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+<?xml version="1.0" ?>
+<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//KDE//DTD DocBook XML V4.2-Based Variant V1.1//EN" "dtd/kdex.dtd" [
+ <!ENTITY kappname "&kpf;">
+ <!ENTITY package "kdenetwork">
+ <!ENTITY % addindex "IGNORE">
+ <!ENTITY % English "INCLUDE" > <!-- change language only here -->
+]>
+
+<book lang="&language;">
+
+ <bookinfo>
+
+ <title>The &kpf; Handbook</title>
+
+ <authorgroup>
+
+ <author>
+ <firstname>Rik</firstname>
+ <surname>Hemsley</surname>
+ <affiliation>
+ <address>&Rik.Hemsley.mail;</address>
+ </affiliation>
+ </author>
+
+ <!-- TRANS:ROLES_OF_TRANSLATORS -->
+
+ </authorgroup>
+
+ <copyright>
+ <year>2002</year>
+ <holder>&Rik.Hemsley;</holder>
+ </copyright>
+
+ <legalnotice>&FDLNotice;</legalnotice>
+
+ <date>2003-09-30</date>
+ <releaseinfo>1.0.1</releaseinfo>
+
+ <abstract>
+ <para>
+ &kpf; allows you to share files over a network.
+ </para>
+ </abstract>
+
+ <keywordset>
+ <keyword>KDE</keyword>
+ <keyword>public</keyword>
+ <keyword>fileserver</keyword>
+ <keyword>HTTP</keyword>
+ </keywordset>
+
+ </bookinfo>
+
+ <chapter id="introduction">
+
+ <title>Introduction</title>
+
+ <para>
+ &kpf; provides simple file sharing using &HTTP; (the Hyper Text
+ Transfer Protocol,) which is the same protocol used by web sites to
+ provide data to your web browser. &kpf; is strictly a public
+ fileserver, which means that there are no access restrictions to shared
+ files. Whatever you select for sharing is available to anyone.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ &kpf; is designed to be used for sharing files with friends, not to
+ act like a fully-fledged web server such as
+ <application>Apache</application>. &kpf; was primarily conceived
+ as an easy way to share files with others while chatting on
+ <acronym>IRC</acronym> (Internet Relay Chat, or <quote>chat
+ rooms</quote>.)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ Typical usage: &kpf; is set up to serve files from the <filename
+ class="directory">public_html</filename> folder in your home
+ folder. You wish to make a file available to some people with
+ whom you are chatting online. Rather than send them each an
+ email with the file attached (some may not even be interested,)
+ you copy the file into your <filename
+ class="directory">public_html</filename> folder and announce
+ to those listening that your file is available at
+ http://www.mymachine.net:8001/thefile
+ </para>
+
+ </chapter>
+
+ <chapter id="using-kpf">
+
+ <title>Using &kpf;</title>
+
+ <sect1 id="kpf-basics">
+
+ <title>&kpf; basics</title>
+
+ <para>
+ &kpf; runs as an applet inside &kicker;. This means that it
+ takes up little space on your screen and its status is always
+ visible. To start the &kpf; applet,
+ <mousebutton>right</mousebutton> click on &kicker; and choose
+ <guimenu>Add Applet to Panel...</guimenu> to open the <guilabel>Add
+ Applet</guilabel> dialog. Select <guilabel>Public File Server</guilabel> and
+ click the <guibutton>Add to Panel</guibutton> button.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ &kpf; employs the concept of shared folders. You may choose
+ one or more folders to make public, and all files in that folder
+ (and any subfolders) will be shared.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ Please be extremely careful about which folders you
+ share. Remember that all files in the folder and its
+ subfolders, including <quote>hidden</quote> files
+ (<quote>dotfiles</quote> to the techies) will be made
+ available to the world, so be careful not to share sensitive
+ information, such as passwords, cryptographic keys, your
+ addressbook, documents private to your organization, &etc;.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ Once &kpf; is running, you will see a square applet with a
+ thin sunken bevel and an icon depicting an <guiicon>hot air
+ balloon</guiicon>. The balloon is visible when no folders are being
+ shared.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ To share a folder, <mousebutton>right</mousebutton> click
+ on the balloon icon and a popup menu will appear, containing
+ only one item, <guimenuitem>New
+ Server...</guimenuitem>. Selecting this entry will cause a
+ <quote>wizard</quote> to appear, which will ask you a few
+ simple questions. Completing the questions will set up a
+ folder for sharing.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ There is an alternative to using the applet directly when you
+ want to share a folder. &kpf; is integrated with &konqueror;.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ With &konqueror; open and displaying a folder,
+ <mousebutton>right</mousebutton> click on the background and
+ bring up the <quote>Properties</quote> dialog. On install,
+ &kpf; added a <guilabel>Sharing</guilabel> tab to this
+ dialog. You will be offered the option of starting &kpf; if it
+ is not running. Choosing <guibutton>Ok</guibutton> will send a
+ signal to the &kpf; applet, asking it to add a new share.
