Dear List,

        About a year ago, I set up something for our lab which they know as
The Dropbox. It's a system we use to allow people outside our lab to
exchange files with us. Downloading files can be done through any web
browser, and uploading files can be done with IE on Windows, a mount in
Mac, and via many different methods on *nix. No password is required,
though in the future we may consider one. This is implemented via
WEBDav, a widely-supported extension to HTTP.

        We've worked with several groups so far, and all of them have
enjoyed having this available - exchanging files through email being
such a pain, particularly when the files are 25+ MB in size. As a
result, I've been asked a few times by personnel how to create one of
these dropboxes for their own use.

        So far I've answered these questions on an individual basis, but the
recent "mail the CDs of pictures to us" in the OMRF photo contest got me
thinking: maybe there would be some interest in learning how to set one
up on a Linux box?

        So, I'm emailing the ISG and the LUG to see if people would be
interested in setting up one of these for themselves or their lab.
With Apache on either Windows, Mac, or *nix, it's pretty easy to do.

        Please let me know off-list, and if there's enough interest I'll put
together a basic lesson on how to do it. Further inquiry could be done
at either a Q&A session, or via list email on either the ISG or LUG
list. Topics would include:

        - Setting up WEBDav
        - Password protection
        - Problems with IE
        - Basic user problems

        Setting up the repository is quite simple, there's just a few
caveats I've come across in running one for a year or so.

Let me know,
Alan
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