zebrafx Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 Hi guys, long time viewer but never went to the forums here, figure I pick ya brains about a problem I want to solve. My friend has a small company maybe about 10 people together in two separate offices. He has like around 8 people in 1 and 2 people in another office. He wants to be able to share his files on a server on the 8 person location with the 2 person location. They have like cable modem and dsl etc. Normal speeds like 1.5 down 700 k up. The files they want to share is basically doc files and maybe small pictures. What do you guys think is the best way to "share" the network on the cheap. Thanks for reading! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparda Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 Hi guys, long time viewer but never went to the forums here, figure I pick ya brains about a problem I want to solve. My friend has a small company maybe about 10 people together in two separate offices. He has like around 8 people in 1 and 2 people in another office. He wants to be able to share his files on a server on the 8 person location with the 2 person location. They have like cable modem and dsl etc. Normal speeds like 1.5 down 700 k up. The files they want to share is basically doc files and maybe small pictures. What do you guys think is the best way to "share" the network on the cheap. Thanks for reading! http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint/default.mspx. For the love of god, make sure you put that thing on a self signed SSL certificate and install the certificate authority (you) in their browser. Alternatively setup sftp. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PLuNK Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint/default.mspx. For the love of god, make sure you put that thing on a self signed SSL certificate and install the certificate authority (you) in their browser. Alternatively setup sftp. Hah.. I was going to say that, But I figured I'd get some anti-Microsoft Apple fanboy replying. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
10goto10 Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 If you don't mind your stuff being stored on somebody else's server, try Dropbox ( http://www.getdropbox.com/ ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaKo Posted November 9, 2008 Share Posted November 9, 2008 To be honest a VPN would probally work best, you could configure a tunnel between to capable routers, have the remote workers use a 2nd subnet and they will be able to access all the resources of the first office. Sharepoint is nice, but it can be a bit complex. You may wish to look at a hosted solution rather than in-house if you decide to go with that though. A VPN setup could be done for free. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StarchyPizza Posted November 9, 2008 Share Posted November 9, 2008 Couldn't you just designate a box for a server and just save the files there, but don't connect it to the internet and keep it wired and it should be virtually safe unless someone broke in? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nophix Posted November 10, 2008 Share Posted November 10, 2008 Couldn't you just designate a box for a server and just save the files there, but don't connect it to the internet and keep it wired and it should be virtually safe unless someone broke in? You would still need to have a means to get the files to the 2nd office. So, in that respect, they would still need to create a VPN connection, so the remote office becomes part of the local network. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zebrafx Posted November 14, 2008 Author Share Posted November 14, 2008 I looked into a Sharepoint system. It looks like it can get a bit expensive and complex to setup and train. It might be a better choice for a larger company with larger resources and $$. The VPN looks like it can be more simple? Anybody have any real life experiences with setting up a VPN and running one. I am curious how well the free ones work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaKo Posted November 14, 2008 Share Posted November 14, 2008 I looked into a Sharepoint system. It looks like it can get a bit expensive and complex to setup and train. It might be a better choice for a larger company with larger resources and $$. The VPN looks like it can be more simple? Anybody have any real life experiences with setting up a VPN and running one. I am curious how well the free ones work. Have a look at setting up 2 x86 PC's both running PFsense and using an IPsec tunnel to link them together. Office 1 LAN => PFsense -> ADSL modem <------Interwebs-------> Cable Modem <- PFsense <= Office 2 LAN If that is a little hard then a pptp server at the main office. When they need the files they can connect to the VPN and download them, then disconnect. Again use a x86 PC running PFsense as your router, you can disable the NAT on the current routers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sablefoxx Posted November 14, 2008 Share Posted November 14, 2008 There are a bunch of way to do this, ill try list as many as i know with the pros and cons: 1) FTP (File Transfer Protocol) Pros: Easy to setup, fast, easy to use, cross platform. Cons: Not very secure. 2) SFTP (Secure FTP) Pros: Secure, fast, cross platform Cons: Not as easy to setup as normal FTP 3)VPN (Open-VPN) Pros: VERY Secure, easy to use after its setup, cross platform, fast Cons: Not easy to setup 4)VPN (hamachi) Pros: Easy to setup, and use, very secure, free and pro version available, cross platform but OSx/Linux arent the easiest to use Cons: Slow file transfer but if its just small .doc files this wont matter much 5) SharePoint Pros: Easy to use, setup, fast Cons: Not secure by default, not cross platform friendly Out of all of them i'd say try hamachi. easiest to setup and use (i am assuming the employees are not good with computers). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gcninja Posted November 14, 2008 Share Posted November 14, 2008 if you have a gmail account you can use gbridge, easy to use and setup and provides a secure file transfer and remote viewing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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