The most consistent complaint I receive from upperclassmen CS students is about the difficulty of reaching their campus storage from off-campus. Because of our extensive use of Windows and OIT’s firewall, this task is needlessly difficult. Many students, faculty, and staff use Linux to reach their files (instructions (//engineer.siue.edu)) but this requires knowledge and experience and in some cases (e.g. the Senior Project Folders) is rather hard.
To combat this problem, the CS Tech. Group is working on a new server that allows users to circumvent the firewall by using a web-based interface. I admit that we are not done (see the TODO List) and that the system has some limitations (see the limitations list), but it may be of use to you so I am posting this link.
Remember this is an experiment. Please let us know if you find any bugs.
http://shares.cs.siue.edu (http://shares.cs.siue.edu)
TODO List:
1. Add more shares to the site.
2. Fix the user interface (There are some HCI problems)
3. Get money for and purchase a Site Certificate (we are using a homegrown one).
4. Load Test (I’m not sure how many people can use this at once).
5. Better Zip File support.
Limitations:
1. Only <8MB files may be uploaded.
2. Files must be uploaded one at a time.
3. Real slow showing directories with more than 500 files.
Yeah, this is a good project. I remember having to teach my senior project team how to use smbclient in order to upload our web files to the CS website from off-campus. Hopefully this will help many CS students.
I remember connecting to the senior projects folders from off campus. While it was far from difficult it was (like many things in this world) needlessly complex for such a simple task.
How did you do it? Was it before the firewall or after? Perhaps you could offer some pointers to those who want a more sophisticated and powerful technique
I actually used two different methods. Before I was told I could do it with SMBClient I actually tunneled through my workstation on campus. Something most people couldn't do.