"Popular" protocols comparison

Very unofficial protocols comparison

These conclusions are ENTIRELY the responsibility of me. You can blame me for anything you disagree with.

Protocol		Lan/Internet		Scope		Complexity
HTTP		both pretty safe		fairly universal		fairly simple, great for downloading of static files
FTP		fair for both		diminishing, thankfully		Not “hard” to use, but also not the easiest to set up. Also not particularly secure
TFTP		lan, mostly		obscure		Used mostly for booting diskless workstations. No idea about setup difficulty.
SMB		lan. NOT internet-safe.		Mostly windows, some media players		Sometimes quirky to configure initially, pretty easy to use.
NFS		lan. not recommended for internet		Mostly unix-like		Setup generally fairly simple, both for server and clients. No encryption included
AFP		mostly lan, I think		Mostly Apple		Not sure, never personally tried. Some users have easy success, others, not.
SSH		either. not recommended to expose root account to internet		Mostly unix-like, and windows via programs		Very simple to administer.
RSYNC (over SSH)		Same as SSH		Mostly unix-like console		Very simple to use, no rsync service to configure, only SSH required
RSYNC (module/service)		either, if secured properly		Mostly unix-like, often GUI		A little hard to configure initially.
Torrent		almost entirely internet		fairly universal		Popular for distributing large files to/from large communities. Can be a little challenging to configure initially. Should be fairly easy to use after.
Unison		Not sure, maybe reliant on SSH		mostly unix-like ??		Not sure, kinda tried and failed to use it once. Sorry
iSCSI		lan. internet probably too slow and not safe		growing		Used most often with VMs or diskless workstations. Sometimes hard to configure, but very powerful.
UPnP		Only heard of on lan, thankfully		growing, unfortunately		UPnP, as a concept needs to die in a fire. And manufacturers shouldn't have been so lazy as to add UPnP to their devices and then lie to consumers and say the device is “media ready”.
DAAP/iTunes		probably mostly lan, not sure		apple/windows mostly, I guess		Configuration looks maybe complicated. Not sure, haven't tried.

Originally from documentation/setup_and_user_guide/very_unofficial_protocol_comparison.txt · Last modified: 2014/02/19 14:29 (external edit)  This copy is here as a backup.