Website - creating a place to upload files to

I'd assume without any understanding of your biz, customer model, etc., you'd want to build a secure web UI where users can authenticate, and upload using a browser (i.e., like uploading images to this BB).

Personally, I wouldn't upload and serve static content off my web server, I'd use a service like S3, but that does add a little more complexity to the whole solution (but in the end, is much better).

You also have to consider security. Are the uploads meant to be secured, so not anyone can download them? If they are, and you provide an easily deciphered path, other users could easily download files.

 

You can create a web form that accepts user uploaded files. Granted, you'll want to spend time on the validation code processing the files submitted in that form to ensure no malicious activity is successful (e.g. injection, overflow, etc).

 

Two ways:
1) As already mentioned: Web form, ensure type= is set appropriately, tons of validation; both pre and post server side.
2) WebDav. Not super hard, nor super easy but definitely AWESOME. I haven't used it in productions sites, but do run it locally.

 

And this is a problem for you? Are you uploading single file star charts for route planning or human DNA basepairs?

Google has better and more professional tutorials than I can give in a message reply

Yeah, that one is very 1986, works well, simple, but not easily scalable.

 

Maybe if you outlined your solution a little more, we could provide some better input.

I've been developing for over 25 years and others that post here have some great insight ... I guarantee I/we can provide some general design/architecture guidance, but we're sort of just throwing darts in a dark room.

 

Outstanding! When I'm not decimated from the beach, and not on our second bottle of wine, I'll review this.

 

In between things this morning, figured I'd pop in

So, is everyone a peer, that is: can everyone upload and download equally? There's no user roles, access privs, if you can upload, you can upload for anyone to download - the access control is on or off.

If this is some kind of collaborative workflow, where everyone is at the same access level and they're known colleagues/friends, I'm curious why a file sharing solution isn't the best option? You already mentioned DropBox ... have you checked out Google Drive? Box? OneDrive?

They provide access controls, invites, auto-compression, categorization, folders plus nice client apps for desktop and mobile.

Second bottle got done in - sending you a 3rd bottle

 

Wow. Don't recall ever, in 30+ years of code development and 15+ years web development ever having to upload 9G+ files.

But here it goes. You will have to develop a web form to do this. Ensure your server settings have not set a limit to something like 2GB for some crazy reason. I would build a simple HTML5 / javascript drag and drop interface. That way you would log in, simply drag and drop the file in a drag/drop region of the web page and have javascript report back on the progress and success or failure. Google the same for tons of tutorials on how to do this. It is easier than it sounds.

As a fair warning, setting up your server to handle 9GB+ files could be abused for DOS attacks. Depending on your site type/domain this may or may not be an issue at all.