ncp: Possibly the easiest yet

Being a bit of a klutz when it comes to networking, I’m always on the lookout for easy ways to streamline file transfers and stuff like that.

For a long time I relied on nfs in classic client-server arrangements to handle transfers. They are a little cumbersome to set up, but nothing someone with mediocre networking skills (like me) can’t handle.

A few years ago I finally tried scp. I jumped ship immediately, and mostly relied mostly on that and rsync for a while.

A few weeks ago I mentioned woof, which is probably the most useful in terms of offering (or accepting) a file across wider networks.

But now I think I may have a winner in the least-intensive, least-intricate and least-invasive categories for local areas: ncp.

It’s so dead simple and so utterly painless that I can only wonder why it took me years to find it. One machine does this:

npush target.file

And the other does this:

npoll

And if all goes well:

 

Voila. Not even network addresses — not even aliases for network addresses are needed. You could do it on a busted laptop with only five working keys. 😯

I’ll let the home page explain how ncp works; the details are better explained than I could do here.

For my own part I’ll probably handle most of my in-house transfers this way from now on. It’s just too darned easy.

P.S.: Thanks to jerryjerry for pointing it out.