DropIT v2.5

 

 

 

What is DropIT?

DropIT has 2 main features:

• it can drop your ip-address as a pre-formatted text-file to a public FTP/www-server of your choice (viewable in any browser)
• retrieve addresses from a www-server dropped by DropIT, and PUT files via FTP to these addresses

 

Why to use DropIT?

Most people have dynamic ip-addresses; if you want a static address (e.g. to run an ftp- or www-server) you have to pay extra to your ISP. This is where DropIT helps; it sends your current ip-address to a www-server of your choice (a server with a static address) so that you (or others) can always check your address from wherever you or they are.
This is useful if you want to be able to connect to your computer with a Remote Access program (like Mac2Mac or Timbuktu).
DropIT can automatically lookup for an FTP-server's address (dropped by another computer running DropIT and an FTP-server program) and transfer files to this FTP-server.

DropIT is NOT the FTP-server itself; it's only the trick to 'fake' static addressing by PUTting and GETting the address. You can use any FTP-server with DropIT. However, DropIT has simple FTP-PUT capabilities.

The reason I made it is because a friend of mine runs a DTP-business, and he asked me whether it was possible to write an easy to use FTP-application without too much hazzle for exchanging ip-addresses.

With DropIT's pre-defined settings, all you have to do is select your file and watch it being transfered.

 

When NOT to use DropIT

1) When you have a private address you cannot benefit of the feaures of DropIP and DropDoc, simply because private addresses are not routed throughout the internet. If you have an RFC 1597 compliant private address DropIP will give you a warning (see note below).

Note however that some companies use public addresses on private networks and use NAT (Network Address Translation) to access public networks such as the internet. In this case there's no way to detect whether this is a real public address or a 'misused' public address.

Note on private addresses:

Most of the big routers on the internet are set up so that any packet destined or originating from a network address within the official private ranges are discarded, thus will not be transmitted through the Internet.
The private address ranges are defined in RFC 1918 as any address within the following ranges:
* Class A private network range: 10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255
* Class B Private network range: 172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255
* Class C private network range: 192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255

2) When you use NAT to enter the internet. Basically this means that your address gets converted to another official address before entering the internet.

3) When you're behind a firewall that does NOT allow FTP transfers (both directions).

 

 

Simple example:

- You have an FTP-server with a dynamic ip-address

- You have a www-server (where you post your homepage-files to)

- You have a customer/friend who wants to send you (large) files very often or the other way around

1) Install DropIT on your FTP-server. Each time the application is activated it can send a textfile (e.g. MyAddress.html) to the www-server with nothing but your ip-address in it. Now you can start your FTP-server.

2) Install DropIT on your friend's/customer's computer. DropIT will look for the file "MyAddress.htm" on the www-server and retrieve the ip-address of your FTP-server from it. Then it will make an FTP-connection to this address and transfers selected files. This is an easy way to get around the mailbox size limitations of e-mail as well.

 

How to use DropIT

Usage should be pretty straightforward. If you're stuck anyway you can mail me on philipz@pandora.be.

Check on http://users.pandora.be/philipz for more info and other programs.

 

Field overview:

DropIP: This is the tab that is used to drop your address on an FTP-WWW-server of your choice. Good practice is to start with this tab to see whether you can get it to work properly. Server's address: this is the FTP-WWW server where your ip-addres will be stored. Most likely this will be the same settings as when uploading your homepage Username: this is your account on this server Password: this is your password on this server Filename: name of the file your address is written to, e.g. MyAddress.htm or MyCompany.htm Upload address button: tries to upload your address as a textfile to the server Advanced options: Send address on program-startup: sends your address immediately on startup, without having to push the 'upload address' button Startup my FTP-server on program exit: starts up the FTP-server (or any program you want)of your choice after you quit DropIP.

GetIP: This is the section that will retrieve a textfile with ip-address from a predefined server URL/file to retrieve address from: www-server where an ip-address is stored as a textfile. Make sure you point to a file, and not a server. This will be in the form of http://Server/MyAddress.htm or http://Server/MyCompany.htm Use proxy: DropIT uses http, so if you're using a proxy, mark this box and fill in your proxyserver with portnumber, e.g. MyProxyserver:80 This is the same setting as you use for normal browsing. GetIP: retrieves the address stored in <MyAddress.htm> or <MyCompany.htm> and fills it in as the destination FTP-server (if succesfully retrieved) Retrieve address on program-startup: does exactly what it says it does

DropDoc: This is a simple FTP-PUT program to send files to an FTP-server server: the address retrieved by GetIP is filled in automatically here, or you can fill in one manually id: your account on the FTP-server password: your pasword on this server upload file: well... upload file as binary: toggles between ASCII and Binary mode

 

Features

- automatically checks if your system has a private address

- user-defined preferences

- Textfile upload in Passive mode. Other modes might be added in the future.

 

History

DropITv1.0

first public relase

DropITv1.1

added toggle button to switch between binary and ascii uploads

added ability to startup FTP-server from within DropIT

cleanup of the code & login bug fixed

changed from FreeWare to MailWare

DropITv1.1a

fixed a nasty bug that prevented to send the ip-address on startup

fixed a bug that sent emty text-files to some type of servers

DropITv2.0

fixed a bug that prevented from quitting when closing the main window

added extension to put address onto www-server on startup as a background task

changed from mailware to freeware =)

 

DropITv2.5

Added ability to have a delay before the extension executes. This way people that don't get an ip-address immediately at startup can make use of the extension as well. See 'extension' tab in DropIT to put the delay.

Finally added an OSX version =)

 

Future releases:

There are a couple of things I can improve, but basically it does what it's supposed to do by now. Feel free to ask for new features via philipz@pandora.be
Multiple platform support, multiple preferences, save application as extention, text-file encryption and others might be considered.

Depends on popularity/feedback.

- ability to make it startup & quit after operation when put in startup-items folder

- the FTP-server itself included in DropIP

 

Copyright

This product is MailWare. This means that the program stays freeware, but you have to send me a mail with feedback, bug-reports, suggestions or comments (either + or -) to get a free serial.

 

Credits

DanTheOX, Brian Jones, Frank Bitterlich and the others I have forgotten

 

Disclaimer - legal notice

I am not responsible for the loss of data due to incorrect use of this program. Use it at your own risk.