A person I know needs to receive large files (about 500 Mb) from his
customers to be downloaded and then worked.
Each customer should have his own protected area.
He has contacted a computer company (moreover distant more than 100 km from
his office) that has proposed this solution:
1. buying a server to mantain in his office
2. SO linux based upon kernel 2.6xx
3. web server&php. apache
4. firewall
5. installation of cwfm (a software that manages files, at first I believed
that should be created by them, but then I found out to be free on the net
http://cwfm.sourceforge.net) upload and download are managed via http

The economic offer was:
- installation SO linux: configuration linux, apache, php, dns, iptables and
cwfm --->3000 euro (about 3600 dollars)
- mantainance ---> first year free, from the second on 1000 euro (about 1200
dollars)
purchasing of the server is apart

I'm very doubfull about this, but the person who should buy everything is
even enthustiastic about the onesty and knoledge of these people.

They insisted above all on the issue of security, as if hackers ordinary
waste their time to manage to keep wedding albums sent via the internt, and
they told him that ftp is not secure for this and their program is based
upon http. "It could be seriously risky for his customer privacy" !!!

questions:
1) do you relly think that http is more secure than ftp?
2) do you think http is the right solution for uploading so large files?
3) what do you think about the economic offer? Consider that I' writing from
Italy and here everything is cheaper compared to, for example USA or
northern europe. So you have to consider higher the sum he has to pay.

Has somebody some link to correlated topics? As it seems that I have no
authority with this person, wich insted should have a site with articles
written by knoledged people. I've made a search on the internt but I was non
able to find anything usefull.


bye and thank you to those who will express an opinion



Giuseppe

Hello Giuseppe,

Giuseppe wrote:
> A person I know needs to receive large files (about 500 Mb) from his
> customers to be downloaded and then worked.

That is very much. If you do this often you can have to pay a lot of
traffic and you need a big connection.

> Each customer should have his own protected area.
> He has contacted a computer company (moreover distant more than 100 km from
> his office) that has proposed this solution:
> 1. buying a server to mantain in his office
> 2. SO linux based upon kernel 2.6xx
> 3. web server&php. apache
> 4. firewall
> 5. installation of cwfm (a software that manages files, at first I believed
> that should be created by them, but then I found out to be free on the net
> http://cwfm.sourceforge.net) upload and download are managed via http
>
> The economic offer was:
> - installation SO linux: configuration linux, apache, php, dns, iptables and
> cwfm --->3000 euro (about 3600 dollars)

Our company would do this for about 500 €. But It depends also on the
services of the company, if they guarantee up time about 99.9 %, and if
the administrator is really good then it should be ok.
So he should make security scans, choose a good distribution, configure
the system to do everything alone etc.
But my experiences are that there are often no really good
administrators which have not enough knowledge

> - mantainance ---> first year free, from the second on 1000 euro (about 1200
> dollars)

Normally mantainance of a linux system does not cost much time, if the
server should just work as it is.
1000 € for a year is ok if support is included and if the support is used.

> purchasing of the server is apart
>
> I'm very doubfull about this, but the person who should buy everything is
> even enthustiastic about the onesty and knoledge of these people.

Hm I think he is not really able to judge about the knowledge. Tell him
he should at least tak a second offer from another company

>
> They insisted above all on the issue of security, as if hackers ordinary
> waste their time to manage to keep wedding albums sent via the internt, and
> they told him that ftp is not secure for this and their program is based
> upon http. "It could be seriously risky for his customer privacy" !!!

No, hackers don't waste their time with hacking wedding albums but
hacker are writting worms, which could also inffect wedding albums.
Security is important.

>
> questions:
> 1) do you relly think that http is more secure than ftp?

Http is not more secure then FTP. HTTPS is secure and SCP is secure. If
they use a https connection then it should be secure enough. You can
also build even more systems with a standalone fileserver with his own
distribution which is harden.

> 2) do you think http is the right solution for uploading so large files?

Definitly not. FTP is made for theses purposes you can also use SCP this
would be more secure. FTP can also implement a continue function.
Normally a POST Request is limted to 8MB and a file upload is limited to
2 MB. I am not shure but I think all the data is held in memory before
the file is written. So if you have two upload about 500 MB you must
have at lease 1024 MB memory, but I am not shure about that.

> 3) what do you think about the economic offer? Consider that I' writing from
> Italy and here everything is cheaper compared to, for example USA or
> northern europe. So you have to consider higher the sum he has to pay.

I think it is two much. Every student in germany could build a system
like this for a tenth part.

>
> Has somebody some link to correlated topics?

Just have a look at the normal hosters and there offers. In germany you
can rent a complete server with already installed linux for 20 € in a
month. www.alturo.de


> As it seems that I have no
> authority with this person, wich insted should have a site with articles
> written by knoledged people.

Don't trust so much in knowledge people ;-) try to read for yourself and
remember all the time there are no stupid questions just stupid answers.

> I've made a search on the internt but I was non
> able to find anything usefull.
>
>
> bye and thank you to those who will express an opinion
>
>
>
> Giuseppe
Greetings
Manuel