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Ask HN: “lofi” File Share for personal, team usage

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Ask HN: “lofi” File Share for personal, team usage

#1

Post by dv35z »

The Team File Share. AKA “How is this still an unsolved problem?”

In 2004, I worked at a bank, and our team had a “P:/“ drive. It was a networked file share (probably Windows Server), mounted on everyone’s computer. Turns out, several members of the team were meticulous organizers, and would even leave notes at top-level folders - an index & guidance on what to put there, how to name files, and so on. Loved it, and did my best to keep things tidy and easy to find. What’s great is the whole file structure was browsable in a Browser (eg visiting p://marketing/events/2022-09-05 - Lunch & Learn/ would show the Apache-style index page, containing html links to files in that directory. Sharing a file with a colleage was as simple as sending the URL. When we wanted to share files externally, we had an FTP fileshare you could drag files to, and the URL was also predictable (http://external-example.com/marketing/events/teaser.mp4)

I was brainstorming today, and was wondering, what’s a modern setup of the above?

I’ve been experimenting with Dropbox & Google Drive with “fresh eyes”… so many frustrations, especially on iOS. It’s either you’re using their apps directly (annoying UI for both), or iOS File.app. But half the time, Dropbox isn’t “connected” (?) - in today’s case I had to update the Dropbox app & re-authenticate thru their app before the files were available in Files. It all seemed so silly of a disruption from such an essential tool of my file: my digital files!

Are there any “so simple, it feels like we are in a 2004 office” file share solutions?

A few requirements (feel free to m suggest other (need/wants), in the comments)… - I can access my files on my computer (Finder, terminal) and phone (iOS, using Files.app) - Files are automatically backed up (hourly/daily/weekly) - I can read & write to files when there is no network service (eg while in NYC subway), and they’ll sync back up (SyncThing?) - Private files are secure. On a personal fileshare, I ought to be able to store health records, financial records, sensitive notes & files. The “me” stuff. The family drive would have kids health records and so on. (the first solution that came to mind is “encrypted, password protected disk image, hosted on a fileshare in a VPC, only accessible when logged into VPN; and then accessible thru iOS Files.app?)

For Work, I ought to have “my drive” (eg example.com/~me/projects/, and “team drive”, also a private work area m (pay statements, notes from 1:1s / boss, etc) - Fileshare. I ought to be able to be able to drag a file over to pub-fileshare, and it’s accessible to anyone with the URL. Or protected-fileshare, where certain folders have passwords (or some other securing mechanism, since who wants to remember more passwords…?

What’s the state of the art / tool stack of a “lofi” fileshare setup?

Imagine you were setting this up for (1) yourself (2) a best friend (3) family (4) small work team

What solution might actually last 10+ years?

Re: Ask HN: “lofi” File Share for personal, team usage

#5

Post by rejectfinite »

Windows AD domains and FTP still exists.

I feel like Teams/Sharepoint in Office 365 does this. Make a "Team" and you get a Sharepoint site. Just put folders and files in. Inv ppl in the org. Can share externally and you get a link.

For personal use? idk

>What solution might actually last 10+ years?

FTP still actually, lol

Re: Ask HN: “lofi” File Share for personal, team usage

#6

Post by sophacles »

rejectfinite wrote: post #5

Windows AD domains and FTP still exists. I feel like Teams/Sharepoint in Office 365 does this. Make a "Team" and you get a Sharepoint site. Just put folders and files in. Inv ppl in the org. Can share externally and you get a link. For personal use? idk >What solution might actually last 10+ years? FTP still actually, lol

FTP is older than IP. At this point it's probably immortal.

