No more right click terminal
Colin Walters
walters at redhat.com
Sun Jul 17 15:36:43 UTC 2005
On Sat, 2005-07-16 at 19:41 -0700, Jesse Keating wrote:
> On Sat, 2005-07-16 at 13:26 -0400, Colin Walters wrote:
> > All you do is drop files you want accessible publicly into your ~/Public
> > folder, and everyone else on the local area network can see them when
> > you go to "Computer->Network". No need to know about IP addresses, ssh,
> > servers, etc. Now if you're not on the same local network it won't
> > work, but if you are it can replace ssh/sftp/ftp in a much much better
> > way.
> >
Sigh...I'm amazed that people react so violently to something I think is
so obviously useful. I'll answer your email in reverse order:
> I strongly object this EVER making it into core without some
> administrative method of restricting access or the ability to 'turn it
> off'.
I believe startup is keyed off a GConf preference. When we integrate it
into the upcoming GNOME session services framework the GConf-keying
should happen automatically.
> Heck, I'd rather not see it there period. User workstations are
> not for sharing files. A file server is designed and useful for that.
> The sysadmin in my shudders w/ terror.
Right, so next time I go to a coffee shop with a friend and want to
share files, we'll just haul along my enterprise file server...
Seriously, even at work at Red Hat's Westford office where we do have a
file server it's been really useful. I don't use the file server
because the normal usage requires I have a NFS home directory, and NFS
sucks with laptops. I want to be able to unplug my laptop and go.
It's significantly easier for me to drag and drop a patch into my
~/Public directory and tell my coworkers to find it on
"Computer->Network->walters' Files" than it is to scp it to the file
server, and have them (likely) scp it off.
I might also note it's also more efficient in terms of network usage.
On to your technical questions:
> Er, what protocol does this use to share?
HTTP; it runs Apache as your user.
> What authentication methods
> are there?
None, the idea is the files are public.
> What ports does it use?
It's dynamically bound and announced via Rendezvous.
> Why would there suddenly be a
> publicly viewable folder WITHIN MY HOME DIR?!
Isn't that what many installations of Apache have done for years with
~/public_html off your file server?
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