[Twisted-Python] Collaborative file storage via ftp/sftp/smb and html

[Andy Gayton]

Andrew Bennetts wrote:

G'dday Andrew, thanks for the reply, I need to be careful how I describe 
things when posting to a forum of protocol experts :) .. I don't know 
anything about protocols .. as you can tell ;)

I'm interested in things from an application view.  So sftp the 
application, not sftp the protocol.

> ftp isn't robust, either -- the multi-socket aspect of it means it often
> breaks in the presence of firewalls.  It also has no agreed standard for
> sharing metadata (like modification times or content types?).

ok

 > SFTP has very little in common with FTP.  The only similarities I can 
think
 > of are that SFTP clients are traditionally presented to look like FTP
 > clients, and that SFTP has per-session authentication (whereas with e.g.

For administration you face the same problems - how to restrict users to 
given areas, how to get groups of users to play well together.  For the 
end user - as you say they are presented to look the same which is what 
I'm interested in.

 > I suspect that you can resume with SMB -- a network filesystem that 
doesn't
 > support accessing files in pieces (i.e. seek) is pretty limited.  Most
 > clients wouldn't expose this functionality, though.

I'd be very interested in clients that do expose this if anyone knows of 
any ..

 >>html - can be secure, slow non robust file transfer, doesn't support
 >>resume, easy to administer who has access to what, client access is
 >>universal

 > (I think you mean HTTP)

Sorry, I meant a html form file upload file browser type application. 
HTTP is the protocol this would run over - but so would webdav - which 
could plugin into this virtual filesystem as well!  Form file uploads 
don't support resume as far as I know and aren't very robust ..

> I just thought I should correct some misunderstandings about the protocols
> you mentioned :)

Appreciated - but feedback on what you'd like a common collaborative 
filesystem backend to look like for these applications would be more 
appreciated :)

Andy.