+ </para>
+
+ </sect1>
+
+ </chapter>
+
+ <chapter id="share-config">
+
+ <title>Share configuration</title>
+
+ <sect1 id="listen-port">
+
+ <title>Listen port</title>
+
+ <para>
+ For each folder that is shared by &kpf;, a new network
+ <quote>port</quote> is opened. A <quote>port</quote> is simply a number used to uniquely identify a
+ network service. When someone uses a program (&eg; a web browser)
+ to connect to a machine, it is directed to the service by specifying
+ the address of the machine and the <quote>port</quote> on which the service is
+ running.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ The <quote>port</quote> concept allows one machine to run more
+ than one network service. Services you might use every day
+ include &HTTP; (the web,) usually connected to by port 80,
+ &SMTP; (mail sending,) usually on port 25,
+ and POP3 (mail receiving,) usually on port 110.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ Usually, when you connect to a network service, you do not need
+ to specify which <quote>port</quote> you want to connect
+ to. This is because the ports are standardized, so anyone
+ connecting to port 80 on a network machine expects to find an
+ &HTTP; (web) server.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ &kpf; is not a <quote>standard</quote> service, so 8001 was
+ chosen for the default port.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ The second folder you share will offer to listen on port 8002,
+ with the number being incremented each time you start a new share.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ Within certain boundaries, you are free to choose whichever port
+ number you wish, for a share.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ It is usual for port numbers below 1000 to be reserved for
+ <quote>system</quote> services, &ie; those under the control
+ of the machine's administrator, therefore you may find that
+ attempting to use anything below 1000 will simply not work.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ &kpf; tries to warn you when it cannot <quote>listen</quote>
+ on a port. It does this by displaying a <guiicon>broken
+ connection</guiicon> icon over the top-left corner of the
+ graph. &kpf; attempts to stop you assigning more than one
+ share to the same port, but it will not attempt to stop you
+ setting a share to listen on a port which is already occupied
+ by another service, for example your <quote>real</quote> web
+ server.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ If you see the <guiicon>broken connection</guiicon> icon,
+ <mousebutton>right</mousebutton> click on the bandwidth graph
+ and choose <guimenuitem>Configure...</guimenuitem> Now try
+ changing the listen port and pressing
+ <guibutton>Ok</guibutton>. Assuming that this time you picked
+ a free port, you should see that the <guiicon>broken
+ connection</guiicon> icon disappears, and you should now be
+ able to connect to the share.
+ </para>
+
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="bandwidth-limit">
+
+ <title>Bandwidth limit</title>
+
+ <para>
+ The term <quote>bandwidth</quote> refers to the amount of data
+ that may be transmitted over a connection during a period of
+ time. Techies may be overheard referring to how
+ <quote>fat</quote> their <quote>pipe</quote> is. The analogy
+ is apt.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ &kpf; allows you to set a limit on how much bandwidth will be
+ used by a particular share. This is useful when you want to
+ avoid your network connection being saturated by people
+ downloading from your shares. If you are on a modem, for
+ example, you only have a few kilobytes per second to
+ yourself. Limiting the bandwidth used by your &kpf; shares
+ will allow you to keep a portion of the bandwidth for your own
+ use.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ As just mentioned, &kpf; measures bandwidth in kilobytes per
+ second, or kB/s for short. A typical modem transfers about 5kB/s on
+ average, so limiting the total use of all &kpf; shares to a value
+ less than this may be wise, depending on how you are using &kpf;.
