Help! I keep hearing that CopyParty is easy to use, but I find it extremely difficult, nothing works and I don't know how to set it up. Is there a guide for babies?

[cpfrederick-oss]

I keep hearing that CopyParty is easy to use, but I find it extremely difficult, nothing works and I don't know how to set it up. Is there a guide for babies?

I've tried about 10 different methods of installing it with Linux but nothing works. One of them caused a QR code to appear, but when I followed the code it leads to "unable to connect". Any and all of the links labeled "external" say "unable to connect" when tried.

I saw a message that said "install cfssl" but I browsed the webpage for CFssl and did not see any clear install link or download anywhere. Is that even relevant?

[9001]

I keep hearing that CopyParty is easy to use

perhaps this is true if you are using it on LAN only, but over the internet it has similar requirements to any other internet-exposed software

that is, if you are planning to expose it to the internet so it can be accessed remotely, then it is expected that you have already set up a domain and a reverseproxy, so look for guides to set up those

once you have a reverseproxy set up and you're able to access it from the internet, then hooking copyparty up to that should be relatively easy, but there is no guide, no -- i'm just making this for fun and I think it's become pretty obvious that writing documentation that other people can easily understand is not one of my strong sides :p

[cpfrederick-oss]

Thank you for the reply. Sounds like this is not for me. I am looking for an easy to use solution to share files with family and friends without relying on 3rd parties

[9001]

it is impossible to do this entirely without relying on 3rd parties, because the modern internet has more or less made that impossible

if you want your family and friends connect to your fileserver securely, you need to setup https with certificates, and this is possible to do without a 3rd-party, but that would mean that anyone who wants to access your service would need to first install your certificate into their device and/or browser

the normal way to do this is to buy a domain and point it to your home-IP, and have the certificate signed for that domain, which means that the only 3rd party is the company that sold you the domain, but this assumes you have an ISP that lets you accept connections from the internet, and not every ISP does, hence you might need some tunnel from some CDN as well

this advice is not specific to copyparty, this applies to almost every software similar to it

[cpfrederick-oss]

Wow, that is all very different from what i was told. I was told that Copyparty is essentially a one click replacement for Dropbox.That's also what I interpreted your main web page to be saying as well.

[9001]

was told that Copyparty is essentially a one click replacement for Dropbox

who told you this 😅 copyparty doesn't even do file synchronization, so no, it is not a full replacement for dropbox, and it is definitely not one-click-setup if you want it out on the internet and you don't already have any of the necessary pieces. This has never been claimed in any text I've written anywhere, because it's not true. Not for copyparty, and since you don't want dependencies on thirdparties, also not true for any software like it.

What copyparty does is provide a quick and easy way to share files on the LAN; this part is super simple to set up.

As for getting things (including copyparty) out on the internet, most people who are into selfhosting already have a domain and reverseproxy, and in that case adding copyparty into that mix is easy.