this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
95 points (95.2% liked)

Selfhosted

44520 readers
1704 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

On occasion I find myself needing to send a file at least a few gigabytes in size to a friend across our slow ISPs but haven't found a satisfying solution. I usually end up creating a private torrent with the announce address of my own IP. Even though it's slow - it basically never reaches my max upload speed for some reason, it is at least resilient if there are ever any network glitches.

Does anyone else face this same challenge?

EDIT: Thank you for the awesome suggestions! I have some homework to do on these

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

My largest file transfer I have done via USB disk. You simply don't transfer multiple terabytes over the net.

[–] eneff@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 1 day ago

I really like Wormhole for this exact purpose.

[–] fubarx@lemmy.world 26 points 1 day ago
[–] monogram@feddit.nl 7 points 1 day ago
[–] Tabooki@lemm.ee 3 points 1 day ago

Nextcloud is great for this

[–] TheFinn@discuss.tchncs.de 36 points 1 day ago (21 children)
load more comments (21 replies)
[–] Retro_unlimited@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Before I moved I used to use my web server.

My Domain . Com / files . Zip And I would set a password on the zip. After they download it, they tell me and I remove the file.

[–] ancoraunamoka@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 9 hours ago

Same, always eorked great for me

[–] plim@feddit.dk 19 points 1 day ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] GaMEChld@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

I use an ancient HTTP File Server program called HFS from Rejetto. Very light weight. Supports making user accounts and whatnot if you want.

I usually just turn it on for a transfer and don't leave it up these days, but still comes in handy on occasion.

[–] bigDottee@geekroom.tech 10 points 1 day ago

I’d have to have friends across the internet that wanted files first…

[–] hperrin@lemmy.ca 15 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Super easy. Spin up an OpenVPN server, forwarding the right ports to your server. Now spin up an Apache server with the folder your file’s in as server root. Send the client config for your VPN to your friend, along with the local address of your HTTP server. Now they can install the OpenVPN client on their PC and download the file from your HTTP server. Once you’re done, tear down all your servers, and don’t forget to unforward the ports. Couldn’t be easier.

/s

[–] admin@lemmy.haley.io 15 points 1 day ago

I have non-ironically gotten responses like this

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Typewar@infosec.pub 8 points 1 day ago

Me and my friend used netcat to transfer 30 GB of files put into a zip. Very fun, would not recommend

[–] 0x0@programming.dev 2 points 1 day ago

You can OnionShare if you're worried about privacy.

[–] Knossos@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You could try wormhole. It makes a direct connection.

[–] eight_byte@feddit.org 8 points 1 day ago

Or croc which is very similar. I think it also allows to resume file transfers.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Friends I know IRL: Thumbdrives.

Friends I only know via the Internet: Torrents or IRC filesharing.

Though knowing that a homing pigeon with a thumb drive is actually faster than the fastest Internet network on the planet, maybe I should simply invest in a coop and some pigeons. 🤔

[–] Mic_Check_One_Two@reddthat.com 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Though knowing that a homing pigeon with a thumb drive is actually faster than the fastest Internet network on the planet

Depends on how big the flash drive is, I suppose. Need to send a 1GB file? Just make a torrent. Need to send 40TB? Yeah, that hard drive is getting driven across town.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Perhaps two pigeons could carry the hard drive on a string. I've heard tell of swallows that have done this with coconuts.

[–] brighteast@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Exactly what kind of pigeons are we talking about here? Or would you recommend switching to an avian variant of the migratory type?

[–] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 day ago

FileBrowser

Create share links allowing anyone with the link (+ optional password) to browse and download individual files, or whole folder contents.

If someone needs to send me a file, I can create a user for them in a few seconds; so they can upload to that as well.

I use https://www.sendbig.com/ I haven’t read their privacy policy, though.

[–] MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I've used:

https://send.tresorit.com/

https://wormhole.app/

https://pairdrop.net/

But for slower connections bittorrent is the best option by far because it doesn't care about interruptions, and verifies the data as it goes. Just gotta make sure you're port forwarding the client.

[–] grimer@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

I literally just set up a container for Erugo for this exact thing. It worked perfectly and was super easy to do. It's just a self-hosted version of wetransfer. Could be helpful...

[–] manicdave@feddit.uk 5 points 1 day ago

I'd go for syncthing over nextcloud for your specific usecase. Nextcloud isn't good for unreliable connections and they're sticking with the annoying decision of not supporting server to server synchronization.

load more comments
view more: next ›