4 ms·

What compels anyone to think "I know, let's use the most broken tool I could possibly find"? I need to publish a publicly available, read-only directory. Users

What compels anyone to think "I know, let's use the most broken tool I could possibly find"? I need to publish a publicly available, read-only directory. Users can browse the directory structure, downloads shouldn't require exotic tools, client software ideally exists in a base system install, and recursive downloads should be easy. If you have a better idea, I'm all ears.

Chlorus 11y ago
Honest question: Why wouldn't SFTP work for this use case? Most decent FTP clients I know also do SFTP. Is the encryption overhead non-trivial?
- creshal 11y ago
  Most dedicated clients do, but not all. Critically, not the built-in FTP clients of major desktop OSes. Windows Explorer only supports FTP, not SFTP, and AFAIK it's the same with OSX' Finder.
  - rakoo 11y ago
    How exotic are tools like WinSCP (https://winscp.net/eng/index.php https://winscp.net/eng/index.php), Filezilla (https://filezilla-project.org/ https://filezilla-project.org/) or Cyberduck (https://cyberduck.io/?l=en https://cyberduck.io/?l=en) ?
    - creshal 11y ago
      Exotic enough that I always have to tell users to install one, I can't rely on them having any installed. But literally everyone has an FTP(S)-enabled file manager and browser installed.
kefka 11y ago
I've been working with a new set of software that does precisely that. 1. Publicly available, with the link. 2. Immutable data, by definition is read-only. 3. Users can easily view the root directory and every file enclosed 4. Uses nothing more than a web browser, with no addons. Right now, it does greatly speed up if you use the peer software. http://ipfs.io http://ipfs.io - Interplanetary File System. It does everything you asked for. The current way the network works well for people who don't run the client is that ipfs.io is running an IPFS->web gateway, where you go to http://ipfs.io/ipfs/[hash] http://ipfs.io/ipfs/[hash] For example, I'm preparing to go to a 3d printing convention where the bandwidth is very limited. So I'm hosting a slew of 3d printer files. If you are running the peer software, click the localhost link. http://127.0.0.1:8080/ipfs/QmRBWNHKvz4AmTGN4QyJ4bQMd4fb5vfTdacjkb6PSHsJ2X http://127.0.0.1:8080/ipfs/QmRBWNHKvz4AmTGN4QyJ4bQMd4fb5vfTd... http://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmRBWNHKvz4AmTGN4QyJ4bQMd4fb5vfTdacjkb6PSHsJ2X http://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmRBWNHKvz4AmTGN4QyJ4bQMd4fb5vfTdacjkb6P... So yes, there is a potential download of some software. What does that get you? It allows you to download at the full speed of the network (bittorrent based) and uses DHT for finding local peers. You can also add files in the network, and share by simply copy/pasting the link to whom you want to have the files. Interestingly, it indeed solves this: https://xkcd.com/949/ https://xkcd.com/949/ Ideally, the IPFS team is working on a javascript-only IPFS node, where the webpage itself is self-hosting the IPFS gateway. That would also free up phone clients and more exotic tyes of computers with only browser support.

Chlorus 11y ago

Honest question: Why wouldn't SFTP work for this use case? Most decent FTP clients I know also do SFTP. Is the encryption overhead non-trivial?

creshal 11y ago
Most dedicated clients do, but not all. Critically, not the built-in FTP clients of major desktop OSes. Windows Explorer only supports FTP, not SFTP, and AFAIK it's the same with OSX' Finder.
- rakoo 11y ago
  How exotic are tools like WinSCP (https://winscp.net/eng/index.php https://winscp.net/eng/index.php), Filezilla (https://filezilla-project.org/ https://filezilla-project.org/) or Cyberduck (https://cyberduck.io/?l=en https://cyberduck.io/?l=en) ?
  - creshal 11y ago
    Exotic enough that I always have to tell users to install one, I can't rely on them having any installed. But literally everyone has an FTP(S)-enabled file manager and browser installed.

kefka 11y ago

I've been working with a new set of software that does precisely that. 1. Publicly available, with the link. 2. Immutable data, by definition is read-only. 3. Users can easily view the root directory and every file enclosed 4. Uses nothing more than a web browser, with no addons. Right now, it does greatly speed up if you use the peer software. http://ipfs.io http://ipfs.io - Interplanetary File System. It does everything you asked for. The current way the network works well for people who don't run the client is that ipfs.io is running an IPFS->web gateway, where you go to http://ipfs.io/ipfs/[hash] http://ipfs.io/ipfs/[hash] For example, I'm preparing to go to a 3d printing convention where the bandwidth is very limited. So I'm hosting a slew of 3d printer files. If you are running the peer software, click the localhost link. http://127.0.0.1:8080/ipfs/QmRBWNHKvz4AmTGN4QyJ4bQMd4fb5vfTdacjkb6PSHsJ2X http://127.0.0.1:8080/ipfs/QmRBWNHKvz4AmTGN4QyJ4bQMd4fb5vfTd... http://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmRBWNHKvz4AmTGN4QyJ4bQMd4fb5vfTdacjkb6PSHsJ2X http://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmRBWNHKvz4AmTGN4QyJ4bQMd4fb5vfTdacjkb6P... So yes, there is a potential download of some software. What does that get you? It allows you to download at the full speed of the network (bittorrent based) and uses DHT for finding local peers. You can also add files in the network, and share by simply copy/pasting the link to whom you want to have the files. Interestingly, it indeed solves this: https://xkcd.com/949/ https://xkcd.com/949/ Ideally, the IPFS team is working on a javascript-only IPFS node, where the webpage itself is self-hosting the IPFS gateway. That would also free up phone clients and more exotic tyes of computers with only browser support.