I have a need to regularly transfer a largish (20Mb) of data across a VPN, unattended - at night.

One way is to schedule an xcopy in a batch file that sends the data off from one end, but I feel there must be a safer way of handling this.

It would be good if the transfer could be controlled at both ends.

Any ideas?

Mark

What do you mean by "safer"?
Encryption?

What do you mean by controlling?
Ability to abort the transfer?

VPN? I would probalby setup an FTP server on the recieving machine and transfer files via FTP.

It's resumable, fairly automated and just makes sense. Especially if you are going to do this on a regular basis.

you could use zebedee wich can create tunnels with very strong encryption ( http://www.winton.org.uk/zebedee/ ). its a little tricky to set up but once you have you can use ftp or whatever you want since its encrypted anyways.

Thanks for the replies. I'll check them out.

By "safer" I really meant the ability to ensure that the transfer completed properly.

By "controlled" I really meant the anility to restart or resume the transfer if, for some reason, it failed before completion.

The simpler the better.

Could a batch file be constructed using xcopy with the /v switch calling itself recursively on failure??

Mark

Since you are considering using xcopy, I assume you have Microsoft Networking connectivity so you can make use of network drives?

If this is the case, then a batch file making use of xcopy errorlevels would do the trick. You might want to find some copy utility that allows resuming though.

Yes, I do have network access to the remote drive.
Would it be possible and would there be any advantage in using DOS FTP? I guess there needs to be FTP server software running on the remote machine.
Can you suggest where to look for copy utilities (with resume)?
Thanks for your help.

Mark

There are free FTP utilities available. You will need a server (accepts files) and a client (transmits files).

As far as client goes, www.smartftp.com is unbeatable freeware.

A freeware FTP server won't be very hard to find, although I cannot recommend one offhand. They do exist.. I've used one before, although I cannot remember the name and it worked just fine.

DOS FTP doesn't support resuming (I don't know to, at least).

FTP is not known for its high security, but it is password protected and perfect for repetitive, simple tasks.

Looks good - but a couple of posts on their site suggests that it can't undertake a file transfer from an unattended batch file process.

Are there actually any benefits to using FTP, over say xcopy?
Would it be any more robust?

Mark

FTP supports resuming unlike xcopy so if the link is slow you don't have to retransfer all the data.

I am sure there are some copy utilities that allow resuming. I don't have the time to find one for you though..
If you go for FTP, I can recommend wget - a simple completely scriptable client that supports resuming and recursively copying directory structures.