Question

I need to set up a server so that files can be uploaded from an iOS app. I don’t know how best to proceed. I thought about FTP but not sure if there is a better option.

any ideas appreciated

GC

Also I must add that I will be building the iOS app so can use server APIs in my code.

Answer 1

It’s not ideal to set up a blind File/FTP server and hardcode the details into your app because all it takes is one person to intercept the login details and they have access to your server where they can upload (and potentially execute) bad things.

A possible idea could be to set up an API frontend on your server in a language of your choice (PHP, Ruby, Python or similar) where you can ‘POST’ images to the server. With the API frontend, you can also do validation to ensure that only valid images are being uploaded and all nefarious stuff is thrown away. Then, in your iOS app, you can set up code to interact with your API frontend and send the actual images which will then be stored on your server.

This is a fairly conceptual idea rather than an absolute implementation idea. It does require some thinking/reading and more setup/coding on the server side.

Edit: Just to add, if you only want a central location to store/get your images without controlling it on a per user basis then you may want to look into Amazon S3 as a File Server.