The NoRights Podcast: S3E34 – Talking HFS ~ Http File Server with Doug Live!

  • On September 23, 2014 ·
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This week Ben and Ian are joined by friend of the show Doug to discuss Ben’s on going search for a file sharing solution with his brother. But first Ian brings us this week’s headlines.

iOS 8: The Best Hidden Features. Next-gen USB gives HDMI rival a piggyback ride. NVIDIA’s new GPU proves moon landing truthers wrong. PlayStation TV launches October 14th in US and Canada. The states with the rudest drivers – and the states that hate them.

Ian also celebrated his 32nd birthday recently and one of his gifts was a Samsung Galaxy Tab S. Look forward to hearing him find uses for it on future episodes, and happy birthday, Ian 😀

HFS ~ Http File Server

Regular listeners are aware of Ben’s issues with finding a simple solution to sharing files with his brother. Well the current best solution he’s found is HFS ~ Http File Server by rejetto. Though currently Windows-only it’s easy enough to get it running under Wine. In fact, most of the previously mentioned porting methods on OS X will work with little effort. Perhaps the nicest option is to make a Wineskin wrapper so no other applications need to run. For HFS-specific questions, check out the FAQ as well as the documentation and the forum.

Port Forwarding

If you want the server to be reachable from the internet (One of the key reasons we’re using this server instead of a local networking setup) then you’ll want to open a port for it. I believe the default is 8080. This can be tricky depending on your specific router setup. If you only want to flip the port open during use you might like Port Map.

Dealing with Dynamic DNS

Once your server’s running you’ll want to point users to an address to log in from. However that can be difficult if you have a dynamic DNS from your service provider that changes. There are ways of setting up a static address but the easiest solution is signing up with a site that will handle it for you. HFS has wizards for using CJB, No-IP, and DynDNS.

Finally, the boys go for a round of general trivia to see who will be the reigning champion this week. It goes into a tie-breaker round with contestants neck and neck. Who will emerge victorious this week? Tune in to find out!