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Virtual network between friends

W

wolfram

n00b
Joined
Sep 5, 2011
Messages
12
Hi, I want to create some kind of virtual network between my friend so we can share files like music and movies. Can anyone tell me the best/easiest way to create such a network?

Thanks
 
There's a bunch of web based products out there. If you want something more private it would be reasonably easy for one person to setup a VPN point where others connect to, such that everyone connects into one place.

Windows 2008 R2 has a NPS role for that, I'm sure there are a heap of other options available on Mac / Nix or on Windows.
 
Or, you could just use Hamachi. Set it up as a mesh network, and open the SMB shares you need. Whalla!
 
cgram23 said:
Or, you could just use Hamachi. Set it up as a mesh network, and open the SMB shares you need. Whalla!
Click to expand...

This is probably the easiest to be honest. Sending movies? What size? You may run into issues due to lack of bandwidth on your home connections.
 
What are the connections and distance? If it feasible to do a P2P wireless link? If not, then a home VPN server may work. But, depending on the amount of data being sent/received, it may be incredibly slow. If you are using a fast (fiber) connection, you'll be alright, but anything less than 2Mb upload and it would really suck.
 
point to point vpn could maybe work, if not a 3rd party service like dropbox as mentioned
 
/usr/home said:
This is probably the easiest to be honest. Sending movies? What size? You may run into issues due to lack of bandwidth on your home connections.
Click to expand...

Hamachi is probably the way to go for a basic setup. If you're transfering large files though it may not be a good idea especially during peak hours. At least this was my experience with Hamachi about 2 years ago.
 
Reeks of "Q&A Spam"

I'd use an online cloud service. Sooo many good ones out there now, so easy to use.
 
Thanks for all the answers. I was thinking about vpn myself. And movies are of considerable size, 1gb+ so reading your answers it seems best to go for vpn. The connections shouldnt be a problem we all got 2mb+ upload. Or maybe just try dropbox, since the setup is very easy.
 
Be careful with ALL 3rd party cloud services. Should your movies and music be of copyrighted nature, they can and will hand your name over if some "industry" pushed hard enough. Way's around it? Encrypt your stuff before you send it to the cloud and share the encryption key with whomever is downloading it. "But Awesomo, it says right on Dropbox's feature page that they use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and AES-256 bit encryption." Yes, they do, BUT they also can decrypt that information on a whim. How else do you think their duplicate detection works?
 
tricky0502 said:
why not just use ftp?
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He envisions this huge massive way to share files in this cloud like data center in his basement. He wants awesome, and ftp is not awesome. Its just...simple...and it works...better than anything.

Oh wait :p
 
Haha, if its simple and it works i'm happy. I just dont have super great computer skills and i honestly have no idea how ftp works to share files :(. I know things like how to use VPN, remote desktop and stuff, but i've never set something like that up myself.
 
WHS might actually be a good choice for this, just give logins to your buddies for the web file transfer interface.
 
hamachi is limited to the speed of the tunnel it creates, and the speed of the free servers it connects to. i think you can pay for "premium" service which is faster. because hamachi is essentially a VPN, it has to be slower than your non-VPN network it rides on.

And movies are of considerable size, 1gb+ so reading your answers it seems best to go for vpn. The connections shouldnt be a problem we all got 2mb+ upload. Or maybe just try dropbox, since the setup is very easy.
Click to expand...
i think you vastly overestimate what 2 megaBIT means to your ISP, and how long it takes to transfer 1gigaBYTE over a 2Mbit connection.

either hamachi (if you want a private LAN-type network) or FTP (or better sFTP; if you want just file sharing) is going to be the easiest thing for you. building VPNs and encrypted networks in general seem to be above what is realistic here.
 
Pogoplug would be perfect for what you're looking for. You buy the device and plug in an external drive and now you have mapped network share on all of your buddy's rigs.

Unfortunately, it sucks and I have one collecting dust. It ruined a lot of the media files.

I wanted the pogoplug to take over the task of sharing files and media with family and friends rather than WHS v1 I was using. I ended up going back to the WHS v1 for sharing. Then built a second one for my own backup that no one gets to touch.
 
The reason I say it's limited because those free servers are pretty damn slow...I used it to play a game of anno with a friend, and loading the save which was like...25mb took about 45 minutes. On LAN it's like BAM done.
 
I think i'll just go for the FTP or sFTP connection. Can anyone point me in the right direction about how to actually set something like this up?

And i know 2mbit is slower then it sounds, but the pc's are on 10 hours a day or so. If it takes 1 hour its fine with uss. But it must not take days :p
 
Protoform-X said:
http://filezilla-project.org/

Install the server, then open up port TCP 21 on your router/firewall. Create logins for everyone, and then direct your friends to ftp://<your public IP>.
Click to expand...

Does this make it possible for my friend to access my server and file only? I'd like to be able to get into their computers as well and download movies they have. Kind of the idea of a home network, that i'll be able to see their public folders and they'll see my public folders
 
It doesn't work like that. If you install the server on your computer, all files will be uploaded/downloaded from your system. Your friends will have to put files there that they want to share. If you want files to be shared from everyone's computer you could consider setting up FTP on everyone's computer, or doing something more complicated like a VPN.
 
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