• Post Reply Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic
programming forums Java Mobile Certification Databases Caching Books Engineering Micro Controllers OS Languages Paradigms IDEs Build Tools Frameworks Application Servers Open Source This Site Careers Other Pie Elite all forums
this forum made possible by our volunteer staff, including ...
Marshals:
  • Campbell Ritchie
  • Jeanne Boyarsky
  • Ron McLeod
  • Paul Clapham
  • Liutauras Vilda
Sheriffs:
  • paul wheaton
  • Rob Spoor
  • Devaka Cooray
Saloon Keepers:
  • Stephan van Hulst
  • Tim Holloway
  • Carey Brown
  • Frits Walraven
  • Tim Moores
Bartenders:
  • Mikalai Zaikin

File Sharing on the Internet

 
Ranch Hand
Posts: 167
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
All,

I want to share files on my home PC with a friend across the internet. What is the most efficient way to achieve this? Can I use Windows sharing features or is it better to run some FTP server?
 
Rancher
Posts: 13459
Android Eclipse IDE Ubuntu
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
What sort of requirments do you have? Does it need to be secure or 'mostly' secure, how large are the files, do you want push or pull?

There are sites where you can get some free disk space to drop files and the two of you could share a login, or you could pass files using an instant messanger. Both of these would be much easier to setup and maintain compared to FTP servers.
 
Sharad Agarwal
Ranch Hand
Posts: 167
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
The files are big (DVDs). Not totally sure what push/pull refers to - files are on my desktop and I want my friend to be able to copy them. Whether they initiate the transaction or I do, it is not particularly important. Since it is the big, bad internet security is definitely high on the list.

Is there any resource that discusses various options for this situation?
 
David O'Meara
Rancher
Posts: 13459
Android Eclipse IDE Ubuntu
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
I wish I didn't have to ask but afraid I do: are you refering to swapping DVD images, because if you are we can't condone piracy in any form and won't be able to help you. It kind of sounds like that though.
 
Sharad Agarwal
Ranch Hand
Posts: 167
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
No, it is nothing like that. It is some home videos that have been put on DVD. I could always burn and mail them, but it seemed that there might be an easier way to share them.

It is beginning to seem that the most convenient manner to share them depends on the specifics of the situation. It would be interesting to know the different solutions. One of my friends runs a web server on his machine and uses that to share his files with the world.
 
David O'Meara
Rancher
Posts: 13459
Android Eclipse IDE Ubuntu
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
I'm wondering if your solution may still be peer-to-peer software. The reason for this is that they allow the client and server to transmit at their own speed and can resume connections. Resuming connections is a very important point. They also support long running connections, which some other solutions (such as HTTP) may have problems with.

I'm just trying to stay away from the web server or FTP solutions. I'm also wary of the size.

Obviously you won't be getting all of the benefits from the p2p software, but it should work without too much trouble. (Note: I've only used BitTorrent for Fedora and other Linux distributions, but it absolutely screams )
 
David O'Meara
Rancher
Posts: 13459
Android Eclipse IDE Ubuntu
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
I should say I also make my own home DVDs to send to family members overseas, but they aren't very computer savy (and one is in the middle of the Pacific between Australia and Hawaii) so I've always sent physical disks.
 
Sharad Agarwal
Ranch Hand
Posts: 167
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Thanks for all the ideas. Just out of curiosity, why would we want to avoid FTP? Is that because of the size of the files?

I ask, in perhaps more than part, just to learn a bit about the various technologies. Its a perfect opportunity to dabble a bit and learn something. I'll start looking into the BitTorrent solution.
 
Ranch Hand
Posts: 4716
9
Scala Java
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
i use a free ftp server called cesarFTP. it has easy graphics interface. it doesnt seem to like IE as client. i use WSFTP (used to be free). and i use a free dynamic DNS redirection service (DynDNS).
[ July 18, 2005: Message edited by: Randall Twede ]
 
David O'Meara
Rancher
Posts: 13459
Android Eclipse IDE Ubuntu
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
I was excluding the common 'server' solutions like FTP since they are targets for port scans and are more likely to have someone try to hack in. FTP may be a good idea, but again you want to ensure you allow reconnects to continue downloading rather than restarting the download from scratch. This should be a high priority.

This may require a 'download manager', but I can't remember the name of the one I used previously.
 
Don't get me started about those stupid light bulbs.
reply
    Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic