your user account info (ACCOUNTID,EMAIL,PASSWORD,DATECREATED,LASTACCESS)

FILE holds data about each 'drop
(ACCOUNTIDFROM,EMAILTO,REALFILENAME,FILEONDISK)

User creates and account, stick it in USER, submits a file, stick it on disk on some random path (NOT using the submitted filename, bad for security), store the real filename in the db. Notify the EMAILTO party.

User picks it up, email the sender back, open file on disk and push it out to the user.

There are a ton of enhancements you can make(transaction logging, transaction limits, storage limits, broadcast drops) but thats basically it, its probably a few hours of coding and your set. As you progress through the app keep us posted so we can help you over the hurdles.

vsftpd doesn't really have anything to do with the dropbox concept, I'd leave it out of the discussion.

 

[thedaver]

Shux, lazy programmer meets lack of existing code to use. Thanks for the analysis siberian!

Surfinbox.com Business Internet Services - National Dialup, DSL, T-1 and more.

http://www.surfinbox.com/business/

 

[arn0ld]

of course i do not advocate this, but you can join that site and "view source" when they request an upload. What you will see is the standard cgi file upload: form name="WhatEver" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data".....

This beats the heck out of ftp, which is asynchronous with web entry, might fail (completely or partially). and might present problems associating destinations with files.