Share files to Antarctica

[rogo43]

Hey I live in New York where my iMac is up and running 24/7 and has all my movies, shows and music on it and is constantly updating with new ones.

I work for the next 3 months in Antarctica where I have internet but no method to get my new movies and shows.

How do I set up a secure FTP connection between my iMac in NY with my MBP that's with me in Antarctica?

Thanks

 

[negativzero]

Hey I live in New York where my iMac is up and running 24/7 and has all my movies, shows and music on it and is constantly updating with new ones.

I work for the next 3 months in Antarctica where I have internet but no method to get my new movies and shows.

How do I set up a secure FTP connection between my iMac in NY with my MBP that's with me in Antarctica?

Thanks

Wouldn't it be easier to store all your movies and music on an external drive and bring them with you? I'm sure Antarctica internet is horrendously slow even if you could connect the computers.

 

[Macman45]

As posted above, it is going to depend on your connection speed....An external would seem to make sense, although you could grab an ATV and out all your movies into the cloud via iTunes....If your speed isn't up to it though it would be a waste of money.

 

[rogo43]

speed..... lol

Trust me the speed is up to it. We have a 60 Gb/s satellite up link. External works great, I brought 2 TB of movies and shows, but I want the new stuff. HBO stuff and other channels.

I want FTP connection so its secure and only show up as regular traffic and not Bit torrent traffic

 

[switon]

Re: Vpn, ssh, ...

Trust me the speed is up to it. We have a 60 Gb/s satellite up link. External works great, I brought 2 TB of movies and shows, but I want the new stuff. HBO stuff and other channels.

I want FTP connection so its secure and only show up as regular traffic and not Bit torrent traffic

Hi rogo43,

Wow! Am I jealous...60Gb/s upload!

You might look into running a VPN server on your iMac in NY. The reasons are severalfold: firstly, VPN uses strong authentication and encryption, and so is secure; secondly, when you "login" via VPN from Antarctica, your MBP appears as if you can logged in on your iMac's LAN at home. You will have access to everything you have at home, including NAS, RAID, shared disks, printers, etc.

What type of work will you be doing in Antartica for the 3 months?

Regards,
Switon

P.S. If you don't want to use VPN, you might consider SSH as it is generally more secure than FTP and gives you the same functionality (sftp, scp, and a terminal window).

 

[rogo43]

Hi rogo43,

Wow! Am I jealous...60Gb/s upload!

You might look into running a VPN server on your iMac in NY. The reasons are severalfold: firstly, VPN uses strong authentication and encryption, and so is secure; secondly, when you "login" via VPN from Antarctica, your MBP appears as if you can logged in on your iMac's LAN at home. You will have access to everything you have at home, including NAS, RAID, shared disks, printers, etc.

What type of work will you be doing in Antartica for the 3 months?

Regards,
Switon

P.S. If you don't want to use VPN, you might consider SSH as it is generally more secure than FTP and gives you the same functionality (sftp, scp, and a terminal window).

Im a computer guy but networking i find confusing as hell. What would i use to set up a VPN?
I tried the SSH/SFTP thing that is standard on OSX when you click Remote Login. I then tried to use cyberduck and filezilla with no luck of actually connecting. Cyberduck kept saying I/O error blah blah blah.

Thanks,
Im an operations guy providing support to all the various agencies down here.

R

 

[Macman45]

60 up?.... Boy they look after you up there....You can pretty much pick the FTP solution that best suits your needs, but one thing I'd check is that whoever runs the network where you are working allows incoming connections via FTP...Otherwise all your work will have been in vain.

I don't know what you are doing up there, but if it's Government related in any way, then they are super fussy about what can and can't be done....I'd be interested too..

 

[rhoydotp]

enabling "ssh" will let you use sftp which is the secured-version of ftp. if you're a bit of a techie, I'd suggest changing the default ports for ssh/sftp for 2 reasons: just being random from people in the internet and some ISPs do not allow lower ports to be accessed thru their network.

if you have a router, you can do port-forwarding and change the port on the router. no need to change on your iMac.

Good luck and that's a very nice link from Antarctica, no less

EDIT: oops, I was too slow! someone has beaten me to it. lol

 

[rogo43]

60 up?.... Boy they look after you up there....You can pretty much pick the FTP solution that best suits your needs, but one thing I'd check is that whoever runs the network where you are working allows incoming connections via FTP...Otherwise all your work will have been in vain.

I don't know what you are doing up there, but if it's Government related in any way, then they are super fussy about what can and can't be done....I'd be interested too..

Lol yea this is completely government/NASA/all kinds of agencies. Thus the reason i need this under the radar, because some people have already got fired for D/L bittorrents and the movie companies have sent us multiple different cease letters. So id like to just D/L at home and then upload it via VPN to me. That way its discreet and safe and it wont look like bit torrent traffic.

