Needing a read only wifi based file server

[10i]

Hi everyone, hope this has been posted in the correct place. I want to build a file server for my church.

The purpose is to have a portable device broadcasting a wifi hot spot that people can log into using their phone or tablet, read articles and download audio recordings (+ - 20 MB each). It must offer users a read only experience, so that users can't change the content.

Looking at something that at can have 10 people downloading at the same time.

I have a few ideas:

1. An android device (I have seen apps like WiFi transfer Pro, but it shows too many folders and it's not read only).

2. A router or access point with a flash drive plugged in.

3. A Raspberry Pi or other Linux mini PC, etc. Not sure that this would be up to the task.

4. A wifi external hdd. These are expensive, not read only (from what I understand).

Thank you for your ideas, I look forward to reading them.

 

[WireFree]

A Raspberry Pi 3 should do the job.
Other options:
Q30W
F200

You can run 64-bit Peppermint Linux on the F200.

 

[10i]

A Raspberry Pi 3 should do the job.
Other options:
Q30W
F200

You can run 64-bit Peppermint Linux on the F200.

I think a Raspberry Pi is flexible enough for the job.

I love Peppermint Linux, those mini PCs look interesting.

 

[PhireSide]

How about a simple TFTP server running on a Raspberry Pi?

http://www.instructables.com/id/Raspberry-Pi-Web-Server/

You could use the Pi's built-in Wifi as a hotspot (presuming a Pi 3) and have people connect up to it:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/wireless/access-point.md

Not sure how it would do with 10+ users at a time but I am sure you'll be one of the first to find out

 

[Thor]

The router plus USB set to read only is the cheapest and easiest solution here.

 

[Genisys]

You are targeting mobile devices, you should keep things simple for the end users. Don't over complicate things with TFTP and Samba, keep it simple and universal.

Develop a small static website with links to the files. Simple as that. User clicks and a user gets what they are clicking on, no technicalities involved, just a simple HTML page and a domain/ip address as the url.

A Raspberry pi and a Mikrotik AC Lite will be very portable and should be very easy to set up in this instance. Will also allow you to implement QOS while having the ability to run it all off a singe battery backup for hours on end.

 

[RoganDawes]

You could use any Openwrt-capable router, with a USB port. E.g. TPLink wr703n would be perfectly adequate.
Set it up with a captive portal, to redirect all http users to the router itself, put the content on the USB stick with an index.html.
Done!

 

[vic777]

You are targeting mobile devices, you should keep things simple for the end users. Don't over complicate things with TFTP and Samba, keep it simple and universal.

Develop a small static website with links to the files. Simple as that. User clicks and a user gets what they are clicking on, no technicalities involved, just a simple HTML page and a domain/ip address as the url.

A Raspberry pi and a Mikrotik AC Lite will be very portable and should be very easy to set up in this instance. Will also allow you to implement QOS while having the ability to run it all off a singe battery backup for hours on end.

A simple Java Jetty based file server would be perfect, its literally copy and paste from the samples on the web. This has the advantage that the page contents is dynamic and does not contain hard-coded links to files.

One (of may) samples of this:
https://www.eclipse.org/jetty/documentation/9.4.x/embedded-examples.html

Its a great idea to use a Raspberry Pi

 

[RoganDawes]

A simple Java Jetty based file server would be perfect, its literally copy and paste from the samples on the web. This has the advantage that the page contents is dynamic and does not contain hard-coded links to files.

One (of may) samples of this:
https://www.eclipse.org/jetty/documentation/9.4.x/embedded-examples.html

Its a great idea to use a Raspberry Pi

Dunno that I'd be in a hurry to run Java-based apps on a Pi, especially when there is no interactivity (i.e. programming/development) required. Apache or nginx or lighttpd would be perfectly adequate for serving static content.

 

[vic777]

Dunno that I'd be in a hurry to run Java-based apps on a Pi, especially when there is no interactivity (i.e. programming/development) required. Apache or nginx or lighttpd would be perfectly adequate for serving static content.

I run Java apps on a PI all the time, headless. Yes, nginx would also work, my point is just its very easy to run a lightweight Java file server on a PI

 

[10i]

Thanks everyone, some great suggestions here.

Going to do some reading and digging into the different options and will post here once I have made progress.