Looking for advice and guidance on setting up a ftp server

[Londoner]

Hi,

we are a small publishing company and we regularly publish images from particular clients - normally they send them to us and we sort through and select what is to appear, etc.

We are currently having a website set up and were considering creating a ftp server so our clients could upload their stuff to us via the ftp server instead of emailing directly to us, etc.

We were thinking of giving the clients a password, etc, so they could access the ftp server through a secured area on the website, but then were wondering if we should then give each client a separate password so they don't see everything from all the others and etc, so it begins to seem a bit more complicated.

Is this a practical idea? How would we go about it? Would we be better off with something else, eg, isdn?

I would appreciate any advice, guidance, suggestions, etc - maybe there's a site I could visit or if any of you guys have any experience of this kinda thing I'd be grateful to hear it, we're kinda unsure what is the best route right now and of course want to do the best thing.

Best regards to all

[mairving]

I have seen it done various ways. Some just have one username/password and move files out of the upload directly shortly after they are uploaded. The big problem is that unless you offer anonymous ftp, they would have to use a ftp client to connect and upload their files. Just one more step to go with.

I am not sure about what your website (OS and Webserver) is running on but you could create an upload page using PHP. Depending on the file size, you may have to edit some of the PHP defaults though. That would be the easiest for someone to use and fairly secure depending on how the script was written.

[Londoner]

thanks for your reply - we are generally mac orientated and our server will be an Apple Powermac GS dual 2 ghz 512mb 160gb ati-Radeon 9600 128mb with 400 gb SATA hd and running OSX server v10.4

maybe you could expand a little on what an anonymous ftp would entail and what sort of ftp client you might suggest.

I'm just trying to get up to speed on all this stuff, so all input is gladly received.

thanks again