How to set up a home FTP server

How to set up a home FTP server

If you’ve been following the the Lifehacker Home Server Series of articles, you know how to do things like reach your home computer from anywhere in the world thanks to dynamic DNS services. Gina wrote about how to set up a personal home web server, but in my experience the killer home server feature that hasn’t been covered to date is how to set up a personal FTP server at home.

A home FTP server is useful to anyone who wants to save and retrieve files on their computer from anywhere. Ever forget a Word document on your home desktop that you really need at work? Ever download a PDF that explains how to fix something at work and you realize too late you left it at home that morning? If you have a personal FTP server, and you can reach your computer from any place on earth, your files will never be captive on your hard drive at home again.

My home FTP server has saved me on many occasions. Sometimes it’s when I’m on a business trip and need an extra file left at home, most often it’s when I’m in the office and didn’t remember to bring files I worked on at home. By far my best FTP story is from a few years ago, when my wife was giving a reading at a wedding. A couple hours before the ceremony, we realized we left the poem sitting in the tray of my printer at home. We sped to my nearby office, I FTP’d to my desktop, got the Word doc downloaded and printed it there, which we took to the wedding with time to spare. My home FTP server saved the day.

How to set up a home FTP server