Poor file transfer speed with sftp
 

Hi, using nautilus I've sftp'd over to another computer. I'm copying over some files (a freshly compiled kernel). Considering the size of the directory, it should take a little while. Also, I have a wireless connection.

Problem is, when I use sftp from the command line, using the "get <file>" command I download large files anywhere from 1.7-2 MB/sec, sustained over long periods of time.

But, I couldn't figure out how to recursively download the whole folder. I tried "get -R *", etc, but nothing worked. I checked the man page and couldn't figure out what commands would be used to do this.

So, I tried nautilus. At first, things were downloading smoothly, but then things really started slowing down. I canceled the transfer, rebooted each computer, but still things are still slow in nautilus (like a couple kb/sec). If I run sftp from the terminal it starts transferring slow, but then quickly speeds to 1.7-2 MB/sec.

Both computers are idle except for the file transfer. Using graphical internet I can download at normal speed on both computers.

So my questions are:

-How can I recursively transfer files from the command line version of sftp? How does nautilus do this?
-How can I speed up nautilus's graphical sftp? Even when I leave it going for awhile it doesn't speed up.

Thanks!

Answaer
 

For recursive downloads and uploads use "mget" and "mput".


The speed of SFTP depends on the encryption / decryption algorithm it uses and how they coded that stuff.


Hope this will be useful.

Hmm, it seems that "get *" functions the same as "mget *": they both won't recursively copy the directories. I agree about the encryption decryption thing, but I wonder if nautilus is using the sftp command-line version for its sftp fuctionality. If so, the transfer speeds and such should be the same.

Still no solution. Thanks though!

OOPS!

Why didn't I just use scp in the first place? It has a "-r" flag to make recursive copying a breeze. Then the sequence was just

and I was done. I guess that's why sftp doesn't have a recursive option yet, because people can just use scp.

We can consider this discussion closed, I guess. :rolleyes: