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I have a small server(running Ubuntu 9.10) at my (parent's) house and will be leaving it there once I go to college this fall. Currently I'm using samba to transfer files between computers, but I was wondering if once I am on my university's network, whether using FTP would be a better option versus samba over a VPN. The files will range from 100 MB to 17 GB, if that matters.

Would one be more efficient over the other? Did I forget any other options?

0d0h0m0s
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6 Answers6

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I'd choose rsync over ssh.

You get encryption that way and rsync is smart enough to resume partially downloaded files and to copy only different files to avoid excessive traffic usage.

geek
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The first thing that springs to mind to me is that I don't think that SMB will allow you to resume a download - which would be a real pain if you had a problem 16.5GB through a 17GB file...

So I would go for FTP, something like the pure-ftpd or vsftpd servers, both of which I would guess would be in the Ubuntu repositories if it isn't part of the standard install, and both of which should be relatively simple to set up securely; see here for an example setup for vsftpd.

Neal
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the limiting factor here is the bandwith of your parents internet connection (network throughput), not the encoding speed of the data.

so i would prefer encryption (vpn, ssh-tunnels, whatever) over non-encryption (ftp yikes) any time for sensible data.

akira
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Personnally, I use FileZilla on an SSH server with an ftp server. That is for a GUI-based access to the server, but the sftp command line does the job great too. Just remember that if you are connecting as a different user that you are on your box, you have to specify it on the command line.

But SFTP solved all my problems.

If you also want to remotely access their computer with a graphic GNONE/KDE session, I would recommend FreeNX, or NX from NoMachine (www.nomachine.com). This lets you login to a full GNOME/KDE session remotely. Those also work over an SSH connection, so your connection is safe.

jfmessier
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Ad my university FTP is blocked, but I can use SSH. So normally when I like to send files from my server to my laptop, when I'm at the University, I use SSH. SCP for example. But 17 GB is a lot. Is your internet connection at home fast enough?

JordyOnrust
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I would recommend using scp to move the files.

If you are worried about having a GUI for scp, then secpanel might work for you.

If you aren't happy with the results, then you could try sftp instead.

eleven81
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