OK, I have a number of large files on my PC at work and want to get them to my Mac at home. I have LAN-based ISDN access to the 'net at work and DSL at home.
The problem is that the ISDN line at work is dial-up. If no one on the LAN uses it for a while, it shuts down. Also, my DSL is not a static-IP situation.
So, I want to set one of these machines up as an FTP server and move the large files, either from a clinet at work to the server at home, or from the server at work to a client at home. Got that?
So, I need:
[ul]
[li]A free-ware or share-ware FTP Server[/li][li]A clinet (I have that, on both machines)[/li][li]A way to make sure that the server stays online once I launch it[/li][li]A way to identify the server’s IP[/li][/ul]
I am sure that someone has done this before. What I need is an app that will access the net every so often to make sure that the access stays open.
This doesn’t answer your question but you’d find it a lot easier to just copy those files to a CD or ZIP drive. It’d be less work too even if you have to go buy the CD-burner, install it, copy your files then box the burner back up and return it to the store (assuming you wouldn’t want to keep it…check your store’s return policy first too).
Blank CD’s cost about $1 nowadays so it’s cheap to buy as many as you need.
I don’t know about your office but unless you own that business I’d be REAL careful about setting up an FTP server in the office. MAJOR security breach…if I was the LAN Admin there I would go ape shutting you down.
Again, I don’t know what your office situation is like but be careful with this. Somewhere around here someone is posting of having their PC probed 200+ times in just an hour or two. Those pings may or may not have been anything serious but it’s worth being aware of security these days.
The following should work for the PC side; I don’t know about Mac:
For keeping the connection alive, try ping, included with all Windows OSes (since 95) and standard on a bunch of non-Windows OSes (such as any version of Unix) as well.
ping -t hostname will continuously send out network packets (one per second) until you kill it. Just make sure you choose a hostname that’s on the other side of your ISDN router.
For finding out the IP address, tracert (known as traceroute on real operating systems ) should do the trick; give it a destination host and it prints out all nodes it goes through between here and there.
Due keep in mind, though, that the reason your ISDN line goes down after a lapse in usage is that a higher-up decided that they didn’t want to pay for a dedicated connection.
Your company is paying for each individual minute of connection time, and will notice a jump on the bill if you do the ping thing frogstein suggested too often. They will likely not be pleased.
That said, how large are the files? You might want to look at setting up an account with iDrive or Driveway, or a similar service. They’ll give you about 50MB of online storage to use for whatever you’d like. With the files available online, you can upload and download from either location.
You can use a version of FTPd for MacOS as an FTP server on the Mac side. Bring it up, and test it by using an FTP client on your Mac to connect to ‘localhost’ or 127.0.0.1, both of which mean “this machine.”
Once you’re sure it works, open your TCP/IP control panel and note your current IP. Go to work, fire up ye olde FTP client and upload your stuff.
