I have 2 slack boxes (different versions) connected to a router, to the internet. Is there a way to move files from one system to the other? Somehow networking them so I can move files and control the other computer from one?

yes. Execute on both machines as root just changing the ip address:

and a virtual interface called eth0:0 is created. Now you can use the new LAN ip address to ftp or scp or whatever way you want to use to transfer the files at a decent speed (~8 megs per sec on a 100meg cable, router and eth-card, alot less if some of them is only 10 meg, and alot more if all are gigabit stuff)

The ip will stay untill it gets taken off (shutdown will do that) so youll have to add the line to /etc/rc.d/rc.local if you want it to be permanent.

run nfs or samba to mount shares and access that way.

I normally run samba as my first choice:

www.samba.org

As a matter of fact, as I type this I'm migrating about 120gigs from a USB drive to one of my development servers. I find smb works so well when transfering from Linux ot Windows and vice versa that I'm using it from a Fedora Core 4 machine to an older Red Hat enterprise development server.

Ok, Ill try these suggestions. I thought samba was only for going from Linux to Windows, Is that not true? Is it for any networking between different OS`s? Thanks.

Samba is the linux way of pretending to be a windows computer on a network.

If I understand correctly, the SMB protocol is specified by Microsoft, but any computer that can abide by the protocol can use it.

Oh, I see. Also, is there a higher risk of being cracked/hacked if I network these 2 machines through my router?
Thanks.

if you connect them as a LAN, remember to firewall also the eth0:0 inteface. So, if one machine falls into wrong hands, the other wont fall with it. Thats about all the risks I can think of.

If you decide to use nfs, never forget to umount berore shutting down the serving machine.. thats the biggest risk of nfs.. (;

It wont realy increase your risks, youll still have to firewall them anyways.

Most home routers today have a firewall built in. Use ifconfig to check your ipaddresses. If they start with 172.16 or 192.168 or 10, then you are not at risk of a direct assault anyway. It is, of course, a good idea to have the firewall properly set up on each of your boxes regardless.

Here's a site with an explaination of the smb protocol

Another option is Midnight Commander (mc).

You can "fish" in one pane of the display to any other box you can ssh to. You can then do normal file operations between panes, except that it's between hosts.

If you're lucky, you can even have the two panes viewing two different remote hosts -- even as I type I am logged into an ftp server I help admin & my other local desktop. I am, right now, copying 5 small files from the ftp server to the other desktop. This is not very efficient, nor something you would want to do every day; but it CAN be done.

The local to remote mode is normal & very useful, & it is as secure as ssh. The remote to remote through local mode is useful (only) if LOCAL can ssh into both remotes, but neither can ssh to the other. Otherwise, the efficient thing to do would be to ssh to REMOTE-1 & then mc "fish" from there to REMOTE-2.

Read the on-line help in mc for the details.... It's under "Virtual File System" -- "FIle transfer over SHell filesystem".