Sharing files and folders in Kubuntu

[Little Girl]

Re: Sharing files and folders in Kubuntu

Little Girl, welcome!! I hope you become a regular poster here.

Thanks! I'm not sure how regular I'll become since I'm planning on switching to Ubuntu soon, but my hit counter let me know about this page, and I try to fulfill wishes if I can. You guys are so friendly that I might just pull up a chair and stay for a while.

[Detonate]

Re: Sharing files and folders in Kubuntu

I'll let you in on a little secret, I switched to Ubuntu and Xubuntu some time ago, because I just don't get KDE4. But I still come to this forum because it is the best one of all the Ubuntu related forums, and I can still pitch in and help with a lot of questions, like NFS and networking and other stuff that is not related to the desktop environment.

BTW, the pages on your web site seem to take a lot longer to load then they did on the old google site. I've had those bookmarked for years.

[Little Girl]

Re: Sharing files and folders in Kubuntu

My mouth is open and my jaw is on the floor I am totally delighted to hear this :-)

I'm happy to do it. I did, however, bite off more than I could chew in one evening. I've only gotten it partially done, and will have to finish it tomorrow. The unfinished page is here.

The hosts allow/deny: Will it interfere with the DNS?

It's possible the hosts.deny file will interfere with it. To get around this, instead of using ALL: ALL in your hosts.deny file, you can list off the NFS components individually like this:

portmap: ALL
lockd: ALL
rquotad: ALL
mountd: ALL
statd: ALL
nfsd: ALL

Now in case you're wondering whether the hosts.deny and hosts.allow files will cancel each other out, the hosts.allow file is read first, and the system will use the first entry it finds, so hosts.allow trumps hosts.deny.

And I will also join in welcoming you here. Good to have someone that is really knowledgeable on this here! Fantastic!

Thanks! You're both very sweet.

The reason for me in trying to get to know this, is that it seems to me that NFS is the type of sharing that gives the best speed. And I really need speed...

If speed is what you're after, there is a reference here to sync and async, and my reason for choosing sync. You might want to consider using async, but I would caution you to read the nfs man page and decide for yourself whether you want to risk it.

For the scenario that you already have described, NFS should be possible to set up through a separate setting in the system settings. "Add NFS share" would be a good title. Then a simple interface that ask for a few things (after entering sudo password):

That's actually a good idea, and would probably not be all that hard for someone to design. I'm not a programmer, but I like to get creative with Bash scripting. I could have some fun throwing together an automatic NFS script that asks questions and then does all the work.

Why have this beautiful GUI and still make people jump through all these hoops to share a folder? This is something sooooo basic on Windows and MacOSX...

You've introduced one of my favorite topics.

One thing I'd like to say before I begin a long diatribe is that when it comes to something like sharing all or part of your computer on a network, it's a good idea for you to really know what it is you're doing. I have a sneaking suspicion that by creating a share on the command line, you really get to know your system - probably better than you would if you just did a quick click here or there in a GUI. But at the same time, I love the convenience of using the GUI for many tasks, so I can understand why someone would prefer it.

You know, at one point I was going to create a Kdialog script that would make some of the more basic Bash commands available in a GUI. It turned out that would be a bit clumsy. Then I found a program called pdmenu, which is an NCURSES program with one text file you set up to create a lightning fast menu that can be navigated by keyboard. If you make a shortcut to it on your panel, in the K menu, or on the Desktop, then you can access it in one click.

I got all fired up about it and began entering commands, starting with simple things like ls. I very quickly ran into the problem of there being so many commands, and so many arguments that could be used on each command, that it would end up being faster for a person to quickly look at a man page, figure out the arguments needed for a command and just type it in than it would be for the same person to find that particular combination of arguments in the menu.

Not only that, but when you think about the sheer number of combinations available on a padlock that has only three numbers as the password to unlock it, imagine trying to come up with every possible combination of arguments to offer someone on any given command.

You could get around that if you had one main entry for each command, and if you configured that entry to take the user through a series of questions to find out which of the arguments they would like to use. To make something like that useful, you'd have to offer a bit of descriptive text (possibly with an example) for each argument so they can make an informed decision. This requires that you understand what each of the arguments do, and one thing I have trouble with is understanding some of these man pages.

To make things even worse, you'd have to offer the user the ability to browse to files or directories as part of some of the commands they might want to run, so that would have to be written into the configuration of the menu/program/script as well (I can't remember whether pdmenu offers the ability to browse to files or type in a path).

At any rate, sorry for rambling on and on, but this is a topic of high interest to me because I realize that many people aren't comfortable on the command line. I happen to love the command line, but I know that nothing I could ever say or do will make someone who prefers the GUI develop warm, fuzzy feelings for working in a terminal. I was hoping I could be part of bridging the gap between the terminal and the GUI, but the best I can offer is writing Bash scripts that are lovingly and painstakingly created and tested to death before being turned loose in the wild.

But until that becomes a reality, I will read and preach your tutorials! :-)

LOL! I'm glad to be of service.

