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Can we compare file transfer protocols?

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superboyac:
Does this count?

Or do you specifically not want to use third party software?

If nothing else it will give you an idea of a rather easy OpenVPN set up.
-4wd (December 12, 2010, 01:11 AM)
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mmm...that's an good thread.  yes, that is along the lines of what I'm looking for.  Freenet sounds interesting if not for the difficulty in setting it up.

superboyac:
What do you guys think of the Logmein/Hamachi thing?
https://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi2/

f0dder:
I want to have a network folder on other people's computers the same way as I can add network folders through my work's intranet as mapped drives.  Something like that.

Maybe that's the question.  How do I map a network drive that is NOT intranet, but outer-net (WAN, i suppose)?
-superboyac (December 12, 2010, 02:03 PM)
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The short answer: you don't. It's exactly the situation a VPN would allow, but it just doesn't work in real life - the reason it works for your company is because it's on a LAN, with decent bandwidth and latency.

What do you guys think of the Logmein/Hamachi thing?
https://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi2/-superboyac (December 12, 2010, 02:23 PM)
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Hamachi is a VPN, even if it's a bit different from the typical "dial in to your company's VPN server" style of VPN. It's very good for playing pirated games that won't work in internet mode but can be played "on your LAN", as well as legitimate VPN uses... but it's not going to be any better for your needs than other VPN software.

If you want stuff to work properly, you have to give up the "I want it to appear as a drive" requirement, really. There might be some products that use explorer extensions to do some degree of drive mapping (working in at least explorer) using different network protocols, but imho the sensible thing to do is getting some solid software that will do the kind of file sync you want.

That way, all other programs on their computer could access the files as they would any other local file.-superboyac (December 12, 2010, 02:23 PM)
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This is just a recipe for disaster :) - it barely works when doing it on a LAN, you don't want to do that on a WAN.

superboyac:
Thanks fodder.  If that's the case, and what I'm asking for is either extremely difficult or impossible, then I think I'm just going to stick with sftp or something.  I can use it to back up my files from several computers outside of my home, and I guess I'll only use full access mapped drives on the few computers in my home.

VPN doesn't even really work for my company.  I mean, I can sort of connect to it, but it didn't seem like I could do much.  The connection was too intermittent and hectic to really sit down with it and start working on files.  The best thing i could do was copy the file I wanted to over on my local computer, but that's it.  But if that's the case, it's no different than a ftp server with more headache.

4wd:
HTTP is better, since you get keep-alive connections... but there's some protocol overhead, and the issue of server setup and rights management. I think you'd want to look at WebDAV stuff for that, but it's not something I have experience with; I'd expect it to be better performing than FTP, though.

If big files are involved, and two-way synchronization is needed, you should probably be looking for a solution that can handle partial updates (and then you still have to realize that some big binary blob formats are modified in a way that partial updates can't even be done - shame on those formats). On top of that, you need to carefully consider the problems involved if multiple clients have access to the same repositories.
-f0dder (December 12, 2010, 08:42 AM)
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Taking just the relevant parts from your post f0dder, it almost sounds like Syncrify fits the bill.  From the people who brought you DeltaCopy, (rsync for Windows).

They have a free Personal version which should help you determine whether you want to part with cash for the Professional version.  If you only want one user then maybe the Personal version running over a VPN, (to take care of the encryption), will be adequate for your needs superboyac.




If you can get by without delta copying, then there is also Synaman, (also has a free Personal edition), on which you can transfer over SSL.

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