How to Start a File Sharing Website
Have you ever wanted to share files with friends and family without having to bother with long sending delays associated with emailing files, and without having to use file sharing services that have endless arrays of ads? You can set up your own personal file sharing service if you have your own website, making it easy for anyone to upload files from anywhere in the world. All it takes are some prewritten scripts and a little knowledge to start a file sharing website.
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Instructions
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Obtain a file sharing script that has the features you want for your website. You can find free scripts as well as scripts that cost money by performing a web search. What type of script you choose depends on what your intentions for your file sharing website are. If you want a site for your personal use and don't mind putting up with limitations, a free script will probably work just fine. If you want to monetize your site and let other people use it, you might want to invest in a commercial script. An example of a free script is uploadtool.sourceforge.net and an example of a commercial script is sibsoft.net/xfilesharing.html.
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After downloading or purchasing your file sharing script, open your FTP client (such as FileZilla or CuteFTP) and connect to your web server. Drag and drop the folder containing your file sharing script from your local computer to the web server, into your website root folder, usually named "htdocs" or something similar. Rename the folder to whatever you want, but don't change any file names within the folder.
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Set up the file sharing script. This will generally involve creating a MySQL database on the server and entering in the username, password and database name into the file sharing script. Most web hosts make it easy to create a MySQL database through the use of a database creation wizard.
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Open a browser and browse to the location where you uploaded your file sharing script. If it does not work properly, refer to the help documents or technical support information for the script, and---if necessary---try reinstalling it to see if that fixes the problem.
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Tips & Warnings
You will need PHP and MySQL installed on your server for most file sharing scripts to work, and some may require other applications to be installed, such as Perl or Zend.
