posted
On my Windows system I have a remote shared drive from which I need to copy a largish (~300 MB) file. With my connection, that should take about 2.5 hours, which is OK.
What's not OK is that every time I try copying it over, it fails partway through, telling me that the specified network path is no longer available.
I'm looking for a program that will manage this download for me, allowing me to resume it if it gets disconnected.
Something like FileZilla, but which works for drive-to-drive copying, instead of just internet downloads.
posted
Oh, your system is Windows, read it wrong. I'm less familiar with VPN software. Is it possible that the VPN software uses SSH to form the encrypted network? If so, maybe you can use the SSH file transfer protocol.
A brute force way of doing it might be just to RAR compress the file into pieces and then start the transfer. If the transfer stops, then just resume at the piece where the transfer was aborted. Login to the remote machine and unrar the file there.
Obviously you do not want to do this if this is a regular situation rather than a one time thing.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
He works from home, so I'm guessing it is a frequent thing.
Actually, if you get an answer, please DON'T delete the thread, Porter. While the file I download every few days is smaller (< 1 hour to download), it has a nasty habit of bombing out just a few minutes before the download is complete. So I would love to have a way to do this too.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
VPN does not use SSH, it uses a different protocol.
If this were *nix, I'd use rsync. I know there's a windows version of rsync, but I don't know how it would interact with your setup.
When you use rsync over a network, it identifies the parts of the file that are not present in the current file, then only transfers those. So if it had failed partway through transferring, it should be able to pick up. Again, I don't know how it would interact with your setup. I would test it a few times (perhaps manually introducing network failures to verify its fault resistance) before trying it on real data.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
AFAIK, VPN can certainly use SSH since SSH itself is a network protocol while VPN is not a network protocol unto itself but is often associated with particular vendor specific protocols.
posted
You can do VPN over SSH, certainly. You can do any network thing over SSH. This does not change that VPN does not 'use' SSH.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
*shrug* Then you're down to semantics. A car drives, it can either go over dirt roads or paved roads. Can you ask the question, "Does your car 'use' paved roads? Perhaps you can use those paved roads in a different way." Certainly.
In any case, I have no desire to debate semantics. The point was that if SSH was present for mph, he could try using that connection in a different way. If not present, then proceed to the next solution.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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Of course, I won't be back in the office to try it until next Friday. But Total Copy looks like it might do the trick. Thanks, Matt. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: *shrug* Then you're down to semantics. A car drives, it can either go over dirt roads or paved roads. Can you ask the question, "Does your car 'use' paved roads? Perhaps you can use those paved roads in a different way." Certainly.
In any case, I have no desire to debate semantics. The point was that if SSH was present for mph, he could try using that connection in a different way. If not present, then proceed to the next solution.
You can use SSH to operate a VPN, but the functionality is limited. Most VPNs in the corporate world are either PPTP or IPSec based VPNs. Neither of these use the SSH port to communicate. SSH can be used through a PPTP or IPSec tunnel, but as far as I know, the reverse is not true.
quote: AFAIK, VPN can certainly use SSH since SSH itself is a network protocol while VPN is not a network protocol unto itself but is often associated with particular vendor specific protocols.
This is mostly inaccurate now. The predominant protocol in VPN now is IPSec. IPSec is pretty complex stuff and a very slight mismatch between Client and Server can cause things to go wrong. I've spent the better part of the last year trying to understand IPSec VPNs and I still don't have a firm grip on some of the nuances of it.
That said, MPH is probably connecting through an IPSec based VPN.
MPH, if you have an opportunity, you may want to talk to the IT people in charge of managing that VPN, because it really shouldn't be failing while a transfer is taking place. If the solution given by Matt is enough for you, awesome But if you are bored and have time to shoot me an email, I'd like to help fix the deeper problem, since there are likely other people experiencing the same issues. If that's okay with you, let me know how you connect. Do you use a Windows network connection (This is the case if the VPN connection is listed in the "Network Connections" area under the Control Panel), or if you use a VPN client (You have to start up a program of some type to connect to your work network). If you use a VPN client, let me know who wrote it.
More than likely, there's a single setting in the VPN client that needs to be set right to prevent the tunnel from crashing on you.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Matt's solution didn't work for me, but I talked to the IT guy and found out that we have an internal FTP server, so I'm just using filezilla.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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But Total Copy looks like it might do the trick. Thanks, Matt. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
But if you are bored and have time to shoot me an email, I'd like to help fix the deeper problem, since there are likely other people experiencing the same issues. If that's okay with you, let me know how you connect. Do you use a Windows network connection (This is the case if the VPN connection is listed in the "Network Connections" area under the Control Panel), or if you use a VPN client (You have to start up a program of some type to connect to your work network). If you use a VPN client, let me know who wrote it. 