+ </para>
+
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="follow-symlinks">
+
+ <title>Follow symbolic links</title>
+
+ <para>
+ A symbolic link is a special file which is a reference to another
+ file (or folder) in your filesystem. By following the link,
+ you reach the file or folder referred to - the link is generally
+ transparent.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ By default, a &kpf; share does not allow the following of
+ symbolic links. This means that, for example, if you have a
+ share pointing to <filename
+ class="directory">/your/home/folder/public_html</filename>
+ and you create a link inside <filename
+ class="directory">public_html</filename>, pointing to
+ <filename class="directory">/tmp</filename>, then anyone
+ requesting <filename class="directory">/tmp</filename> will
+ see the contents of your <filename>/tmp</filename> folder.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ In general, it's a bad idea to allow the following of symbolic
+ links in this way. The main reason this is allowed is so that
+ you may have symbolic links inside the shared folder, which
+ point to another place inside the shared folder. This can
+ be useful if you're serving up an entire
+ <quote>website</quote> - which as mentioned previously, is not
+ the intended use of &kpf;.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ Just be careful not to link to anywhere on your file system that
+ might hold sensitive information (or have a symbolic link in it
+ somewhere that points to sensitive information!)
+ </para>
+
+ </sect1>
+
+ </chapter>
+
+ <chapter id="faq">
+
+ <title>Questions and Answers</title>
+
+ <qandaset id="faq-questions">
+
+ <qandaentry>
+
+ <question>
+ <para>Why does &kpf; not include any security mechanisms?</para>
+ </question>
+
+ <answer>
+
+ <para>
+ In truth, &kpf; does include various measures designed to help
+ prevent the user accidentally providing access to sensitive
+ information. There is no password protection and no encryption.
+ This is by design, as will be explained.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ The more security measures that are added to a service, the
+ safer people feel when using it. Sadly, to ensure real security,
+ the user needs to have a good understanding of the issues involved.
+ For example, providing password protection is no use if the user
+ does not know how to pick a good password. Therefore the decision
+ was made to provide zero security, in the hope that the user will
+ find it easier to understand what this means than to spend months
+ or years learning about the complexities of network security.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ The concept is simple. If you specify that a folder is
+ shared, it's shared to the world. If you don't want to make
+ it available to the world, don't share it.
+ </para>
+
+ </answer>
+
+ </qandaentry>
+
+ </qandaset>
+
+ </chapter>
+
+ <chapter id="credits">
+
+ <title>Credits and License</title>
+
+ <para>
+ &kpf;
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ Program copyright 2002 &Rik.Hemsley; &Rik.Hemsley.mail;
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ Documentation copyright 2002 by &Rik.Hemsley; &Rik.Hemsley.mail;
+ </para>
+
+<!-- TRANS:CREDIT_FOR_TRANSLATORS -->
+ &underFDL;
+
+ <para>
+ &kpf; is released under the MIT license.
+ </para>
+
+ </chapter>
+
+ <appendix id="installation">
+
+ <title>Installation</title>
+
+ <sect1 id="getting-kpf">
+
+ <title>How to obtain &kpf;</title>
+
+ &install.intro.documentation;
+
+ </sect1>
+
+ </appendix>
+
+ &documentation.index;
+
+</book>
+
+<!--
+Local Variables:
+mode: sgml
+sgml-minimize-attributes: nil
+sgml-general-insert-case: lower
+End:
+-->
+
+<!-- vim:tabstop=2:shiftwidth=2:expandtab -->