File transfer between Linux/Windows WITHOUT Samba, preserved date AND time a must!

From: toor (toor_at_nowhere.org)
Date: 04/27/05 

Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 16:55:13 -0400

Hello Linux friends,

After the steep learning curve period of about 9 months I have bumped into
a tricky problem.

Samba is nice, very nice. I discovered the hard way that Samba will only
work with a Windows box that has Netbios enabled over TCP/IP. This creates
the following unwanted "features":

1) Netbios enabled over TCP/IP on a Windows box slows the Windows box down
because there are DNS queries going all over the world for silly things
like a simple file search (using Powerdesk as an example). Opening a local
PDF file with Acrobat on a Netbios enabled over TCP/IP Windows box takes 4
times longer!

2) File transfers are NOT fast, topping out at best 4 mB per second over a
100 mbs LAN.

3) Privacy is compromised severely because file searches will send out DNS
queries that explicitly ask for specific filenames! Ouch!

It appears that Netbios enabled over TCP/IP Windows box works well if and
only if that same box DOES not produce any queries of it's own. eg.
operating as a headless file server.

So I killed all Netbios enabled over TCP/IP Windows boxes except for a
backup file server. No more unwanted traffic.

I went back to the "trusted" FTP to do file transfers however I forgot one
very important fact. A good FTP client will preserve the date and time
that the file was created (eg, gFTP in Linux) on a download from a server,
but there is no FTP server out there that does the same for files uploaded
to it. (Correct me if I am wrong). FTP kills Samba in file transfer speed.
Suddenly uploads/downloads on a 100 mbs LAN went up to 9-10 mB per second.
2-3 times faster than Samba. That is fast when you have gigabytes to move.

My question is what protocol is out there (Samba excluded) that will allow
transfers on a closed LAN that have the following properties?:

1) Fast! 9-10 mB per second is what I expect.

2) Uploads AND downloads must explicitly have their date and time
preserved as part of the protocol. I am very surprised that FTP has
existed so long without this feature.

3) The client should operate similarly to a good FTP client that shows
directories and file sizes for both the local and host systems.

4) The protocol in question must exist for both Linux and Windows. GNU
preferred.

5) I use Debian and thus .deb distributions are preferred over .rpm

Thanks for taking the time to read this post carefully and responding to
it.

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