Q I have a networked web server set up with Apache, which I am going to use for testing websites. I can access the web pages via port 80 over the network, but at the moment only the default index.html file is available in /var/www/html. What is the best way to upload files? Can I set up FTP, and if so, how do I do it?
A Actually there are a number of ways to get remote file access with Linux, the most popular of which is the SSH protocol. SSH offers secure transport or shell or file transfers, although here is some overhead due to the decryption and uncompression that takes place (more of which in Snail- paced Backups). Of course, on a public network security is a major concern, so the safety of SSH offsets many of its throughput problems. SSH works with Windows using a client such as WinSCP for file transfers and PuTTY for shell access.
If you are going from a Linux workstation to a Linux server on a local network you can use NFS to share a filesystem on the server and access it on the workstation as if it were local. This is usually the best configuration, as NFS runs at near to line rate. However, it is insecure on anything close to a public network. For a Windows client, you can always install Samba on the Linux server and access the web directories using a share. Copying data back and forth is simple, although Samba might take a little coaxing to work exactly as you want it to.