[Little Girl]

Re: Sharing files and folders in Kubuntu

I'll let you in on a little secret, I switched to Ubuntu and Xubuntu some time ago, because I just don't get KDE4. But I still come to this forum because it is the best one of all the Ubuntu related forums, and I can still pitch in and help with a lot of questions, like NFS and networking and other stuff that is not related to the desktop environment.

Good to know! I'm with you a hundred percent on not getting KDE4. I'm still using Kubuntu LTS, but since KDE3.5 is no longer supported, and bugs will no longer be taken care of (at least in certain programs like Kate), I'm thinking I'll switch to Ubuntu before the LTS runs out.

BTW, the pages on your web site seem to take a lot longer to load then they did on the old google site.

Yes, this is very frustrating. Google doesn't allow replacing the index.html file with one that you create offline, and I really want to use .CSS to have a common header and footer on all pages. Even worse, the new Google hosting solution (which my page will automatically be moved to) doesn't allow uploading any .html files at all, so I'd have to do all my page creation online. The free host I found doesn't put ads on the page, which I think is pretty important, but the loading times are horrendous most of the time. I'd love to find a permanent home for my page where it would be welcome and would be on a decent server. If you (or anyone) know of one, I'd be happy to move the site.

[Detonate]

Re: Sharing files and folders in Kubuntu

I use Godaddy for the three sites I run, fully supports CSS and I upload everything with FTP. But unless you pay them about $100 a year you have to put up with the ads. But they are not too intrusive, all being listed at the top of the page.

[arist]

Re: Sharing files and folders in Kubuntu

I, too, want to welcome Little Girl, thanks to whom my networking has always performed flawlessly. As a teacher for 30 years, I pride myself on the clarity and accessibilty of my explanations. But I bow before The Master.

[Detonate]

Re: Sharing files and folders in Kubuntu

I don't know what she does for a living, but she should be a technical writer.

[dibl]

Re: Sharing files and folders in Kubuntu

I don't know what she does for a living, but she should be a technical writer.

Absolutely so!

[Little Girl]

Re: Sharing files and folders in Kubuntu

You guys are so sweet. It's nice to have a warm welcome. As far as my job, I'm a truck driver who got RSD, so I'm unable to work. I've had time to get to know Kubuntu (and now Ubuntu), and I wanted to contribute in some way, so I started writing guides. I don't get paid for it, but money isn't everything.

[Little Girl]

Re: Sharing files and folders in Kubuntu

I use Godaddy for the three sites I run, fully supports CSS and I upload everything with FTP. But unless you pay them about $100 a year you have to put up with the ads. But they are not too intrusive, all being listed at the top of the page.

I checked out the Godaddy page and didn't see any outright free hosting. Apparently you have to buy a domain name to get one. I think it would be really cool if Ubuntu offered hosting to people who make Ubuntu-related pages.

[Detonate]

Re: Sharing files and folders in Kubuntu

No, it's not free, but it is really cheap, as long as you put up with the ads. They are very reliable, and customer support is excellent. You do get free hosting if you buy a domain name. I have four domain names registered through them, and I am currently using three of them to host sites.

Sorry to hear about your RSD, I know you must suffer a lot with that. My wife is a chronic pain sufferer and lives her life with Vicodin and Fentanyl, so I know what you must be going through.

[Little Girl]

Re: Sharing files and folders in Kubuntu

No, it's not free, but it is really cheap, as long as you put up with the ads. They are very reliable, and customer support is excellent. You do get free hosting if you buy a domain name. I have four domain names registered through them, and I am currently using three of them to host sites.

Thanks for all the information! If nothing good turns up in the free world, I might consider using Godaddy.

Sorry to hear about your RSD, I know you must suffer a lot with that. My wife is a chronic pain sufferer and lives her life with Vicodin and Fentanyl, so I know what you must be going through.

Thanks for the comfort, and I'm sorry to hear that your wife suffers, too. Does she take her mind off of it with Linux, too?

[Detonate]

Re: Sharing files and folders in Kubuntu

Does she take her mind off of it with Linux, too?

Shes uses Linux (Ubuntu) but mostly she just plays games.

[sithlord48]

Re: Sharing files and folders in Kubuntu

welcome to the forum little girl and nice job you your site. lots of good stuff to read there!

if you have a broadband connection of some type, you can host from your machine, its free to host your page from home and just do some port fowarding to avoid confusion from outside the router(if > 1 machine), its very easy to set up w/ (k)ubuntu you need only to install "apache2" , "php5" "mysql-server" then /var/www (by default) will be your pages /

you can also set up a free dynamic dns relay at serveral sights, i use dyndns.org and my router syncs on change of external ip, so no upkeep for me. my dns always works

[Little Girl]

Re: Sharing files and folders in Kubuntu

welcome to the forum little girl and nice job you your site. lots of good stuff to read there!

Thanks - you're very sweet.

if you have a broadband connection of some type, you can host from your machine, its free to host your page from home

My provider would want me to buy a different package if I were to serve a page from home.

and just do some port fowarding to avoid confusion from outside the router(if > 1 machine), its very easy to set up w/ (k)ubuntu you need only to install "apache2" , "php5" "mysql-server" then /var/www (by default) will be your pages /

Yep, I have Ubuntu Server and Ubuntu JeOS set up in VirtualBox. I also have a few guides on how to set all that up.