HOWTO: Giving FTP-Users access to Network-Shares in BulletProof FTP Server

BulletProof FTP Server fully supports the ability for ftp-users to access network-shares via FTP.

Table of Contents

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Overview

1.2 Requirements

2.0 Sharing Network Drives via FTP

2.1 Creating the FTP directory structure

2.2 Mapping Network Drive

2.2.1 Select Menu Option

2.2.2 Enter Parameters for Drive-Mapping

2.3 Create Drive-Shortcut

2.3.1 Select Menu Option

2.3.2 Define Shortcut Destination

2.3.3 Define Title for Shortcut

2.3.4 Confirm Shortcut Location

2.4 User Configuration

2.4.1 Add User-Rights to Shortcut Destination

2.4.2 Configure Virtual File-System for FTP-User

2.5 Finished

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Overview

BulletProof FTP Server full supports the ability for ftp-users to access network-shares via FTP. Allowing you to grant remote access to network files, residing on other computers in your network.

Example Usage:

1.2 Requirements

Network connectivity is supported by all modern versions of Windows (Windows NT, 2000, XP, Vista, Server 2003/2008, etc). It is not recommended to use Windows 95/98/ME for network-drive support.

2.0 Sharing Network-Drives via FTP

The first requirement is to identify what network-shares and files you want to make available via FTP. Next, you need to have administrator privledges on network-servers and local computer to setup file-sharing support. Once you are ready to go, setting up network-share support in BPFTP Server is simple and can be done by following the below steps.

2.1 Creating the FTP directory structure

Part of running a good FTP-Server is setting up a managable directory structure for the Home-Directory of your FTP-Users.

We recommend that you setup a folder on the root-directory of your hard-drive called "ftp". If you are from the Microsoft IIS world, you'll recognize this as "wwwroot". Next, setup a directory for each FTP-User that you will be servicing. This will allow you to create the Virtual File-System you'll need to provide access to network-shared drives. (See Below)

2.2 Mapping Network Drive

2.2.1 Select Menu Option

Next, you'll use Windows' ability to Map (the) Network Drive to the network-share on the computer running BPFTP Server. This is done by dbl-clicking My Computer on your Desktop and pulling down the main-menu option Tools -> Map Network Drive....

2.2.2 Enter Parameters for Drive-Mapping

In order to map the network drive, you'll need to assign an unused drive-letter and the name of the network-share. The drive-letter you choose, should be a letter that will not be used on the computer running BPFTP Server. We recommend using something towards the end of the alphabet, such as X:, Y: or Z:. In this case, we'll use the drive-letter S:.

2.3 Create Drive-Shortcut

BPFTP Server has support for Virtual File-System, which allow you to create a link in the ftp-user's home-directory and point it to another location on your computer or networked-drive. This is done by creating a Windows Shortcut on the local computer running BPFTP Server. The name of the shortcut file will act like a directory when accessed via FTP.

2.3.1 Select Menu Option

To create a Windows-Shortcut, first dbl-click My Computer, navigate into the Home-Directory for the FTP-User which will see the link and finally right-click the directory and choose New -> Shortcut.

In this example, I have designated the directory C:\FTP\MMC to be the home-directory for my user.

2.3.2 Define Shortcut Destination

Define the location where the shortcut will point.

In this example, we'll input the drive-letter for the network-drive that we mapped in the previous step. You can also choose a sub-directory of this drive, if you wish to target more precisely the directories which will be exposed to the ftp-user.

2.3.3 Define Title for Shortcut

Next, we need to define the name of the shortcut file. The name chosen will be the Virtual File-System (directory) name for the directory as it's seen via FTP for the ftp-user.

2.3.4 Confirm Shortcut Location

After the shortcut is created, you'll see Windows Explorer (aka My Computer) populate itself with the newly created shortcut file. This file will have the extension of *.LNK and will be labeled as a Shortcut.

Dbl-Click on this new Shortcut, to make sure the drive is correctly mapped and you can see files on the remote computer. If you have problems connecting to the network-share, please look into the permissions and settings for the share on the remote network-server.

2.4 User Configuration

BPFTP Server has extensive support for ftp-user rights and access-control. The Virtual File-System is included in this model and in order for an ftp-user to access remote files, you must specify the access-control and rights for the directory defined by the shortcut..

2.4.1 Add User-Rights to Shortcut Destination

In order for the Shortcut link to be resolved and the ftp-user to be allowed to traverse into the network-drive, you must setup Access-Control and User-Rights for the FTP-User.

2.4.2 Configure Virtual File System for FTP-User

In order for the Shortcut link to be resolved and displayed as a Virtual File-System Directory, you will need to turn on support for the ftp-user account. Using the User Account Manager, as per the instructions in the previous step, click on the the section labeled Links and Messages.

2.5 Finished

As a test, we'll login to BPFTP Server and make sure we can see the Virtual File-System Directory and successfully change-directory into it and see the contents. This test was done using the built-in Windows FTP-Client called ftp.exe, but we could have also used our BulletProof FTP Client or any FTP-standard compliant client.