08-28-2008, 11:11 AM

Here's the thing, I'm not a mac guy. I can get around them ok, but I don't know much about them.

I just put together a server for this company the other day and most of the computers there are windows PC's, but the art department are all on macs, and they frequently work from home.

They had this Iomega Storcenter NAS drive there that they were working off of. It seemed to me that it was set up as an FTP server that they could access over the internet. Basically they'd go to "go" on the mac, select something like "connect to server" and put in

ftp://username:password@ip.goes.here.000:21

For the server they wanted to connect to. So when I put together this server I just installed filezilla server on it figuring I'd just give them the same usernames and password and everything would be cool.

Not the case. Evidently the way they connect on their macs, it's not like accessing files with a typical FTP client where you have to download a file, work on it, then upload it again. on their mac's it acts more like a network share where they can just double click on a file and it'll open up in the right application, they can edit it and then save it right to the server.

With filezilla server that just isn't happening. When I access it with filezilla client on my windows pc everything works fine, but when they try and access it the way they do on their macs it frequently disconnects them, drops the connection temporarily, and most of the time won't let them drag and drop files from their computer to the server. Basically making it useless for what they want to do.

So what I'm wondering is if there's a setting on their macs they need to change to get this to work right. Or if there's something in the server software that might help. I can't seem to figure it out. Is there mac friendly ftp server software?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

08-28-2008, 03:22 PM

You have done good job of setting them, but as you say, the finder trests FTP sites like a network drive

A more traditional FTP program like Cyberduck may be a better option for your users

08-28-2008, 03:41 PM

Agreed with louishen. Have them download and install Cyberduck or another FTP client and all will work great. Cyberduck is free and works well, so it should be no issue. I like Transmit but it does cost $$$. Cyberduck will do the job.

08-28-2008, 04:40 PM

What OS are you running on the server? Is there any reason you couldn't set up Windows file sharing (SMB) for the internal network, or SAMBA if it's Linux based? I'd think you'd save them quite a bit of trouble if you did it that way.