----------

enabling "ssh" will let you use sftp which is the secured-version of ftp. if you're a bit of a techie, I'd suggest changing the default ports for ssh/sftp for 2 reasons: just being random from people in the internet and some ISPs do not allow lower ports to be accessed thru their network.

if you have a router, you can do port-forwarding and change the port on the router. no need to change on your iMac.

Good luck and that's a very nice link from Antarctica, no less

any thought why Cyberduck and filezilla wouldn't connect? Cyber duck got close and then said i/O error and stopped.

 

[rhoydotp]

any thought why Cyberduck and filezilla wouldn't connect? Cyber duck got close and then said i/O error and stopped.

some ISPs block any traffic that doesn't resemble http, smtp, pop or imap so you may have to revert to http traffic. you can put a self-sign cert on your web server and put some sort of password protection to have a little bit of privacy/protection.

 

[switon]

RE: Mac O X Server and VPN...

Im a computer guy but networking i find confusing as hell. What would i use to set up a VPN?
I tried the SSH/SFTP thing that is standard on OSX when you click Remote Login. I then tried to use cyberduck and filezilla with no luck of actually connecting. Cyberduck kept saying I/O error blah blah blah.

Thanks,
Im an operations guy providing support to all the various agencies down here.

R

Hi rogo43,

For $20 you can get Mac OS X Server from the Mac App Store. This allows you to install the Server.app on all of your machines and have an unlimited number of clients. The VPN server in the Server.app is quite easy to setup, and it has a button that you click to create a "configuration profile" file that you load onto your clients to automatically configure them to allow VPN-ing in to your VPN server.

I would suggest the following setup (it's what I do):

(1) Get a dynamic DNS name for your home iMac (dyndns.com or one of the other sites --- last time I checked, dyndns.com is not longer free, but if you sign up for a free 14 day trial and then quit the free trial before the 14 days are up, you are left with the option of keeping one dynamic DNS for free). This gives you an easily remembered DNS name for you iMac at home that will be updated to the proper IP address even if your ISP changes your IP address at home. It will be something like "MyiMacAtHomeInNewYork.dyndns-server.com".

(2) Get Mac OS X Server for $20 from the Mac App Store and install it on both your iMac and your MBP.

(3) Setup VPN in the Server.app on your iMac, save the configuration profile and use it to setup the VPN client on your MBP.

That is all there is to it. Although you might wish to use other servers/services too, such as running your own local DNS caching service that will give easily remembered DNS names to your machines at home, say something like: "MyiMac.ny.private", "MyLaserPrinter.ny.private", "MyNAS.ny.private", and so forth that you can then access from Antarctica by VPN-ing in to your NY LAN. Other services you might find useful are File Sharing, DHCP, or even Messages if you wish to video chat with someone at home.

Regards,
Switon

P.S. Why don't you try the OSX ssh commands instead of cyberduck? So, one you turn on SSH (Remote Login) on your iMac in the Sharing pane of System Preferences and "Allow access for" your username, then on your MBP you connect to your iMac using the following command:

ssh my-username@MyiMac.ny.private

where "my-username" is obviously your short username and "MyiMac.ny.private" is the hostname of your iMac whatever that might be. If you are running your own DNS server, then the hostname might look just like what I've written, but otherwise it might be something like "MyiMac.local" or you could even connect to the iMac's LAN IP address, say 192.168.0.5:

ssh my-username@192.168.0.5

where 192.168.0.5 is the IP address of your iMac on your LAN.

 

[Macman45]

Lol yea this is completely government/NASA/all kinds of agencies. Thus the reason i need this under the radar, because some people have already got fired for D/L bittorrents and the movie companies have sent us multiple different cease letters. So id like to just D/L at home and then upload it via VPN to me. That way its discreet and safe and it wont look like bit torrent traffic.

----------



any thought why Cyberduck and filezilla wouldn't connect? Cyber duck got close and then said i/O error and stopped.

That being the case buddy I'd check for sure, you don't want to infringe on any of the agencies policy for the sake of a few movies that you might even be able to watch on site. Check with the folks running the show....Your job is way more important, and be the sounds of it way more interesting than a couple of movies...

 

[negativzero]

Trust me the speed is up to it. We have a 60 Gb/s satellite up link. External works great, I brought 2 TB of movies and shows, but I want the new stuff. HBO stuff and other channels.

I want FTP connection so its secure and only show up as regular traffic and not Bit torrent traffic

I wouldn't trust that 60gbps satellite link claim, nothing still beats fiber internet in terms of transfer speeds. Theoretical satellite internet maxes out at 1gbps and only under the most fortuitous conditions. Plus if you're working with researchers and research data with terabytes of data transfer required per day, don't expect to have excellent internet speed to get your movies. But if you insist, might I suggest installing Hamachi on both computers. Its just one click to get both Macs up and running with a VPN between both then just dump your movies and music on the shared folder.

And like others have said, make sure what you're doing is legit cus your job might be on the line