Simple auto FTP file listing on Webpage?

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travanx

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I setup an FTP server for me and at least 2 other people to have access to. It's a Buffalo Linkstation Pro Duo. I was curious if there is any really simple software that I can setup on our website that can list updates and changes to the files and directories on the FTP server so the other 2 guys can tell whats been updated?

An example is we got a new job and one guy uploaded his pictures and I just uploaded my pictures. But I want him to be able to look at an auto-updating webpage to see that I uploaded some new pictures.
 
Is your goal to 1. monitor the files uploaded/downloaded from the linkstation or 2. monitor the changes to and file versions of your website?

If #1, first start by logging FTP activity and see what the raw log file looks like. If it is simple enough, you may be able to get away with just posting that to the website.

If #2, there are website development programs that include website organization/tracking. Dreamweaver comes to mind, though I've never used that function within it, I think it is just your basic check file out/check file in.
 
When you mention a 'new job' it seems to imply this is for some sort of shared project. You might want to consider using a real revision control system (CVS, SVN, Bazaar, Git...) to track additions and modifications.
 
We are starting a company and are going to be running this thing very small for now. So we can just use a simple FTP at my house to host all the files. We need nothing fancy whatsoever. I also wanted to keep the electric bill small so that's why I went with the Linkstation. But yes basically the 3 of us can design on the files. A project probably has no more than 6-10 files we will manipulate. But pictures, documents and files from other consultants will be getting placed in these folders constantly.

riot8ap: are you familiar with how to log the FTP activity on this device? There are not many options for the FTP from what I see. Are there any better forums to look browse through for my question?
 
travanx said:
riot8ap: are you familiar with how to log the FTP activity on this device? There are not many options for the FTP from what I see. Are there any better forums to look browse through for my question?
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According to a google search, your NAS does not have built-in FTP or Web Access logging. That is not to say it is impossible...if you can read from the device like any other drive, you can use whatever FTP server software and turn on FTP logging from there. This may or may not be an issue for you. I think in the log run it'll be frustrating to manage projects by reading through log files. What you really want is what amoeba suggested.

After you install your FTP server and have it running the way you want, IMO you should take a look at the software he suggested. I checked out bazaar (liked the name) at http://bazaar-vcs.org/ and besides free, it looks to really be what you are after.
 
Thanks. Yeah for now none of us want to think too much or spend anything more. We were ok with just emailing stuff back and forth. But this at least gives us a few different ways to back up the info and is a little more convenient since FTP is pretty common for what we do. Civil Engr stuff. I will for sure look into this, and would prefer to be our IT guy since I am technically free.

The best part of this is that the next iteration of this strategy is being able to afford someone else to do this for us. But until I think the 3 of us feel like we are making good money I am going to try my best to keep this pretty simple.
 
Another comment. With the suggestions from above and what I have said. I am looking to be able to host whatever site from the house (U-Verse 18meg/sec down, 1.5meg/sec up) and using the least amount of electricity. Any other stuff to research to sharing between the 3 of us, would be very helpful. We are really looking to go cheap. So running an FTP server from some cheap server were we could run the FTP server from a simple NAS just doesn't make any sense to me.
 
Hate to repeat myself but, if you're managing projects, you should seriously consider a revision control system. Since you'll be working with binary files, you won't get meaningful diffs but you'd still get 'checkpointed' revisions (with revision comments) so you could see how a project has progressed. If you're so inclined, people can lock files they're working on to prevent conflicts.

Look into bazaar - in a basic setup, you don't need anything other than some FTP space to store files. It'd let everyone just do an 'update' on their project directory and automatically have the most recent version of the project.

Granted, working with text-based files (like program source code), you'd get a lot more use out of the system, being able to handle conflicts and see the differences between versions but you'd still get some use out of it working with images/cad files or whatever.
 
thank you!! it takes some getting into my little head to really look at stuff, and not for me to totally take this stuff on myself. so yeah your link is tabbed right now into my browser. I am not going to run a real server for what we got, since this company is small for now. But its 3 civil engrs for now. Strangely enough in descending order I am most computer literate, the other guy is next and the last is least. In my thoughts I am going to be doing the most amount of actual design work, in reverse order of our experience in this field. Makes sense to me since I want to learn more, and don't really care so much about money and just want to do better than the rest of the companies around here. So..... I am willing to look at a bunch of options to make this easier for us as well. So I hate to put this in this thread, but we may get enough work to actually bring on a real IT person to help. So everyone reading and helping please pm me your resumes and experience, if interested in possible work stuff on the side. Of course you know if that happens a certain moderator will get donated to. Also please help me through this thread, since its sad to keep this stuff private, in fact I can't stand all the secret stuff for no reason. And well, funny enough I remember who helps me with realistic answers. So yeah if someone else has this same problem I don't care about making it public, so you gotta be prepared to almost give your answers out for free if you help me.

To be truthful. I went to UC Irvine when Wow was in its infant stages. I know a lot, but not the tech side. I also know that you can see how long I have been posting to understand that i am truth.
 
Ugh will for sure keep updated. But yeah I dont wanna keep my PC as the server at all. The very most of its duties it to play media on the PS3 server on its damn quad core CPU. It will not be used as the business server until I feel like a quad core is needed. Yes we do Autocad, and it's somewhat more than normal so yeah we can eventually. But damn in my little head I keep thinking why can't we run this business on a simple ftp server.

So yeah Vazaar will be in my mind from this point on (thank you very much). I have plenty of used PC's to use (my chips sitting in a drawer are a dual core intel stupidly enough and another fast x2), but the power consumption pisses me off. So yeah I wouldn't mind at all building another PC, but power to me is an issue. Maybe 2 of the 3 of us care about making do with what we have.
 
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