posted this on mandriva forum but thought this would be a good place for additional help.

i have a mdk 9.2 box in my home that hosts two websites and a samba server for moving files around my home computers. i do sound recording in the field sometimes on my laptop and would like to send files home for archiving when i'm out on the road. this would likely be done when i have a hotel with high speed access for example. then i could wipe the audio partition and free up space for more audio as the trip progresses.

what is the best way to safely get files to the mdk9.2 box?

specs:

notebook with xp home, wireless, lan, modem.

mdk9.2 box
is behind router
samba 2.2.8 i think
apache (whatever was current with mdk9.2)

generally what i'm wondering is if i have to set up an ftp server or if there's some way i can use the website as a means of getting the files back to this box. either way, i'd like to have the files remain private when they get to the mdk box. i'm thinking of using the mdk box as an intermediate and not as a place i would be posting the files publicly.

thanks,
BabaG

You'll undoubtedly attract some kind of attention by posting on two forums. That's against the rules.

oops. sorry. never mind. thought a mandriva specific post might miss
valuable input here. won't do it any more.

You have a couple of alternatives. The more secure route would be to carry a copy of Knoppix with you and use this to upload files to your system using ssh. You should enable RSA keys for tight security and have port 22 open and forwarding to this port on the router. You can disallow root connections on ssh and upload to your user directory as a user. This is the most secure method.
The second method would be to implement an ftp server as you suggested but it is obviously much less secure.

You could set up an ftp server with vsftpd. Seems like the easiest option. Might be hard to navigate around though.

A) You could also set up a vpn and use samba over it (complicated, but you will see your mandrake box in your windows workgroup)
B) You could set up an ftp server
C) For encryption, use an sftp (included with openssh) server with a windows client such as filezilla
D) Set up a secure web server and create scripts to process file uploads

For occassional files I would second using sftp/scp. Filezilla or WinSCP are both freeware and are excellent clients. They work just like ftp clients, but give you all the encryption goodness of SSH.