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Tinypliny's Journal

tinypliny
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03/17/2012 12:38 #56232

Take3: Secure and easy method of sharing files between linux and android
Category: linux
(e:Paul)'s comments can sometimes act like insidious little nanoparticles that eat away at your trust of non-transparent pieces of software like only nanoparticles can. And if you didn't know already, the (e:Paul)-nanoparticular frequency is especially persuasive.

So I hunted around again to find an alternative solution and found this brilliant extension to the solution I found earlier for transferring files from android to linux. Turns out it can work both ways and quite securely here:


The method uses the inherent capacity of the android device (in my case, Nexus One, Nexus S and Asus TF101) to act as a wireless hotspot and be an FTP server over this self-generated wireless. Any laptop can connect to this android-device generated wireless and access all the files on the android device -or just swap files back and forth. So it's like a private wireless party! You don't need to have an internet or 3G/4G/LTE phone-data connection.

I like this method infinitely more. And I am betting (e:Paul) would approve. :)

So the steps (these are for my reference just in case the original link above vanishes for some reason):

On your android device:
  • Go to Settings > Wireless & Networks > Tethering & Portable hotspot
  • Turn on the portable Wi-Fi hotspot.
  • Configure this Wi-Fi hotspot (Give it a wacky name and a secure password - it's going to be visible to your building mates, why not send them a message?) If you want them to share your enthusiasm for dry PDFs or perhaps dodgy videos, you can even make it open and unsecure.
  • Install the Wifi FTP transfer application I talked about in (e:tinypliny,56176) and turn it on.
  • Now go to you linux machine, connect to the wifi spot generated by the android device
  • Pull up a console. Type

Route



Something like this will come up:
image

At this point, my laptop and android device were not connected to the internet; just to each other. So the 192.168.43.0 is the IP of my laptop and the 192.168.43.1 is the gateway of the Wifi spot generated by the transformer (or any android device).
  • Open up Nautilus > File > connect to server > type in the address of the server as 192.168.43.1 (the gateway) and the port (2121 in that wifi app on my android device). Input the password and username that you set up for the Wifi FTP service on the android device
  • et voila. The android device turns up as just another folder on your laptop. You can transfer files between your asus transformer (or any android device) and laptop just like you would between any two folder.

If I can do this, you can too. Say yes to transparency. Say no to frustrations of the USB not mounting on linux (or windows) for the asus transformer without complicated methods that may or may not work.

03/16/2012 14:22 #56229

Take 2: Sharing files between Linux desktop and Android device
Category: linux
This is an easier method than setting up own server and hoping that it would work well but as (e:Paul) pointed out in the comments, it's also somewhat non-transparent. Why do you need to go to an external site ez.dropper.co and get a code? What other data does this application collect from your android device? The answers are floating in the wind and possibly in the developer's mind.

et voila EDIT
The developers frank and informative responses to these answers
are in (e:tinypliny,56245)

Here's how to use EZ Drop (File Sync) to share files between your linux laptop and android device:

Install EZ Drop (File Sync) from Google Play here:

on your android device.

Go to ez.dropper.co/ to get your code (from your linux desktop browser).

Fire up the now installed EZ Drop (File Sync) in your android device.

Input the code from ez.dropper.co/ in your android device.

An interface to transfer files appears in your browser at ez.dropper.co/ after you input the code in your android device.

You can drag and drop the files you want to share there.

The files you share get saved in the download folder in your android device.

Navigate to those files using ES Explorer - another awesome application from the Google Play Store.

That's it. No more struggles with FTP/HTTP servers on this linux machine and bemoaning that the ASUS transformer does not mount as a USB. It doesn't matter anymore.I found another method after some searching that also works very well. More in the next post: (e:tinypliny,56232)

tinypliny - 03/17/12 11:48
Okay - the misgiving reached a crescendo after your comment. This method does makes me uneasy and I feel like transparency is missing. So I have found a newer method - that kind of builds on the method I found for transferring files from android to linux. It works the opposite way as well.
tinypliny - 03/17/12 09:16
I had around an hour of misgiving about this. I mean what else is the application dredging out from the device? You never know. But it kind of became very desperate because I need to be done with reading around 50 odd full PDFs and skim 100 more by end of next week. I am going nuts with the lack of time for this mammoth task ahead. I got the transformer expressly to make this easier. Why not dropbox? Well because I am on a crappy DSL and dropbox bandwidth needs are ENORMOUS. With this I can transfer via the local wireless at nearly 54 MBps/
paul - 03/16/12 23:51
That process sounds sketchy, like why the middle man and the code. I would never trust it. Why not just use dropbox like everyone, if that is what you are going for? I am a much bigger fan of the home server. Want me to come by one day and help you figure it out.

03/11/2012 20:03 #56207

I want my hour back.
Category: whine
I hate today. Hate it. Hate it.

GIVE BACK MY SIXTY MINUTES.

I hate you, whoever came up with the loony idea of robbing people of their time!
You suck.
metalpeter - 03/12/12 18:03
I find the entire thing kinda silly really but that is just me....
uncutsaniflush - 03/11/12 20:32
If you stick around here, you'll get your hour back in the late fall. If you move all bets are off on when you get your hour back.

03/11/2012 01:00 #56202

You are guessing...
Category: the odes
TP's drawing
turn
12
image
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[A][H][A][C][R][U][N]
[Z][A][O][[I][N][N][S]

03/15/2012 02:41 #56222

Sharing files between Linux and Android
Category: linux
UPDATE: Those who are stumped at this method should preferably read about a waaaay easier method to share files between the Asus transformer TF101 (or any android device) and the desktop at (e:tinypliny,56229) or (e:tinypliny,56241) (e:tinypliny,56232) or choose to struggle some more with uncertain results (on Fedora 16) by clicking on the comment bubble below. Your choice!

---
Setting up a server on linux and having your other devices access it is a supposedly simple thing but I am having a hard time with it.

Objective: To access one of my folders on my linux laptop from my android devices (specifically a tablet, which I use to read pdfs)

What I have done: Started an apache server on my laptop.

How?
Like so:

Check if httpd exists on the system
  • rpm -q httpd

Switch to /var/www/html directory
  • cd /var/www/html

Crease a symbolic link to the directory I want to share
So here I am linking to ~/pdfs and naming it pdfs
  • ln -s ~/pdfs pdfs

Switch to root user
  • Su

Enable, start and check the apache server
  • systemctl enable httpd.service
  • systemctl start httpd.service
  • systemctl status httpd.service

Now if I go to localhosts/pdfs or 127.0.0.1/pdfs with any browser on my laptop, I can see the directory on my server.

The question is how do I see the wretched directory from a browser on my android tablet in the same wireless network?! The IP address of the wired connection on the linux laptop is: 10.0.0.4 and the server is at port 80

So technically the address 10.0.0.4:80 should work, correct? But it is not!!

Do I need to fiddle with my Apache configuration files?
/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

Stumped for now.
---
tinypliny - 03/16/12 18:29
Check out alternative solution at (e:tinypliny,56229)
tinypliny - 03/16/12 13:03
Thanks for that insight. I changes the iptables configuration and I could finally see the files from my tablet/android devices (in my ubuntu, not in fedora where something is still screwy).

I was pretty happy till I realized that that's all I could do. see the files. The downloads never initiate. :/

I need to get this thing working fast so I have located another alternative. Posting about it next.
paul - 03/16/12 01:46
As long as apache is listening in all ips,which i think it os by defaut and if you can see it from inside but not from outside the machine then it is your firewall. You need to enable traffic on port 80 through the firewall. I am sure there is some GUI for that. Fedora uses iptables.

Or you can just copy the setup for port 22 that probably already in you firewall rules in /etc/sysconfig/iptables

Then just restart the service
sudo service iptables restart