How do you like to transfer large files between friends across the internet?
How do you like to transfer large files between friends across the internet?
On occasion I find myself needing to send a file at least a few gigabytes in size to a friend across our slow ISPs but haven't found a satisfying solution. I usually end up creating a private torrent with the announce address of my own IP. Even though it's slow - it basically never reaches my max upload speed for some reason, it is at least resilient if there are ever any network glitches.
Does anyone else face this same challenge?
EDIT: Thank you for the awesome suggestions! I have some homework to do on these
My largest file transfer I have done via USB disk. You simply don't transfer multiple terabytes over the net.
I use an ancient HTTP File Server program called HFS from Rejetto. Very light weight. Supports making user accounts and whatnot if you want.
I usually just turn it on for a transfer and don't leave it up these days, but still comes in handy on occasion.
rsync
I really like Wormhole for this exact purpose.
Nextcloud is great for this
I use https://www.sendbig.com/ I haven’t read their privacy policy, though.
RFC 2549: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2549
This problem was solved years ago: https://spectrum.ieee.org/pigeonbased-feathernet-still-wingsdown-fastest-way-of-transferring-lots-of-data
Before I moved I used to use my web server.
My Domain . Com / files . Zip And I would set a password on the zip. After they download it, they tell me and I remove the file.
Me and my friend used netcat to transfer 30 GB of files put into a zip. Very fun, would not recommend
wormholeis good; also its CLI.Wormhole or croc
Syncthing
You can use syncthing to transfer files across the internet? How? I thought it was only for local networks
It just works, there's no "how". Take one of the devices outside, connect to the internet, done.
By default out of the box it will transfer over the internet if it needs to.
Er, wait, are you using Syncthing for its intended purpose of syncing files across devices on your local network? And then exposing that infrastructure to the internet? Or are you isolating Syncthing instances?
The user can choose. Please note you first much accept another client by its fingerprint.
Syncthing has public releays enabling it to work (dunno if one or none need to be public) without both parties being exposed.
It's very much a WAN solution too. I use it to push my files to a Pi Zero W that's 200 miles from my house. I use it as an off site store of my files. The Pi is connected as an untrusted device in Syncthing so that all files sit encrypted at rest.
Syncthing is not just for LAN use. Even their homepage mentions transmitting data over the internet
I've been using it to sync devices over the internet for years. It's also how people use it to sync from say their desktop to their phones, remote server, etc.
If you watch your network firewall Syncthing does reach out to servers on the internet to help it find other devices so e.g. if you enter the other device's ID (example ABCDEFG-ABCDEFG-ABCDEFG-ABCDEFG-ABCDEFG-ABCDEFG-ABCDEFG-ABCDEFG) it can reach out over the internet to find that specific ID to pair with. I think Syncthing uses a sort of DHT resolver to find other devices, I know on my firewall I had to whitelist Syncthing's servers to make it work.
I was going to try to link you some references but their forums seem to have connection issues at the moment, you may want to search around later if you're interested how Syncthing works over the internet.
Syncthing is designed to be used over the internet, it's why it supports NAT hole punching, relay servers, and discovery servers.
I’d have to have friends across the internet that wanted files first…
Super easy. Spin up an OpenVPN server, forwarding the right ports to your server. Now spin up an Apache server with the folder your file’s in as server root. Send the client config for your VPN to your friend, along with the local address of your HTTP server. Now they can install the OpenVPN client on their PC and download the file from your HTTP server. Once you’re done, tear down all your servers, and don’t forget to unforward the ports. Couldn’t be easier.
/s
I have non-ironically gotten responses like this
Create share links allowing anyone with the link (+ optional password) to browse and download individual files, or whole folder contents.
If someone needs to send me a file, I can create a user for them in a few seconds; so they can upload to that as well.
You could try wormhole. It makes a direct connection.
Or croc which is very similar. I think it also allows to resume file transfers.
I've used:
But for slower connections bittorrent is the best option by far because it doesn't care about interruptions, and verifies the data as it goes. Just gotta make sure you're port forwarding the client.
Upload to Proton Drive > Create share link > Share link
I literally just set up a container for Erugo for this exact thing. It worked perfectly and was super easy to do. It's just a self-hosted version of wetransfer. Could be helpful...
I'd go for syncthing over nextcloud for your specific usecase. Nextcloud isn't good for unreliable connections and they're sticking with the annoying decision of not supporting server to server synchronization.
If they are local, you can just put it on a thumb drive and physically transfer it.
If they’re not local, you can put it on a pen drive and mail it to them.
Absolutely, that is definitely preferred when possible!
I used vaultwarden just the other day for this purpose. I mean, I use vaultwarden daily as a password manager, but it also has secure file transfer.
If its a file from my seedbox: Direct share link (optional pw)
Local file: OneDriveI've use Plik before with success.
My use case is a bit different than yours but still worth mentioning, I think; I have Sharry running in Docker and it makes sharing and receiving files super easy. All downloads and uploads are resumable so they work well even in unstable networks.
I have a minio instance that I use to distribute files
Just share the folder on soulseek. Probably not advisable for any sensitive information though xD
i like zipline but i use it for smaller files where download resumability is not a key factor
I tell them to start their Nextcloud client. Or if they don't have it, give them the share link.
I host pingvin for people to send stuff to me. To send, usually I'll just move the file into a folder that exposed to Nginx with indexing and send that link. Otherwise I'll also just use my pingvin instance.
