The Hotline Server comes set up and ready to go — just double click the application! Don't move it out of it's folder or it won't be able to find the other files/folders.
BEFORE YOU START, please read this document carefully. When you start a Hotline Server, you are making a portion of your hard disk available to anyone on your network. If you're on the Internet, you're making it available to the general public.
If not setup correctly, people can do things to your hard disk you might not want them to do. For example, you might find that all of your files have been moved to the trash. However, it's easy to protect your server by setting passwords and disabling access. Read on.
(By the way, your entire hard disk is NOT made available to the net when you start the server. Only what is in the "Files" folder in the same folder as the server application is available. It is impossible for a user to access any other part of the hard disk [unless you put aliases in the Files folder].)
The Hotline Server comes with two pre-configured users, "admin" and "guest". The "admin" user has full access to the entire server. The "guest" user has only minimal (safe) access to the server. Usually, you will login as "admin", and other people will login as "guest".
By default, the “admin” user has no password. Thus it is very important that as soon as you start up your server, you login as “admin” and assign a password. Without a password, other people can login as admin and perform malicious actions.
To assign a password:
- Start up the Hotline Client.
- Click the Connect button on the Toolbar. Enter the address of your server, "admin" as the name, and leave the password blank. Press return and Hotline will connect to the server.
- Once connected, click the Open User button on the Toolbar. Enter "admin" and press return.
- When the "Edit User" window is displayed, enter a password in the appropriate box. Don't forget your password!
- Click the Save button.
Your server is now protected. When you next connect, you'll need to enter "admin" and your password.
Other people can still login to your server. When the name and password are left blank in the Connect window, the "guest" user is assumed. By default, the guest user has only minimal access. You can see and change what the guest user is allowed to do by clicking the Open User button and entering "guest". If you don't want guest users to be able to login to your server, assign a password to the guest user.
A note regarding uploads: by default, users can only upload to folders that contain "upload" in the name. If you want a particular user to be able to upload to any folder, turn on the "Can Upload Anywhere" checkbox in the "Edit User" window.
