Any recommmedations on sharing multimedia files among family?

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Limp Gawd
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Sep 30, 2022
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With many people located all over the place and pictures and video being generated from Iphones to Androids, I wanted to figure out a way where we can all share files. At first I thought was to build a NAS but after doing some googling, remote NAS access seems really complicated to setup. My next thought was to setup a ftp server but me think some of the older family members might struggle with that...but that seems the easiest option for me so far.

Has anyone here done something similar for their family and can suggest a more practical route.
 
SFTP from your select 24/7 box (read - Linux), set up winscp clients for them and it will be a cinch.
 
Mega6 said:
SFTP from your select 24/7 box (read - Linux), set up winscp clients for them and it will be a cinch.
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Thats a good idea.
Does winscp work with Iphone and Andriod? I use winscp at work, do like the easy easy interface.
 
Jellyfin/Emby/Plex if you want users to be able to play the media directly from the NAS with a nice media server interface.

If you just want to provide the ability to download the files to user devices, then some kind of web interface such as WebDAV (available in most NAS boxes) should work well. Teaching less technically-inclined users to use SFTP/SCP sounds like a headache.
 
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$9.99/momth for me. Instead of committing 100/year for cloud storage, I rather spend the money on a mew ssd every year....
But, i'm having heck of a time trying to setup a ftp server on my win 11 laptop....this didnt use to be so hard in the win98 days
 
File browser is like your own version of mega/Mediafire/etc. Run it on your hardware from your house. Use Dynamic DNS to give your home IP address a fancy domain name. Assuming you have decent upload speeds. Probably want at least 75-100mb/s upload if you want people to be able to download stuff and you still have a good internet experience.

Users can create account and give out shareable URL’s. You can also browse the folders on the back end through normal folder heiarchy, since it doesn’t obfuscate files or anything.

https://filebrowser.org/

If on Windows, you can also use Everything which has a web server component that creates a searchable index of all files you give it access to. People can’t upload with Everything, but downloading is super easy. Just be careful what you give it access to see.

https://www.voidtools.com/

If you are wanting to share video and music specifically, then plex and adding other users as friends is perfect. They can watch your library from anywhere. Again, you will need ample upload speeds and you might even want a video card that can handle transcoding just in case.
 
I run filerun (think Google drive alt) that gives people a login and personal space, plus upload. I run plex so grandparents can watch home movies. I run piwigo for specific picture book presentations. I use photsync for auto uploads from our phones at home, I don't do that for relatives, could with more config. Photostream handles the 1000s of home pics for wife and I to sort.

All of this is accessible via a cloudflare tunnel, where CF is a man in the middle providing additional security via a required login. I use Google for SSO for everyone so it's one click on mobile devices or computers logged into their Google account.

Even the grandparents can do this. Minus the upload part, lol boomers.
 
vegeta535 said:
Do people have to buy a plex pass to watch media on your NAS?
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No, you don’t even need a plex pass to share with others. Hardware Acceleration on transcoding is the major reason to get Plex Pass. The other perks seemed meh to me. Though they do offer a dashboard feature that I like and use.
 
I use plex to share video with friends and family, it works fantastically and its extremely easy for them to setup. 100% free if they use it on a console/TV box, and has a really nice interface and all of the fun/complicated transcoding work is done on my end so they don't need to worry about it.

My friends affectionately call it "SylFlix"
 
If you use linux at home, one option is NextCloud. It is your own private cloud, onedrive/googledrive etc.
It's very powerful. You can add as many accounts as you want. You can also do a lot of things other than sharing files.
I'm using it now for back up files, sync files across my desktop, laptop, cellphone.

Here is a simple tutorial:
https://www.imaginelinux.com/install-nextcloud-on-ubuntu-22-04/
Looks like many steps, but fairly easy to follow.
 
So, your going to open ports, into your home network, from the internet for services. And you plan to secure this from being exploited how? Why re-invent the wheel, I know people "hate" the cloud, but it will be far more secure than you running some services off your home ISP and opening it up to the internet
 
MrGuvernment said:
So, your going to open ports, into your home network, from the internet for services. And you plan to secure this from being exploited how? Why re-invent the wheel, I know people "hate" the cloud, but it will be far more secure than you running some services off your home ISP and opening it up to the internet
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I may not be able to secure my network as well as a cloud provider, but my network doesn't carry the incentives to a successful attack a commercial cloud does either.

Everyone can be hacked, history proves this. At this point I'll take lack of incentive to be as good or better security.
 
kydsid said:
I may not be able to secure my network as well as a cloud provider, but my network doesn't carry the incentives to a successful attack a commercial cloud does either.

Everyone can be hacked, history proves this. At this point I'll take lack of incentive to be as good or better security.
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It is not about being targeted and has nothing to do with incentive.....that is just having your head in the sand around security. Do you know how many clients I have heard the "I am too small to be a target" and then "why did they target us..." when I have to go in and rebuild everything from scratch...and explain to them how it all works..

