Hello there. I’ve got an idea for the games forum for those following PBEM games. I’m playing a game with Ghoul T, we post our moves, build and attack results on the forum etc. However, we also email each other back and forth a map file for the map utility (Axis&Allies Map for Windows). It’s far to tedious to show the current map position after each move and those following along quickly lose track of board setup. I’d like to provide these maps for those interested in following the game and for the players so they don’t have to keep a historical record themselves. I guess it could be done two ways.
A) Allow trusted users to upload a map file to the webserver.
B) Somebody running their own FTP server allow us to do this.
Both have drawbacks.
A) runs the risk of having trusted users run a warez site and would might require two levels of ‘registered’ users. The FTP upload folder could have write only and directory read rights only for ‘trusted users’. However the web server process would still be able to serve up the files as it’s running under a more privilged user account. This could still run the risk somebody would just post a link to a warez file just uploaded in the guise of a map, perhaps a daemon to delete files in the FTP upload folder that don’t meet map file size criteria?
B) Runs the same risk running a private FTP server. Since the AA.org server would have the IP hardcoded in the web pages we run the risk of having the remote FTP’s IP change for a variety of reasons. We also run the risks of trusting a remote party to be the file librarian.
So, whaddya thinks folks?
BB