1 Q: What is so special about F*EX?
2 A: See feature list http://fex.belwue.de/features.html
3 and use cases http://fex.belwue.de/usecases/
5 Q: Why not use one of the commercial services like DropLoad, ALLPeers, YouSendIt, etc?
6 A: * They have a file size limit of 2 GB or even less.
7 * Their security and privacy status is unknown (ever heard of "Snowden & NSA"?).
8 * They are not open source based.
9 * There are no UNIX (CLI) clients for them.
10 * They need java, active-X, flash or other evil plugins.
11 * It is unknown how long they will exist - DropLoad and ALLPeers already have terminated their business.
13 Q: Why name "F*EX" and not shortly "FEX"?
14 A: At publication time there was already a program named "FEX" listed on freshmeat.net.
17 A: The main author is Ulli Horlacher <framstag@rus.uni-stuttgart.de><br>
18 But there are also a lot of contributors all around the world.
20 Q: Why a camel as the logo?
21 A: The logo was inspired by the Perl camel, but it is based on a Steiff plush camel, which rides with us on our racing tandem.
22 The logo was drawn by my stoker Beate.
23 http://fex.rus.uni-stuttgart.de/Vortrag/tosa.html
25 Q: What do I need to install a F*EX server?
26 A: A UNIX or Windows server with a DNS entry, smtp for outgoing email and one open and free incoming tcp port.
27 You must have administrative rights (UNIX: root) on this server and a basic understanding of UNIX and networking.
29 Q: What means DNS and smtp? What is a tcp port?
30 A: Do not install F*EX. It is beyond your horizon.
32 Q: Does F*EX support IPv6 and SSL/TLS?
35 Q: Can I run F*EX on Windows?
36 A: On client side all operating systems are supported, even Windows.
37 If you want to run a F*EX server on Windows, then see http://fex.belwue.de/fexwix.html
39 Q: Where can I get the F*EX sources?
40 A: F*EX server for UNIX: http://fex.belwue.de/fex.html
42 Q: I do not want to install a F*EX server of my own, but where can I use it?
43 A: Contact <fex@nepustil.net> http://www.nepustil.net/ for F*EX hosting.
45 Q: The F*EX server is all in Perl?! Isn't Perl too slow for this job?
46 A: F*EX is able to handle uploads with more than 300 MB/s on an office PC.
47 Try this with an ordinary webserver like Apache!
49 Q: Which licence does F*EX have? And why?
50 A: Perl Artistic free software with a special anti-military clause:
51 http://fex.belwue.de/doc/Licence
52 "I want peace on earth and goodwill towards men"
53 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHU0HinVhYc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakers_%281992_film%29
55 Q: Is there a F*EX mailing list?
56 A: https://listserv.uni-stuttgart.de/mailman/listinfo/fex
58 Q: Where can I get commercial support for F*EX?
59 A: Contact <fex@nepustil.net> http://www.nepustil.net/
62 A: Server: 400 kB, 11000 lines of code
63 Clients: 180 kB, 5500 lines of code
67 Q: Who else is using F*EX?
69 * German Aerospace Center http://fex.dlr.de
70 * European Commission Institute for Energy and Transport http://fex.jrc.nl
71 * High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart http://fex.hlrs.de
72 * Swiss National Supercomputing Centre http://fex.cscs.ch
73 * Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (French National Center for Scientific Research) http://bigfiles.cnrs-gif.fr
74 * Institut Pasteur http://dl.pasteur.fr
75 * Justus Liebig University http://fex.hrz.uni-giessen.de
76 * Fiat Chrysler https://fex.fiatitem.com/
77 * Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox PARC) http://parcftp.parc.com
78 * Baden-Württembergs extended LAN http://fex.belwue.de
79 * Deutsche Kinemathek Museum für Film und Fernsehen http://upload.deutsche-kinemathek.de
82 A: F*EX is written in Perl which does not have common security problems with buffer overruns, segmentation faults, heap and stack corruption.
83 F*EX does not use an extra web server or a (SQL) database, so no typical web attacks are possible.
84 F*EX was analysed by security company revshell.com and labeled as "secure".
85 F*EX comes with source code, so everybody can verify it.
87 Q: Feature/design XY is missing.
88 A: Contact the author <framstag@rus.uni-stuttgart.de>
90 Q: I have more/other questions than in this document!
91 A: Ask the author <framstag@rus.uni-stuttgart.de>