Most of it (99.9999%) is done via automation, bots scanning the internet 24/7 looking for some new open ports to find and then work their magic, you are not a target someone found and decided one day to say "mmm this person looks interesting, lets hack them" it is "oh look, my scanners found this open FTP port or web server that is using old out dated server that i can easily exploit (or already did based on the scans results) and drop a payload and walk away... now your computer / network is for sale on the darkweb for someone to buy and then use as part of a botnet, or someone does go in and tries to find something interesting, otherwise just ransomwares your entire system and waits for payment.

Yes, anyone can be hacked, a matter of it, not when, but again, I can assure you, Google Drive will be 10000x far more secure than anything you can set up at home (assuming you do not use some easy password and not turn on 2fa)
 
MrGuvernment said:
It is not about being targeted and has nothing to do with incentive.....that is just having your head in the sand around security. Do you know how many clients I have heard the "I am too small to be a target" and then "why did they target us..." when I have to go in and rebuild everything from scratch...and explain to them how it all works..

Most of it (99.9999%) is done via automation, bots scanning the internet 24/7 looking for some new open ports to find and then work their magic, you are not a target someone found and decided one day to say "mmm this person looks interesting, lets hack them" it is "oh look, my scanners found this open FTP port or web server that is using old out dated server that i can easily exploit (or already did based on the scans results) and drop a payload and walk away... now your computer / network is for sale on the darkweb for someone to buy and then use as part of a botnet, or someone does go in and tries to find something interesting, otherwise just ransomwares your entire system and waits for payment.

Yes, anyone can be hacked, a matter of it, not when, but again, I can assure you, Google Drive will be 10000x far more secure than anything you can set up at home (assuming you do not use some easy password and not turn on 2fa)
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I think you misunderstood my post. I just dont agree with you that being commercial it is automatically better and more secure, and do believe incentive plays some part, not all - but never said that either.

If you are so worried about exposing ports on your network then don't. I don't and still have accessible services, OH MY!!
 
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kydsid said:
I think you misunderstood my post. I just dont agree with you that being commercial it is automatically better and more secure, and do believe incentive plays some part, not all - but never said that either.

If you are so worried about exposing ports on your network then don't. I don't and still have accessible services, OH MY!!
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....my network doesn't carry the incentives to a successful attack........
.....At this point I'll take lack of incentive to be as good or better security......
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Again,you miss the point, someone does not need a specific "incentive" to track down some random person on the internet, they have bots that do it for them, and there is some incentive, insecure end user devices are the #1 source of systems in botnets...you know, the ones use for most other malicious activities...

I never stated that Cloud was "automatically" better or more secure, at least not over all, but that depends on what it is being compared to. Based on OP's post and follow ups, yes, cloud is far more secure than what they were looking to do, as well as far easier for other family members to use and connect to.

Sure, can have accessible services with out NAT rules direct into your network, but services noted above as options for the OP, require them to do port forwards into their network for external people to access said resources they want to host. If someone is talking about opening ports for an FTP server, that alone tells me they already may not be very security aware, hence the post towards them, not you.

The reason I said something, is far too many people (and we have all done it through our lives) want to host something at home because "insert reason here" and often they do not realize the can of worms they are potentially opening these days with the way the cyber landscape is, vs 15 years ago, because they do not understand the technology behind it, or the consequences of taking said actions.

So, in turn, those with experience, post why it is not always a good idea, unless "person has said ability, skills and knowledge" to deal with it as best as possible.
 
The cost to host my personal media in the cloud would be about 2k a month.

Fuck that.

I'll stick with Plex.

I could rebuy my entire media server for that cost.
 
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TheSlySyl said:
The cost to host my personal media in the cloud would be about 2k a month.

Fuck that.

I'll stick with Plex.

I could rebuy my entire media server for that cost.
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Def, and that is the case where cloud is not a good option, the cloud doesnt solve all problems, but it does have its legit use cases. If you have under 1TB of items to share, get MS M365 sub and share it out and get 4 other accounts family can use (also if you dont mind having all your images indexed and hashed, as well as all documents also indexed and read so MS / Google whoever can "give you a better customer experience")
I am one who refuses to host my personal data on OneDrive, even thought I have a family sub to Office. Wife, go nuts, mother in law, go nuts, saves me worrying about if their devices craps out (mobile, computers, tablets) But even with that, I back up their accounts locally to my storage server, which is then backed up to 2 other devices.
 
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I use a Wireguard VPN server/router (cheaply available from GLinet). This allows a fast remote secure access from Internet to your lokal LAN or NAS with a very easy setup. A remote client behaves as it would be directly connected to your home Lan/Wlan.
 
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