I have a Samba mount at home (behind NAT, accessible via wireguard VPN), which works very well when accessing my home files when traveling (I travel a lot for work).
The only detail missing from this solution is sharing individual files with friends. I could give them access to my VPN, but that gives them access to everything, not just one thing I want to share. Also not all my friends are that tech savvy to manage connecting to a VPN.
What would be really great is to have a link-generator that punches a hole in the NAT to give them access to specific files. Are there any self-hosted solutions for that?
https://file.pizza/ just because the pizza toppings URLs are fun and nasty
not self-hosted
file.pizza can be self hosted, https://github.com/kern/filepizza
It’s not quite self hosted, but Soulseek allows you to share share private directories with buddies. Soulseek might require a port forward.
Other than that, there are the many pasteboard solutions that have been mentioned. They’ll either require a port forward or reverse proxy (nginx etc.) to access outside the network though.
Copyparty is amazing
Just make sure not to shorten the name of that using the linux command for copy
I’ve been looking for something like this as well. Hopefully someone has a solution.
you might configure Syncthing in that way
If I’m understanding the OP’s use case, Syncthing is a poor choice for this. It’s great for power-user secure syncing, but not for casual sharing.
Try nextcloud. It can generate links to files like this.
100% this. I have one running in a lxc, and I expose it to the world through a CloudFlare tunnel so I needn’t worry about dyndns or people probing my public IP.
I use Filebrowser Quantum if you are happy opening up a port for it. It supports 2fa. Also requires Docker which isn’t too difficult.
Thanks! I went looking for something better than nextcloud, and this one really fit the ticket.
I had Nextcloud running for several years (VM is the best way IMO, I would avoid the Docker AIO). However I found Filebrowser and it rocks as a file share service. Filebrowser Quantum is a fork with more feature as the original no longer has a maintainer. The most I’ve had someone upload to it was 300GB.
I use Pingvin. You upload a file to it and it generates a link. Has expiration on the link.
You can allow anonymous uploads or not, give friends logins etc.
I have it locked down to just me with a login and I use it to let others download the files.
I tried it but Copyparty worked better, it has a massive community suddenly and tons of cool features that mostly stay out of the way unless you enable them
Last I checked it was abandoned and no one is maintaining a fork either.
Good to know, thanks.
You can consider using a Pikapods service for this. It’s dead simple to strand up a server when you need one.
https://www.pikapods.com/apps#storage
They have Gokapi and/or PrivateBin for just about a buck per month. You can turn the service on and off whenever you like. Good company to work with, IME, too.
Copyparty is easy, but if you can both set up syncthing, that makes it a breeze. I have a sibling that lives across the Pacific and last time they visited I set up syncthing on their laptop and when either of us wants to share something, we just drop it in that folder and wait a minute or two.
Dang. I never thought of using the discovery servers for that purpose. Creative! Just hope that one side doesn’t accidentally delete everything in there…
Any particular reason why you can’t do something like host a Send instance instead? Better to treat “filesystem behind the network” and “files to share” as two different things: one is imanent, the other is punctual and sporadic.
Just run a web server and expose the specific files you want to share through that?
If you have Docker hand you can use my project Directory Lister to do just this quick and easily (Docker docs).
Yea just draw the rest of the owl duh! 🙄
python3 -m http.server
Are both parties online at the same time?
Maybe something like this is a good solution: https://github.com/magic-wormhole/magic-wormhole
It will figure out the fastest p2p connection and send even very large files without hassle.
Another vote for Syncthing. Might be a little too complicated for some though
There are a few implementations of wormhole that might work.
If you’re ok with exposing a server to the internet, I’ve had good luck with sharry. https://eikek.github.io/sharry/
I’ve also had good luck running a Nextcloud instance to share with friends and family. But that is probably overkill here.
