How do you like to transfer large files between friends across the internet?
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You can use syncthing to transfer files across the internet? How? I thought it was only for local networks
By default out of the box it will transfer over the internet if it needs to.
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On occasion I find myself needing to send a file at least a few gigabytes in size to a friend across our slow ISPs but haven't found a satisfying solution. I usually end up creating a private torrent with the announce address of my own IP. Even though it's slow - it basically never reaches my max upload speed for some reason, it is at least resilient if there are ever any network glitches.
Does anyone else face this same challenge?
EDIT: Thank you for the awesome suggestions! I have some homework to do on these
I've used:
But for slower connections bittorrent is the best option by far because it doesn't care about interruptions, and verifies the data as it goes. Just gotta make sure you're port forwarding the client.
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Wormhole.app, can't recall if they have a limit atm
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On occasion I find myself needing to send a file at least a few gigabytes in size to a friend across our slow ISPs but haven't found a satisfying solution. I usually end up creating a private torrent with the announce address of my own IP. Even though it's slow - it basically never reaches my max upload speed for some reason, it is at least resilient if there are ever any network glitches.
Does anyone else face this same challenge?
EDIT: Thank you for the awesome suggestions! I have some homework to do on these
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Super easy. Spin up an OpenVPN server, forwarding the right ports to your server. Now spin up an Apache server with the folder your file’s in as server root. Send the client config for your VPN to your friend, along with the local address of your HTTP server. Now they can install the OpenVPN client on their PC and download the file from your HTTP server. Once you’re done, tear down all your servers, and don’t forget to unforward the ports. Couldn’t be easier.
/s
Okay can you explain why thats a sarcastic answer? Is one of those first three steps way harder than I think it is?
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On occasion I find myself needing to send a file at least a few gigabytes in size to a friend across our slow ISPs but haven't found a satisfying solution. I usually end up creating a private torrent with the announce address of my own IP. Even though it's slow - it basically never reaches my max upload speed for some reason, it is at least resilient if there are ever any network glitches.
Does anyone else face this same challenge?
EDIT: Thank you for the awesome suggestions! I have some homework to do on these
Not sure if this works for you but I didnt see it mentioned. I use plex for my media server, so I would just put whatever it is on there and then someone else can log in remotely and download it through the app on their mobile, and I think also via the website too.
I know this works if the person is downloading from android but haven't tested otherwise.
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Not sure if this works for you but I didnt see it mentioned. I use plex for my media server, so I would just put whatever it is on there and then someone else can log in remotely and download it through the app on their mobile, and I think also via the website too.
I know this works if the person is downloading from android but haven't tested otherwise.
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On occasion I find myself needing to send a file at least a few gigabytes in size to a friend across our slow ISPs but haven't found a satisfying solution. I usually end up creating a private torrent with the announce address of my own IP. Even though it's slow - it basically never reaches my max upload speed for some reason, it is at least resilient if there are ever any network glitches.
Does anyone else face this same challenge?
EDIT: Thank you for the awesome suggestions! I have some homework to do on these
I'd go for syncthing over nextcloud for your specific usecase. Nextcloud isn't good for unreliable connections and they're sticking with the annoying decision of not supporting server to server synchronization.
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I use wormhole, but when I've wanted to use that website for receiving, I can never tell how to do it.
Can you actually use that site to receive files?
Whoever uploaded them has to send you a link to them. It does have a limit of 10gb, but its pretty reliable I'm my experience.
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Okay can you explain why thats a sarcastic answer? Is one of those first three steps way harder than I think it is?
openvpn and apache can be very time consuming to set up if you do it for the first time
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Super easy. Spin up an OpenVPN server, forwarding the right ports to your server. Now spin up an Apache server with the folder your file’s in as server root. Send the client config for your VPN to your friend, along with the local address of your HTTP server. Now they can install the OpenVPN client on their PC and download the file from your HTTP server. Once you’re done, tear down all your servers, and don’t forget to unforward the ports. Couldn’t be easier.
/s
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Okay can you explain why thats a sarcastic answer? Is one of those first three steps way harder than I think it is?
Cause that’s not simple or easy at all. It takes a fair bit of knowledge to set up all of these things.
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Syncthing is not limited to local network. It's hole punching is one of the major features
The fact that Syncthing seems to solve CGNAT on its own has me wondering why there are not more solutions for the server/home side.
Why does Wireguard or any other VPN not work like Tailscale or Zerotier?
Why don't torrent clients can't work with IPv6 to seed more?
