8.2 Creating Your Own Network Shares
Within your network, you can make directories available to all users. These shares can be limited to just read permissions or expanded to grant write permissions to all network users, depending on the purpose.
You can use either of the following ways to create network shares:
8.2.1 Using Konqueror to Make One of Your Own Directories Available to Other Network Users
This method of sharing requires that you know the root password.
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Click
to
open Konqueror, make sure folders are displayed, then right-click
the background. -
Click , then click the tab.
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Click , then enter the root password.
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Click , then click twice.
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In Konqueror, right-click the directory you want to share, then click .
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Specify the kind of access other users should be granted to your share.
The following options are available:
Not Shared:Select this item if you decide not to make this share available or to revoke an existing share.
Shared - Read Only For Others:Other users can browse your share, but they do not have write permissions for the contained files and subdirectories.
Shared - Writeable For Others:Grants other users read and write access.
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Click .
If you selected one of the Shared options in Step 6, the directory icon now appears in Konqueror with a plug. To revoke the share, right-click the share icon in Konqueror, click . The directory icon then appears without the plug in Konqueror.
8.2.2 Using the Public File Server
The kpf utility provides simple file sharing using HTTP (the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol,) which is the same protocol used by Web sites to provide data to your Web browser. kpf is strictly a public file server, which means that there are no access restrictions to shared files. Whatever you select for sharing is available to anyone.
kpf is designed to be used for sharing files with friends, not to act like a fully-fledged Web server such as Apache. kpf was primarily conceived as an easy way to share files with others while chatting on IRC (Internet Relay Chat, or chat rooms).
kpf is typically set up to serve files from a public_html folder in your home directory. For example, if you want to make a file available to some people with whom you are chatting online, you can use kpf to copy the file into your public_html folder and announce to those listening that your file is available at http://www.mymachine.net:8001/thefile (rather than send them each an e-mail with the file attached).
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Right-click the bottom panel in KDE, then click .
A new icon appears on the bottom panel (
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Right-click the new icon, then click .
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Specify the directory containing the files you want to share, then click
All files in the folder and its subfolders, including hidden files (files that start with a dot) are made publicly available, so be careful not to share sensitive information, such as passwords, cryptographic keys, your address book, or documents private to your organization.
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Complete the remainder of the New Server wizard to share the folder you specified in Step 3.
The directory icon now appears in Konqueror with a world icon at the bottom right side.
IMPORTANT: A symbolic link is a special file which is a reference to another file (or folder) in your file system. By following the link, you reach the file or folder referred to. The link is generally transparent. By default, a network share does not allow following symbolic links. This means that, for example, if you have a share pointing to /your/home/folder/public_html and you create a link inside public_html pointing to /tmp, anyone requesting /tmp can see the contents of your /tmp folder.
In general, you shouldn’t allow following symbolic links in this way. The main reason this is allowed is so that you can have symbolic links inside the shared folder that point to another place inside the shared folder. This can be useful if you’re serving up an entire Web site (which, however, is not the intended use of kpf).
Be careful not to link to anywhere on your file system that might hold sensitive information, or use a symbolic link that points to sensitive information.