Re: Ask HN: “lofi” File Share for personal, team usage

#8

Post by speedylight »

I occasionally find myself in this situation where I want to get image.jpeg or file.txt from one device to another but Bluetooth isn’t an option (thanks Tim Apple) or a USB drive, I didn’t want to have to upload those files to a cloud service then back to my laptop, because my upload speed is terrible, and also privacy concerns. The easiest solution that I came up with is using my Rasberry Pi as a bridge with an SFTP client, which is really just an SSH session with the benefit of being able to transfer files, and also execute system commands like you would a normal SSH connection.

The way I use it is very manual and hacky, but it works since it only happens every once in a while. But my point is you can use your own hardware to run an SFTP or a normal FTP server, NextCloud instance, or even one of those prebuilt NAS drives. And if you don’t want to manage your own hardware, you can use a Digital Ocean droplet to do the same thing albeit with monthly payments, but it’s not like running your own hardware is free.

There’s no shortage of options and you certainly aren’t limited to what I mentioned, but it’s good place to start so you can find what works best for you.

Re: Ask HN: “lofi” File Share for personal, team usage

#9

Post by tuxracer »

speedylight wrote: post #8

I occasionally find myself in this situation where I want to get image.jpeg or file.txt from one device to another but Bluetooth isn’t an option (thanks Tim Apple) or a USB drive, I didn’t want to have to upload those files to a cloud service then back to my laptop, because my upload speed is terrible, and also privacy concerns. The easiest solution that I came up with is using my Rasberry Pi as a bridge with an SFTP…

You might find https://snapdrop.net/ useful in these situations

Re: Ask HN: “lofi” File Share for personal, team usage

#10

Post by Theodores »

Related: my latest discovery is Thunderbolt networking.

I have my main machine with everything on and my personal machine I use for testing and web browsing. They both have access to the same files at warp speed. If I then disconnect I can use wifi or I can use the internet.

The lack of latency enables keyboard/mouse sharing across my two machines to work seamlessly. Finding files is at native speeds.

The two machines 'research' and 'development' on their little Thunderbolt connection backup with rsnapshot to a low power NUC that just does backups and hosts 'assets' (images).

The assets sync with rsync to their respective project folders, the rest of the project is updated on a per machine basis with version control and deployment scripts.

I have the home router accessible by FQDN with reserved MAC addresses and port forwarding. This sits behind a CDN that is there to fend off any unwelcome visitors as well as to experiment with content delivery. It is my take on a locked down 'origin server'.

If you setup all of the networking options, for example NFS, SSHFS and SAMBA then you can create a network that can be used by wider members of the team working from home. For example art workers.

If you have buy in from the artworkers then consider NextCloud etc.

I run certbot on the local machines, so everything is https FQDN rather than IP addresses.

Motivation for this setup is in part ease of testing on mobile. I have no use case for wanting to ssh in or browse my file system from my phone.

I do not like using a VPN and setting up OpenVPN is not something I enjoy. I like UFW, bare metal, mod security, public/private key and generally upping my security game without there being passwords. I have 2FA for lots of things now.

I can share my work in development without it being on the official staging server, I can even check the logs to see if interest has been expressed.

For email I don't trust myself to maintain and update that bale of Postfix and all the rest of it. Not bothering with email (I run mailhog) is a good way to cop out of building a full beast of a server.

I use JetBrains Space to keep organised. It does lots of things that mean I can access my todo list and glorified bookmarks, not to mention repos, anywhere including on my phone to some extent.

This means that I don't really have to use a dropbox clone. I have a single source of truth on my backup server for the 'assets' that need to by rsynced across places. I can casually surf my LAN wherever I am or do things in my IDE with a ssh mounted drive if I need to get to the /etc folder (which is not shared).

Soft links are your friends, as are hard links.

By all means setup something that does every possible scenario, however, you might find it is just going to be people in the wider team that need a Dropbox feature, normal backups with rsnapshot work great, rsync with its options to exclude stuff is good for sharing to development environments in combination with version control. With router configuration and FQDN you can make this work elegantly. Finally, Thunderbolt networking in your own home is a good way to use your personal machine to test your work at silly speeds.

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