Why doesn't Plex adopt a similar mechanic like Syncthing to expose the media over the Internet instead of being a prisoner of CGNAT?
I know I am just throwing different options with my personal frustrations lol, but I hope you get what I am trying to mean, Plex, torrent and home VPN users shouldn't become masters at networking, especially when the documentation for the tools IS NOT ENOUGH.
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Er, wait, are you using Syncthing for its intended purpose of syncing files across devices on your local network? And then exposing that infrastructure to the internet? Or are you isolating Syncthing instances?
It's very much a WAN solution too. I use it to push my files to a Pi Zero W that's 200 miles from my house. I use it as an off site store of my files. The Pi is connected as an untrusted device in Syncthing so that all files sit encrypted at rest.
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The fact that Syncthing seems to solve CGNAT on its own has me wondering why there are not more solutions for the server/home side.
Why does Wireguard or any other VPN not work like Tailscale or Zerotier?
Why don't torrent clients can't work with IPv6 to seed more?
Why doesn't Plex adopt a similar mechanic like Syncthing to expose the media over the Internet instead of being a prisoner of CGNAT?
I know I am just throwing different options with my personal frustrations lol, but I hope you get what I am trying to mean, Plex, torrent and home VPN users shouldn't become masters at networking, especially when the documentation for the tools IS NOT ENOUGH.
Why does Wireguard or any other VPN not work like Tailscale or Zerotier?
tailscale and zerotier are wireguard, but with a public server that helps with NAT. Syncthing uses a public server for that too.
wireguard was specifically made to be as simple and minimalistic as possible.
Why don't torrent clients can't work with IPv6 to seed more?
is there such a problem? honest question. But I think that might be a different issue
Why doesn't Plex adopt a similar mechanic like Syncthing to expose the media over the Internet instead of being a prisoner of CGNAT?
maybe they just don't see working on it profitable enough
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On occasion I find myself needing to send a file at least a few gigabytes in size to a friend across our slow ISPs but haven't found a satisfying solution. I usually end up creating a private torrent with the announce address of my own IP. Even though it's slow - it basically never reaches my max upload speed for some reason, it is at least resilient if there are ever any network glitches.
Does anyone else face this same challenge?
EDIT: Thank you for the awesome suggestions! I have some homework to do on these
I literally just set up a container for Erugo for this exact thing. It worked perfectly and was super easy to do. It's just a self-hosted version of wetransfer. Could be helpful...
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That should work for media files at least, but I believe they'll also need Plex pass to be able to download anything.
Should be able to do that with Jellyfin, no Plex/Plex Pass needed (if you really want to use media software for this).
That said I suspect your current method with creating a torrent to share is much more resilient when dealing with choppy internet connections. With Jellyfin/Plex it's more of a direct download situation, not sure if either can resume broken downloads.
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Why does Wireguard or any other VPN not work like Tailscale or Zerotier?
tailscale and zerotier are wireguard, but with a public server that helps with NAT. Syncthing uses a public server for that too.
wireguard was specifically made to be as simple and minimalistic as possible.
Why don't torrent clients can't work with IPv6 to seed more?
is there such a problem? honest question. But I think that might be a different issue
Why doesn't Plex adopt a similar mechanic like Syncthing to expose the media over the Internet instead of being a prisoner of CGNAT?
maybe they just don't see working on it profitable enough
> is there such a problem? honest question. But I think that might be a different issue
Yes, that is a problem. We're still in a world where you need to manually enable port forwarding in order to get better seeding for bittorrent clients, and if you have CGNAT you're SOL (short of using a VPN or something to bounce through an external host).
It's likely because torrent software is older (& in crappier languages), and came about before CGNAT was a thing.
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On occasion I find myself needing to send a file at least a few gigabytes in size to a friend across our slow ISPs but haven't found a satisfying solution. I usually end up creating a private torrent with the announce address of my own IP. Even though it's slow - it basically never reaches my max upload speed for some reason, it is at least resilient if there are ever any network glitches.
Does anyone else face this same challenge?
EDIT: Thank you for the awesome suggestions! I have some homework to do on these
If its a file from my seedbox: Direct share link (optional pw)
Local file: OneDrive -
Er, wait, are you using Syncthing for its intended purpose of syncing files across devices on your local network? And then exposing that infrastructure to the internet? Or are you isolating Syncthing instances?
Syncthing has public releays enabling it to work (dunno if one or none need to be public) without both parties being exposed.