ftp vs ssh

[Son dam bi]

I have two servers , there are many many files need to transfer between them ,the file size is small ( all files under 100KB ) , the files will be copy to remote server time by time I would like to write a script to do transfer file , can advise what method ( ftp or ssh ) that I should use , which one is more accurately , which one is more easy to control in my case ?

the secure issue is not import in my case , as the data is not important , please ignore the security issure .

What I want to concern is the accurate and easy to manage / control , the ftp seems not easy to write a script to check the accurancy , but ssh can use chksum to check the accurancy of data , as the network between these servers is not stable , sometimes the files is missing to transfer to remote server , so I have to write script to check the accurancy , any transfer method is no problem for me , what one method is better for me ? thx

[Michal Kapalka (mikap)]

hi,

use combination rsync over ssh

mikap

[OldSchool]

some of the methods that could work for you are

ftp
sftp (secure ftp)
ssh
scp (secure copy)
NFS mounted filesystem
rsync

there are probably others as well, the list above is just off the top of my head. No one solution is "best", as it depends on what you are trying to address.

The nice thing about the rsync solution is that you can configure it to only transmit the changes.

lack of a stable network complicates things. If its part of a LAN or WAN, that problem should probably be corrected first.

Note that there are other considerations, such as the O/S on the sending and receiving ends.

If one is UNIX and the other Windows, AND you are sending text files, then some of the above methods will to the correct end of line conversions while the data is "in-flight", others won't. This causes issues with checksumming the files to determine if they were correctly transferred.

[Mel Burslan]

If you want a guaranteed transfer of files with a traceable record that they got transferred okay, there is no single method like ftp or scp that can give you that guarantee. If this is a production grade file transfer, I suggest using something like Connect:Direct (formerly known as NDM:Network Data Mover) from Sterling Commerce.

You can read about the capabilities of this software here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NDM

I am not a big fan of Wikipedia articles but this one is pretty accurate as far as I can see.

HTH

[OldSchool]

Mel noted Connect:Direct (aka NDM). yep, that will do it, but it can be a royal pain to set up, depending on *what* you want it to do.

Then there's the cost of purchasing and maintenance.

Of course, a better description of what the OP wants to do (like keep the local & remote directories sync'd, send every file found in /dir from serverA to serverB, or ???) would be useful as well.