Networking Question....

[Pako]

For all those networking guru's (looks at Giles...) I got kinda a wierd question for ya...

This has to do with mapping drive letters.

Lets say you have a FTP site that you frequent and you would like to map a drive letter to that FTP site.

How do you do it? Can it even be done?

Lets say that behind the scenes the FTP server is managing all the routing. The user only sees ftp.yoursite.com (207.206.16.3)and it knows what folder to give you access to. What is really happening is that you (as the user) is given rights to 207.206.16.3/sharename/userfolder/public.

In mapping the ftp site as a network drive, do I need to have the server share out a specific folder and use the IP address and sharename when mapping?

How can I go about doing this? Any ideas?

Thanks ya'll.

 

[GilesGuthrie]

Hmmm.

My quick response would be "Can you actually map a drive letter to an FTP site?"

I think that in Windows 2000+, you can store an FTP site in "My network places", and thus you would be able to access it more easily, but would you be able to map a drive? Not sure.

I think that the problem really stems from user authentication. When you log into, say, a NetWare server, you get an authentication key that is valid pretty much forever (or until your particular session dies, or the server is restarted0.

When you log into an FTP server, the timeout is typically much more transient - you are typically thrown off after 5 minutes' idle time.

So, the trick then would be to (a) dupe the FTP server into believing you were still connected, and (b) to dupe Explorer into believing that the FTP connection was equivalent to a network connection.

I have seen that CuteFTP adds shell extensions - maybe it has the features you're looking for.

 

[Pako]

I found a program from www.knoware.com that works out sweet, but I was trying to accomplish this without the use of 3-rd party software.

In mapping a drive, you can assign a different username and password that is different from your inherant, windows login.

I'm a little unclear as to the process of enabling share folders for networking maping on a FTP server or if it's even available.

If you could enable [sharename] and particular group rights, in windows networking, you could map \\ip.address\sharename and it should work.

Any thoughts?

 

[GilesGuthrie]

Yes, you can, but you wouldn't be connecting via FTP on port 21 (is it 21, or 23, can't remember), you'd be connecting using Windows networking.

You can map a drive to \\aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd\sharename, it's just a normal UNC path, but without the reliance upon DNS/NetBIOS/WINS handling the name resolution, but again, you wouldn't be connecting over FTP, you'd be connecting over Windows networking.