[plug] Fastest way to transfer files over Internet.

[Scott Middleton]

What would you use?
1 to transfer 1x600MB file.
2 to transfer 600x1MB files.
3 to transfer 1200x512k files.

>From 1 Linux box to another.

On Sat, 2003-05-10 at 09:04, James Devenish wrote:
> In message <1052526265.29102.13.camel at virgo>
> on Sat, May 10, 2003 at 08:24:25AM +0800, Scott Middleton wrote:
> > Whats the general consensus for Linux users on the fastest way to
> 
> Fast in what sense: Setup time? Connection initiation? Fewest keys to
> press? Bulk transfer rate? Number of small files per unit time?
> 
> > transfer files from one computer to another over the Internet.
> 
> UDP.
> 
> > There must be some security but it's not really essential.
> 
> Huh? "Must be...but not...essential"! What security are you talking
> about? Are you talking about authentication or encryption and
> validation?
> 
> (I would say the easiest way would be to stick the file into a web- or
> FTP-shared directory and then wget it on the other computer. No time
> spent authenticating, no time spent encrypting, works across operating
> systems, may include compression by default if your server and client
> can handle it, etc. But presumably we can exclude such things in your
> situation?)
> 
> > Preferably a 1 liner.
> 
> So you're talking about transferring just a single file per invocation?
> 
> If you have rcp (a long-standing UNIX rsh facility) set up with
> address-based authorisation then you would have minimal authentication
> time and no overhead of encryption. If you needed encryption you could
> set up IPsec with a fast, loose cipher (obviously that only applies if
> you are continually doing transfers between a particular set of
> machines).
> 
> If you have SSH set up with public key authentication and no passphrase
> on your private key, then yes scp would be very convenient. But of
> course it's slow to get started. So it wouldn't fit the general
> definition of "fastest" because it would be slow to do many. On that
> note, transfers of large numbers of small files may be faster if you
> archive the files on the sending machine and dearchive them on the
> receiving machine at a later time. That way, the *Internet* part of the
> transfer would be faster. If you have several files to copy, but not all
> at exactly the same moment, you could open an SFTP connection and send
> through files as and when you realise you need them transferred. That
> way you only have to initiate the connection once.
> 
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