Practice Exercise: Transferring Files

Objectives

• Learn how to transfer files between systems using various methods.
• Understand the differences between tools like scp, rsync, and ftp.

Scenario

As a Linux enthusiast, you'll often need to transfer files between different systems, whether they are remote servers, your local machine, or even other users' computers. This exercise will help you become proficient in using tools like scp, rsync, and ftp for file transfers.

Tasks

Task 1: Transferring Files with scp

• Open a terminal on your local machine.
• Use scp to copy a file from your local machine to a remote server. For example: scp file.txt user@remote-server:/path/to/destination.
• Observe the file transfer process and ensure it reaches the remote server.

  [intern@intern-a1t-inf-lnx1 ~]$ scp intern@192.168.64.2:/home/projects/my_history projects
  my_history                                                      100%   68    57.7KB/s   00:00
  

Task 2: Transferring Files with rsync

• In the terminal, use rsync to synchronize a directory from your local machine to a remote server. For example: rsync -avz /local/directory/ user@remote-server:/path/to/destination/.
• Verify that the contents of the local directory are synchronized with the remote server.

  [intern@intern-a1t-inf-lnx1 ~]$ rsync -avz intern@192.168.64.2:/home/projects/ projects/
  receiving file list ... done
  ./
  myscript.sh
  project_plan.txt
  
  sent 66 bytes  received 338 bytes  808.00 bytes/sec
  total size is 136  speedup is 0.34
  [intern@intern-a1t-inf-lnx1 ~]$ ls projects
  my_history       myscript.sh      project_plan.txt
  

Task 3: Transferring Files with ftp

• Open a terminal on a different machine.
• Use an FTP client like ftp or lftp to connect to the FTP server. For example: ftp ftp://user@remote-server.
• Upload and download files to and from the FTP server.
• Using lftp I can now access the filesystem of the remote server

  [intern@intern-a1t-inf-lnx1 ~]$   lftp intern@192.168.64.2
  Password:
  lftp intern@192.168.64.2:~>
  lftp intern@192.168.64.2:~> ls /home/projects/
  -rw-------    1 1000     1000           68 Sep 20 10:54 my_history
  -rwsrwxr-x    1 1000     1000           68 Sep 19 12:42 myscript.sh
  -rw-rw-r--    1 1000     1000            0 Sep 19 09:28 project_plan.txt
  lftp intern@192.168.64.2:~> bye
  

Task 4: Secure File Transfer with sftp

• Use sftp (SSH File Transfer Protocol) to securely transfer files between your local machine and a remote server. For example: sftp user@remote-server.
• Upload and download files securely using sftp.

  [intern@intern-a1t-inf-lnx1 ~]$ sftp intern@192.168.64.2
  sftp> ls /home/projects
  /home/projects/my_history                        /home/projects/myscript.sh
  /home/projects/project_plan.txt
  

Conclusion

By completing these exercises, you've gained practical experience in transferring files between systems using tools like scp, rsync, ftp, and sftp. These tools are essential for managing files across different machines in a Linux environment.