Pros and Cons of using ftp vs. rsync?

On May 4, 7:09 pm, Chris Davies <chris-use...@roaima.co.uk> wrote:
> In comp.os.linux.misc Goran Ivanic <go...@lycos.com> wrote:
>
> > Assume I want to transfer large amounts of stuff from one server to
> > another (through Internet).
>
> Either you do or you don't. It's hard enough understanding people's
> questions without having unnecessary assumptions thrown about.
>
> > Which method should I prefer:
> > ftp or rsync ?
>


I would rather go for rsync, it gives you a lot more functionality
over ftp,,,you may customize and do stuff like files to retain or
not...


> Your preference is entirely up to you. Personally, if it really was
> "large amounts of stuff", I'd consider sending a tape through the post.
>
> > What are the Pros and Cons?
> > Which is faster?
> > Which is more stable?
>
> I think you probably ought to go and do your own homework, don't you?
> Chris

goran@lycos.com (Goran Ivanic) wrote:

> Assuem I want to transfer large amounts of stuff from one server to
> another (through Internet).
>
> Which method should I prefer:
>
> ftp or rsync ?
>
> What are the Pros and Cons?

Assuming your FTP connection is secured (SSL/TLS), for first-time
transfer, it may be better than Rsync, whereas Rsync is better for
incremental updates, and also for first-time transfers using suitable
command line switches. One further advantage of Rsync is that you can
make use of your existing SSH PKI.


> Which is faster?

Depends on many details. I don't know whether in FTP you can reuse the
data channel, but if you can't, Rsync should be faster in almost all
cases. FTP may be faster for a few large files. Rsync is almost
certainly faster for lots of tiny files, and so on. In some cases, tar
used cleverly through SSH may be faster than both, but usually Rsync
will be just fine.


> Which is more stable?

FTPS and Rsync are both very stable.


Regards,
Ertugrul.


--
http://ertes.de/

goran@lycos.com (Goran Ivanic) writes:
> Assuem I want to transfer large amounts of stuff from one server to another (through Internet).
>
> Which method should I prefer:
>
> ftp or rsync ?
>
> What are the Pros and Cons?
>
> Which is faster?
>
> Which is more stable?

rsync over ssh is the way to go in most cases. The most compelling
reasons against ftp are its cleartext method of credential exchange
and braindeadness with respect to interrupted transfers. You'll be
retransmitting everything if you have an issue half way through.
With rsync, this issue is avoided.

rsync -avz -e ssh /home/blah user@remotehost:/blah

--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

There's really no reason to prefer ftp over rsync, except maybe that most
browser have ftp support but not always rsync.

If you are going to have many simultaneous transfers, you may not want to do
it over ssh as it will be too CPU intensive over a fat pipe.
--
Guillaume Dargaud
http://www.gdargaud.net/Antarctica/

In comp.os.linux.networking Nikhil <mnikhil@gmail.com>:
> Michael Heiming wrote:
>> In comp.os.linux.networking Unruh <unruh-spam@physics.ubc.ca>:
>>> Dave <foo@coo.com> writes:

>>>> Goran Ivanic wrote:
>>>>> Assuem I want to transfer large amounts of stuff from one server to another (through Internet).

>>>>> Which method should I prefer:

>>>>> ftp or rsync ?
>> [..]

>>>> My guess is ftp will be faster. It just moves the files, and does not
>>>> care whether they exist on the other end or not.

>>> On large files that is a trivial overhead. rsync can also checks if the
>>> files transfered are the same or not. ftp does not
>>> From man rsync
>>> Note that rsync always verifies that each transferred file was
>>> correctly reconstructed on the receiving side by checking its
>>> whole-file checksum,...

>> I'd also take a look into 'unison', it is faster the rsync in
>> certain situation and its GUI might make things easier for
>> beginners, though you really want to use it from the shell to
>> take most advantages.

> hey Michael,

> what else unison can offer in particular what rsync cannot at this point
> of time? What I understand is rsync is a one way transferr system
> whereas unison can do multi-way sync of file transferrs across like
> wansync/intellisync ... is that correct?

Indeed unison can work in both directions at the same time,
though it's (iirc) also based on the rsync protocol it builds
some database on the first run and will use this on subsequent
runs. Then it outperforms rsync in order of magnitudes with very
large filesystems you want to sync.

--
Michael Heiming (X-PGP-Sig > GPG-Key ID: EDD27B94)
mail: echo zvpunry@urvzvat.qr | perl -pe 'y/a-z/n-za-m/'
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