this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2025
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Hello selfhosted! Sometimes I have to transfer big files or a large amounts of small files in my homelab. I used rsync but specifying the IP address and the folders and everything is bit fiddly. I thought about writing a bash script but before I do that I wanted to ask you about your favourite way to achieve this. Maybe I am missing out on an awesome tool I wasn't even thinking about.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

Snapdrop if they both have a gui/webbrowser. https://github.com/SnapDrop/snapdrop

Scp otherwise

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

rsync over an SMB share was pretty seamless.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 hours ago

you can use a regular ftp server with administrator and user rights, distribute rights to those who replenish, and those who just take - guests at home I transfer in this way from computer to computer without connecting them to a common network, what could be simpler? why invent some ways with keys or bash if there is a 40-year-old technology that just works great, and to open ftp it is enough to enter the IP address in the explorer

[–] [email protected] 1 points 14 hours ago

Ähm. So your not gonna like this but I just connect with vscode remote-ssh and drag'n drop em from the os file explorer into the vscode one.

So long story short scp I guess.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 15 hours ago

rsync over ssh or scp.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

sftp

All my machines have my keys, nothing to set up, nothing to tear down.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 23 hours ago

What do you mean by specifying IP address?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

Just regular old WinSCP, or XPipe for smaller stuff and editing config files.

I need a GUI, I'll use rsync to migrate a lot of data to a new server or something occasionally, but it's just a pain compared to a nice graphical file browser.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 23 hours ago

I like unison personally. It is a bit more of a hassle but it works pretty well.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 days ago (2 children)

What's wrong with rsync? If you don't like IP addresses, use a domain name. If you use certificate authentication, you can tab complete the folders. It's a really nice UX IMO.

If you'll do this a lot, just mount the target directory with sshfs or NFS. Then use rsync or a GUI file manager.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Just don't run rsync as a daemon as that's a security nightmare

[–] [email protected] 3 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

Why would you do that? That sounds awful...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

The daemon tracks file state, so the transfers start quicker because rsync doesn’t have to scan the filesystem.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Right, but if you're transferring things that frequently, there are better solutions.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Not necessarily. Rsync deltas are very efficient, and not everything supports deltas.

It may very well be the correct tool for the job.

Anyway, problem fit wasn’t part of the question.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 15 hours ago

Yeah, there are probably a few perfect fits for it. I don't rsync between machines very often, so the only use case I might have is backups, which is already well covered with a number of tools. Otherwise I just want to sync a few directories.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 22 hours ago

It is, rsync sends data in plain text. There is a optional password that is also sent in plain text.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I never even set up DNS for things that aren't public facing. I just keep /etc/hosts updated everywhere and ssh/scp/rsync things around using their non-fqdn hostnames.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

You could also use mDNS to the same effect.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 2 days ago (14 children)

Not gonna lie, I just map a network share and copy and paste through the gui.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Yeah, I mean I do still use rsync for the stuff that would take a long time, but for one-off file movement I just use a mounted network drive in the normal file browser, including on Windows and MacOS machines.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

Same lol, somebody please enlighten me on a faster way!

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 days ago (1 children)

People have already covered most of the tools I typically use, but one I haven't seen listed yet that is sometimes convenient is python3 -m http.server which runs a small web server that shares whatever is in the directory you launched it from. I've used that to download files onto my phone before when I didn't have the right USB cables/adapters handy as well as for getting data out of VMs when I didn't want to bother setting up something more complex.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Honestly, this is an easy way to share files with non-technical people in the outside world, too. Just open up a port for that very specific purpose, send the link to your friend, watch the one file get downloaded, and then close the port and turn off the http server.

It's technically not very secure, so it's a bad idea to leave that unattended, but you can always encrypt a zip file to send it and let that file level encryption kinda make up for lack of network level encryption. And as a one-off thing, you should close up your firewall/port forwarding when you're done.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago (5 children)
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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

smb share if its desktop to desktop. If its from phone to PC, I throw it on nextcloud on the phone, then grab it from the web ui on pc.

Smb is the way to go if you have identity set up, since your PC auth will carry over for the connection to the smb share. Nextcloud will be less typing if not since you can just have persistent auth on the app / web.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago
[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

rsync is indeed fiddly. Consider SFTP in your GUI of choice. I mount the folder I need in my file browser and grab the files I need. No terminal needed and I can put the folders as favorites in the side bar.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

If you want to use the terminal though, there is scp which is supported on both windows and Linux.

Its just scp [file to copy] [username]@[server IP]:[remote location]

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That's essentially the same as rsync

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

Just slower if you already have some of the files there.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

WinSCP for editing server config

Rsync for manual transfers over slow connections

ZFS send/receive for what it was meant for

Samba for everything else that involves mounting on clients or other servers.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)
  • sftp for quick shit like config files off a random server because its easy and is on by default with sshd in most distros
  • rsync for big one-time moves
  • smb for client-facing network shares
  • NFS for SAN usage (mostly storage for virtual machines)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

rclone. I have a few helper functions;

fn mount { rclone mount http: X: --network-mode }
fn kdrama {|x| rclone --multi-thread-streams=8 --checkers=2 --transfers=2 --ignore-existing --progress copy http:$x nas:Media/KDrama/$x --filter-from
~/.config/filter.txt }
fn tv {|x| rclone --multi-thread-streams=8 --checkers=2 --transfers=2 --ignore-existing --progress copy http:$x nas:Media/TV/$x --filter-from ~/.config/filter.txt }
fn downloads {|x| rclone --multi-thread-streams=8 --checkers=2 --transfers=2 --ignore-existing --progress copy http:$x nas:Media/Downloads/$x --filter-from ~/.config/filter.txt }

So I download something to my seedbox, then use rclone lsd http: to get the exact name of the folder/files, and run tv "filename" and it runs my function. Pulls all the files (based on filter.txt) using multiple threads to the correct folder on my NAS. Works great, and maxes out my connection.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Magic wormhole is pretty dead simple https://magic-wormhole.readthedocs.io/en/latest/welcome.html#installation

I use this a lot at work for moving stuff between different test vms, as you don't need to check IPs/hostnames

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