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You are here: MacNN Forums > Enthusiast Zone > Networking > At my wits end sharing files over the internet.

At my wits end sharing files over the internet.
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sek929
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Feb 16, 2009, 06:12 PM
 
I've searched high and low for an answer to my problem, and I've only been able to get very generic, and non-working solutions.

I have a Mac, my buddy has a Mac. We are both behind routers and have the same IP address (192.168 etc etc) so simply entering that IP into Fetch isn't going to work. I've enabled FTP sharing, but as mentioned before my IP address is a generic one given by my router.

Maybe I suck at searching, but I haven't for the life of me been able to find out what I'm doing wrong.
     
Cold Warrior
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Feb 16, 2009, 06:26 PM
 
Those IP addresses are private and not routable on the public internet. You need to get your public IP and set your router to forward ports 21 and 20 to your private IP address. Go to http://whatsmyip.org/ to see your public IP.

What router do you have? Linksys, Airport Extreme, Netgear and Dlink are common brands.
     
sek929  (op)
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Feb 16, 2009, 06:38 PM
 
I have a Dynex, basically the cheapest one they had at BB.

Thanks for the quick reply CW, I'm finding out my IP as I type this.

I assume I'd need to do the same thing on his machine, I believe he has a Linksys.
     
turtle777
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Feb 16, 2009, 06:39 PM
 
Like CW said.

Google for "Port Forwarding your-router-name-and-model" and it should give you the info on how to set up the ports.

FYI: Port 21 is for FTP, Port 22 is for SSH/SFTP.

If I was you, I wouldn't even bother with FTP, just use port 21 for SFTP and SSH.

Btw, once you do that, and open the ports on your router, you are as vulnerable to the outside world as your password is good (or bad). So better chose a real good one with plenty letters, digits, special chars and some upper case letters.

Also, keep in mind that in order to initiate the sharing with your friend, you would need to know his password.
If he doesn't want that, you could set up authentication based on certificates, and those certificates can later be removed. However, this is by far not trivial, and might present more obstacles than help at this point.

Edit: got the ports mixed up. Btw, CW, why do you need Port 20 ?

-t
( Last edited by turtle777; Feb 16, 2009 at 08:11 PM. )
     
sek929  (op)
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Feb 16, 2009, 06:49 PM
 
Okay, I'm set with changing my router settings, under Forwarding, new connection, I set it to port 21, and then it asks for an IP address. Is this for my public or private IP?

Edit: Well since my buddy is now grabbing files from my computer you can see everything went fine. Of course hours of searching are useless compared to the knowledge contained within this group of nerds. Thanks to CW and Turtle, your help is greatly appreciated.
( Last edited by sek929; Feb 16, 2009 at 06:59 PM. )
     
Cold Warrior
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Feb 16, 2009, 07:25 PM
 
You're welcome.

Keep in mind though that FTP is insecure, so someone sniffing the link between you and your friend could intercept a user name and password and then they could log in and download stuff to.

If you want to be more secure, turn on SSH (System Prefs > Sharing > Remote Login in Leopard) and have your buddy use a program like Cyberduck that will do Secure FTP (SFTP). This uses port 22 and the transmission between you and him would be secure.
     
sek929  (op)
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Feb 16, 2009, 08:16 PM
 
Hmm, definitely some food for thought. We are going to be doing an amateur zombie flick this summer so we need a way to share files easily. If you guys think it would be a stupid thing to use an unsecure FTP port for this then I'll look into SSH and Cyberduck.

What I'd like to know is how one decides what folders to share in Tiger. In Leopard it's easily located under the sharing PrefPane, but in Tiger it's nowhere to be found.
     
mduell
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Feb 17, 2009, 10:22 PM
 
I can't think of a reason to use unsecured FTP for this application. MacFusion is a great way to do file transfers over SSH.

If you're not sharing large files, Dropbox (2GB free, 50GB for $99/yr) is incredibly easy and requires no network hardware configuration.
     
   
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