Setting up the Raspberry PI as a server
Install the Raspbian distribution. We assume that there is a router onboard which provide a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) service, which is providing our server with an ip number, to see the IP number issue : ip addr show. The address of eth0 you fixed cable is used or wlan0 if WiFi is used. Normally these are 192.168.x.y something. This address is needed as to connect to the server. One might set up fixed IP addressed and name tabels so that the server can be addressed by name (easy to find info about this on the net).
In order to get access the secure shell has to be set up. Install the packages openssh-client and openssh-server. This should normally be enough, but in some cases some changes in the set files are needed. There is more information available for Ubuntu.
This is related to the file server project, which does not employ a RPi, but a rather smaller system. The RPi is overkill for many applications and smaller units from OrangePi or Friendly ARM are more suitable.