Hook up server

In many small business offices, important company data is stored on a centrally hosted server. To access the files on the server, each employee and user must initiate a remote connection to the server over an active Internet signal. Both the Windows and the Mac OS X operating systems are capable of connecting to servers over the Internet and opening shared files. Once you've made the initial connection, you can set it up to reconnect each time the computer starts up.

For instructions on setting up the Windows computer, see Set up Windows to share files with Mac users.

This guide will provide a general outline on how to set up your server properly. The first step to secure your server is using a firewall. A firewall acts as a barrier between your server and the outside world by checking that any incoming traffic is safe and blocking any malicious traffic. UFW is an uncomplicated firewall and a good solution since it requires minimum configuration.