Really Microsoft? This is the best you can do with FTP servers in Windows?

[Hokie]

Background:

When I went into the consulting business 15 years ago I registered a domain with a hosting company and purchased server space. The main purpose was to get my own email server. I chose Inmotionhosting. They have been fine. One of the things I get with my package is unlimited storage. I have pretty much retired now so I do not need anything but the email server any longer. I know I could swithc everything to Gmail and probably pay a small fee to Google but I have not been motivated to do that.

FTP Servier:

My Inmotion account includes FTP, Wordpress and a bunch of other things I do not use. I have used FTP a few times. I set up a subdomain with a weather page based on my Davis weather station and CumulusMX running on a Raspberry Pi. CumulusMX has a very good forum with people there who know Linux very well who will help. I used WinSCP and FTP to upload the weather page files to my server space. You can check it out: My Weather Page

I decided it might not be a bad idea to use my server space for an offsite backup for the several computers I have, especially my photo collection and business files. I wanted to be able to add the server space as a mapped drive or network location in Windows Explorer. I had done that before to share a 2 TB SSD attached to my Raspberry Pi running Samba. That's when I first began to really hate Windows. I could not get the shared resource to work. I could ping the RP but could not open the SSD folders. It turned out to be an obscure setting in group privileges that I had to change. Windows would work with Windows server but not a Linux server the way it was set in Windows 11.

I set up a network location for my FTP site. Windows even gives you the format when you tell it you want to set up an FTP server. The format is "FTP://mydomain.com". That worked after I figured out the Inmotion instructions forgot to tell you the server address has an ftp. in front of it.

I proceeded to upload a fairly large folder of photos using Windows Explorer and it worked very well. The trouble started when I decided to open some of the photos after the upload completed. When I clicked on any file Windows tried to open it up in MS Edge browser. Edge cannot do FTP so it just shows the startup page. I checked the file properties and Explorer recognized it was a .jpg file. I figured this must be an issue with the Default Apps setting. I made sure that .jpg files opened with the Photos app. I tired again and it still tried to use the useless MS Edge to open the file.

I went back to the default app settings and looked at the setting for FTP protocol. The only choices are MS Edge or my FTP software WinSCP. If I choose WinSCP all I can do when I click on a file is download it. Then I can navigate to the download folder and open it with Photos. What a PITA. Why can't Windows just open a file that it knows is a .jpg in Photos?

I decided to see how Linux handles FTP servers. I have an older PC that runs Linux Mint. As I guessed Linux Mint opened the server and let me save my user name and password. I made it a Favorite. I clicked on one of the photos and it opened right up. I tried other files and they opened in the default app too.

The lesson once again is that Windows works with Windows resources (maybe) but if you want to go outside of Windows you are on your own. I am sure there is some registry tweak or something I have missed but that's for another day. Maybe there is a way I can set up a server on my Inmotion server using something other than FTP that Windows works better with? If someone has experience in these things I am all ears.

[CentralMass]

1. It has been awhile but I used have a desktop PC setup as a server running Debian Linux.

I installed Samba on it and created Samba shares. This was some years back. We had gotten our daughters some inexpensive laptops when hard drive were not that large. I gave everyone a Samba drive on the server that had two beefy hard drives.
From windows we could just access them like a local drive.

[Hokie]

4. Samba works

I am running a local server on a Raspberry Pi that runs a form of Debian. I added it as a mapped network drive and it works well. Files open in their default apps.

[justaprogressive]

2. It's the ftp protocol causing your problem

Edge can only get a directory listing...and maybe read a text file...

There is no way to do this with FTP. For any program to see the image (not just windows) it must download the entire image then render it. When you see thumbnails on a website or in windows there is a second scaled down copy hiding somewhere (you can just see the path on a normal web page if you view the source, for windows it is inside that thumbs.db (the finename stands for Thumbnail Database ))

but
I'd try the function Data communication -> Protocols -> FTP -> FTP Get Buffer. It appears to grab a single file and put it in RAM.
You can also try the information in this document:

https://zone.ni.com/reference/en-XX/help/371361R-01/lvconcepts/using_datasocket_technology/
to use datasockets to access FTP files.

HTH!

[Hokie]

3. I don't see data communication in settings

I found Internet settings but there's very little on FTP.

I see what you mean on FTP. I think Linux downloads the file somewhere then opens it. I tried a presentation file and it took quite a while to open it in Libre Office. But what Windows does makes no sense to me. When Edge opens it goes to the home page and does nothing with the file.

[CentralMass]

5. How to transfer files from Linux to Windows: The SMB network file-sharing protocol

https://wamaithanyamu.com/how-to-transfer-files-from-linux-to-windows-the-smb-network-file-sharing-protocol

[Hokie]

6. I cannot use Samba in this case

My hosting company offers only FTP and a more secure protocol called SFTP that Windows does not natively support. I am using Samba for my local NAS. It works OK with Windows once I changed a few very hidden settings.

I am only paying for the shared hosting package from InMotion Hosting. I think a package with a dedicated sever and unique IP address offers the ability to install Samba.

[CentralMass]

7. Does it allow SFTP (over SSH) or is that not helpful ?

[Hokie]

9. Yes, they do allow that

They even explain how to generate private and public keys. I was reading about that last night.

[CentralMass]

10. You could try that or SCP. I think I used SCP the last time I was doing file transfers on a Raspberry Pi.

[CentralMass]

8. SCP is what I was thinking of.

https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-use-scp-command-to-securely-transfer-files/

[CloudWatcher]

11. How to say "FTP"

When you think of FTP, think "no, just no. Do not ever use except on your local LAN"

FTP dates from the earliest days of the Arpanet/Internet. User names and passwords are sent in the clear .. i.e. anyone doing a packet trace will trivially see your login info.

FTP is fine for *anonymous* file fetches. Other than that, don't use it. The fact that your hosting service supports it is not in their favor.

Use a real network-file system protocol (SMB) vs. FTP which was designed before file-sharing protocols.

Btw if you're looking for a better hosting service, I've been happy with linode.com. There's a $5/month plan that gives a full virtual linux box that you can setup with any software you want to install.