Awhile back a friend of mine in the UK was trying to set up Bulletproof FTP Server so I quickly grabbed some screenshots and slapped together this page; I've recently updated it a bit as it was quite a mess. Anyway, Bulletproof Server is VERY EASY to setup and operate. Nevertheless, if you're at square one I suppose this page may be of some help. By the way, Bulletproof Server has numerous configuration options which are not covered on this page. There are a few teaks and random notes at the bottom of this page, however. I will add more as time permits. Basic FTP Concepts This is stuff that, I assume, you probably already know.....but, hey - who knows? So, just for the record: Once the server is installed people will connect by knowing your IP number or a hostname which is associated with your IP number. Port 21 is the standard port through which FTP connects. If you're behind a router you'll need to open this port to the box where your FTP server is located. I found that, for some users, I also had to open port 20 (I can't recall the issue). If these ports are open and people still have problems connecting you may need to put the server in the DMZ of your router. NOTE: By putting a computer in the DMZ you are placing that computer outside your router's firewall, opening all ports to incoming and outgoing traffic. This is a highly questionable practice in terms of security. If people report problems connecting, even after you've ported your router as described above, they may need to enable "PASV" mode transfer in their client program. Obviously, firewalls on either the server or client side must be disabled (or configured) to allow FTP connections. For more information on converting your IP to a permanent hostname and some more, general FTP info you can view:http://www.guymerritt.com/server.htm. Getting It Running... The first step, needless to say, is to install the program and open it up. The interface is depicted in the graphics below. NOTE: If you look at the graphic you'll notice a yellow lightning bolt graphic near the top left of the interface. This activates the server, or "turns it on"; in other words, even if you had users configured and everything ported properly people can't connect until this is ticked. On numerous occassions I have opened the program for someone and simply forgot to tick this darned thing. You can set the server to always be "active", once opened, by doing the following: In the Bulletproof taskbar go to Setup > MAIN > GENERAL and tick the box that says "Activate ftp server on startup" - in this way it will always be online when you open the program. The next thing we want to do is add a group. In the above graphic you can see that there's an icon on the interface that looks like two faces. Click that icon and the large box, below, pops up. Now we will add a group - call it whatever - "my buddies", anything. To add a group move your mouse over to the white space below the area labeled "Group Accounts" (anywhere in this general area) and RIGHT-CLICK; the small menu pops up - choose "ADD" and add your first group. We now need to decide which drives and/or or folders the members of our new group will be able to access. To do this (much like adding a group, above) move your mouse over to the white space under "ACCESS RIGHTS" and right click. A menu will pop up from which you choose "ADD". Though not depicted in the image below, when you tick "ADD" a typical Windows directory tree will appear from which you can choose the folders and drives where you wish to allow FTP access. In the example below I have opted to give a group called "anonymous" access to a folder, which I've created, at C:\Anonymous. What this means is this: when members belonging to a group called "anonymous" log in to my server, they will be able to see the folders and files in the folder C:\Anonymous on my computer - that's where they will "land", so to speak. By the way, Bulletproof is extremely secure and members of this group will be "chrooted" or "jailed" in this folder and it's subdirectores. In other words, they cannot log in and move up through the directory structure of your PC. Wether or not members of this group may download, upload, etc. depends on permissions which we'll set in a moment. Now that we've created a group and designated the primary folder at which they'll access our server we need to decide what they can do once they arrive. Do we want them to be able to upload files to this folder, or just download? Do we want them to be able to go down through any sub-folders we've added? To set permissions for a folder, first, highlight the folder (see image below) and set permissions by ticking the appropriate check boxes (highlighted below). Regarding the check boxes in the "Files" section: "Read" means "allow downloads" "Write" means "allow uploads" "Delete" means "allow delete" - be careful granting this privilege! "Append" means "allow the user to resume" (uploading or downloading) form where they stopped Regarding the check boxes in the "Directories" section: This is pretty self-explanatory but I'll say this: it would be a rare situation in which you did not want directories and sub-directorys to list, or be visible and accessible to the user. Now let's add a user. Return to the main interface (see the first image at the top of this section) and click the "user" icon (the single face). Once again, the larger interface opens (see below). Moving the mouse over to the right of the interface (under "User Accounts") we right-click and add a user in much the same way as we added a group. IMPORTANT: After you've added the user you should drop down to the check boxes that say "Login" and "Password". Tick the boxes and give your new user a login name and password. The login name can be his username or it can be something totally different. The user will have to correctly present these identifiers in order to successfully access the server. Notice that I've also ticked the box labeled "Group name". More about that in our final step.... This brings us to our final step and a couple of concepts which are important to remember when using Bulletproof: In Bulletproof Server group permissions always override user permissions, and... Since you will likely have multiple users with the same permissions (access to the same folders, etc.), it will be much more convenient to simply add users and make them a member of an established group. You can use the "Group name" check box, as shown in the image below, to make a new user a member of a group (whose access rights are already established). Consider the alternative: if you don't use this method you will have to perform every step on this page everytime you add a new user - ARGH! The above consitute the basics - here are just a couple more basic tips and one tweak..... Below is one of the only tweaks I ever had to do to Bulletproof...the rest was very straightforward. I also recall that, at one time and for reasons I can't recall, I had the "5000" set to "55000"..... Some random tips, stuff I forget, etc. If you are on a LAN you can open an FTP client and check your setup by inserting the local, NAT IP of the host box for hostname (for example, hostname=192.168.1.11). You can share a folder that's on another PC within a a LAN but, to do so, you must make the folder a network drive using the "Map Network Drive" option from the a Windows taskbar.

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