Chapter 18

File and Print Sharing Services

In This Chapter

Protocols in this chapter: SMB, FTP, SFTP, FTPS, RCP, SCP, NFS, mount, LPR, LPD, RLPR, IPP

Recognizing downloading, uploading, sharing, and other terminology

Understanding FTP and its security issues

Using rcp or scp to copy files

Sharing disk space and printers

Setting up an IPP print server

Before TCP/IP and widespread networking, you used sneakernet to share files. After copying them from the local computer onto diskettes or magnetic tape (reels or cartridges), you then used your trusty athletic shoes to run them over to the remote computer. Sneakernet lives on; although, today you use USB memory keys, DVDs, and portable disk drives. In an update of a famous saying, “Never underestimate the bandwidth of an SUV full of disk drives.”

This chapter covers resource sharing protocols, services, and applications in the TCP/IP stack.

Defining Basic File Sharing Terms

This chapter gives you the lowdown on sharing files on remote computers over a network. However, before we get into a detailed discussion, you need to know some basic file sharing terms:

A file server is the software running on a computer that controls access to sharable disk space and files. We often call the computer a file server.

Shared disk spaces from Microsoft Windows are called shares.

Shared disk spaces from Linux and Unix are called exported file systems.

When you copy a file from your computer to a remote computer, you upload it. Uploading is sending ...

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