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Setting up an FTP server with a No-IP™ Host Name.

What many people may not realize is that it is not necessary to have a true "server" in order to have your own FTP site. It can be accomplished with any computer and any operating system. I first set up an FTP server on my Windows 95 machine many years ago. It can even be done with a Mac. The nice thing about this, is that with your computer, internet connection, some software and a NO-IP host name, you can be up and running easily and quickly sharing files with friends, colleagues or the world.

Begin by visiting your favorite shareware web site and do a search for "FTP Daemon" or "FTP Server". Make sure it is server software and not client software. There are many available in all flavors. Some are better than others, so be sure to compare packages. Once you get your software downloaded and installed, you will want to do some configuration for users and the directories and files that you want to allow them to see. I have a drive partition that I use for all my server related folders and files, and this works very nicely. If you don't want to dedicate a complete partition, then create a folder called "Server" or whatever you like. You will need to decide if you want to allow anonymous connections or not. If you do, I suggest you have a separate folder that is your public folder. Be cautious when allowing anonymous connections, though. My software allows me to choose whether the anonymous connection is read only or read/write. You may want to think about how open you want to be to the world. You can also set up users and passwords and give each user access to a different directory. This can be very convenient for those files that you only want to share with special people.

So, now that you have your server software all set up, it is time to get a NO-IP host name for your FTP Site. This will make it much easier for people to access your FTP Site since it is much easier for people to remember a friendly name rather than an IP address. It is also very essential if you have a dynamic IP address because it will be very difficult for users to access an FTP site with an ever changing address. In this case, the NO-IP Dynamic Updater is a great tool that automatically updates your host name with your IP address every time it changes. The NO-IP Dynamic Update Client is available for Windows 9x/NT/2k, Mac OS, and Linux. You can download it here.

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