File sharing server

[Andrew Woodward]

Hi all,
We have just purchased a hosted cPanel dedicated server.
Specifications are:
CPU
Intel Xeon E3-1230 v3 4x3.3GHz
Memory/Ram
8GB DDR3 RAM
Storage
2 x 1TB HDD
Operating System
CentOS Linux (cPanel compatible)
Control Panel
cPanel (available with CentOS and CloudLinux only)
Network / Bandwidth
20 TB per month (100 Mbps port)
External backup solution
JetBackup (cPanel required)

We want to set the server up as a file sharing server that will be accessed by windows clients and apple iMac clients. We want home directories for users as well as departmental share directories.
What’s the best way to go with this. We have had Samba suggested but unsure of the best way to install this on the cPanel server.
Also will Samba work with the iMac clients.

Many thanks

Andy

 

[rpvw]

I am sure most system administrators are wondering what motivated you to want to use a server solution designed for web hosting, for your file sharing server ?

I am not aware that cPanel has any official way of installing Samba, as it is not something one would normally deploy on a website hosting server.

That being said, it may well be possible to install it, and for it to work for you alongside the cPanel installation, but I wouldn't know what to advise you to do, as I would be inclined to deploy Samba on a stand alone file server without any of the encumbrances and extra software that cPanel will install for web hosting, nor do I know if there are any fundamental incompatibilities between it and cPanel supplied services.

Although Samba will work perfectly well for serving files to Windows/Linux/Mac clients, you may like to look at some alternative solutions that are already built into cPanel if you want to continue to use it.

You may be able to work with the cPanel Web Disk feature that allows users to connect to the server and display the content of a folder as a Read-Write or as a Read-Only folder or drive on their local machine. Please see Web Disk - Version 76 Documentation - cPanel Documentation for further details.

Further to that, web based folder indexing should be possible from a browser, although you would probably have to protect files behind password protected directory privacy Directory Privacy - Version 76 Documentation - cPanel Documentation , or you could use the built-in FTP facilities to access files and folders as required. FTP Accounts - Version 76 Documentation - cPanel Documentation

I hope this is some help.

 

[cPanelLauren]

Hello,


cPanel is a control panel meant to manage your web hosting server, we don't test for compatibility with file sharing servers. Ultimately it would be best to confirm with the makers of the filesharing software whether or not you'll be able to run both simultaneously, I have seen some folks using samba as well as some others but I can't guarantee their compatibility nor can we recommend one.

As @rpvw also suggested you might want to look at WebDisk for the functionality you're looking for as well.