(S)FTP-Connections / Daily Drive UT

GeraltvonNVIDIA

Hi!

I am a new User to the UT-World, but have a little experience in Linux and Linux on Mobile-Devices (have several devices which run pmOS and wrote about Steps to help others make it run on them https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/User:GeraltvonNVIDIA ).

Anyway: I want to daily drive my FP4 with some Linux OS and my best bet, because of working GPS and Camera is currently UT. So i will give it a try.

After tinkering for the last weekend i stumbled upon the lack of SFTP Support? When i open the "Network"-Tab in my File-Explorer, there is no option to select some sort of Protocol or IP. Nor do it recognize any of my devices in Network - and there are many ^^'

I stumbled upon this app https://open-store.io/app/ftpmanager.costa which seemed to work in the past, but is abandoned. Is there any option to get SFTP to work, or get that old app to run?

arubislander

@GeraltvonNVIDIA

sFTP uses SSH as the protocol. SSH is fully supported on UT. There is currently no GUI to facilitate this on the device. But if you are comfortable with the commandline you can connect from your phone to any ssh server out of the box.
SSH'ing into your device requires some setup first.
You would need to enable and start the SSH server, and you would need to get your public key copied over to your phone via some other means first.

GeraltvonNVIDIA

Hi @arubislander and thanks for your fast reply! Okay nice, i didnt think the of the other way around, but actually yes of course

I think i can work with that for now, thanks!

So there is currently no sort of (s)ftp-client for this directly on the phone - besides the command line.

And why doesnt the "Network"-Tab in my File-Explorer show any of my devices? Do i have to activate something for this to work?

arubislander

Hi @GeraltvonNVIDIA. Welcome to the community

@GeraltvonNVIDIA said in (S)FTP-Connections / Daily Drive UT:

So there is currently no sort of (s)ftp-client for this directly on the phone - besides the command line.

Not that I am aware of, no. There are several synching mechanisms available though. I myself use the Syncthing app. You could set it up to sync one folder on your phone to another folder on your computer. Then anytime you needed to transfer something over either way you would just copy / move it into that folder. At the moment you would have to start the Syncthing app on the phone to trigger a sync. But there might be work underway to change that.
If you happen to have a Nextcloud server there are also a few Nextcloud clients in the OpenStore.

And why doesn't the "Network"-Tab in my File-Explorer show any of my devices? Do i have to activate something for this to work?

That tab has not worked since Canonical times. It might have been fixed at some point in some non-merged branch some time ago. But evidenced by my vague wording, this is not something that I am sure of. Someone would need to take a look at this. Might be as simple as missing packages in the rootfs.

GeraltvonNVIDIA

I see. Many thanks for your help! I think we can close this thread now

ikoz

@arubislander For me it used to work with samba, I could access my NAS and read/write files. Haven't checked after the focal update though.

GeraltvonNVIDIA

Hi @ikoz , thanks for your reply! SMB would be indeed a nice alternative . And would even be more attractive, when it will show up in the File-Explorer on focal.

arubislander

@ikoz You are correct. I assumed OP was expecting to see their SMB shares on the network tab. I should have mentioned that the network tab only ever was able to autodiscover SMB / CIFS shares. But I no longer have any those on my network, so I have no idea if it works in Focal or not.

GeraltvonNVIDIA

@arubislander Both of your answers are important to me. At first i only searched for an easy option to transfer files to and from my phone. The First Thing that comes to my mind is (S)FTP, when it comes to this topic. So i searched for exact that.

For SMB you have to configure more, but if it pops up in the File-Explorer after that, it is a even better solution.

Full Story is: I have a KeePass in my local-network which i want easy access to.On Android there is an App in which you can Sync your Keepass-Database via SFTP. But a mount of an SMB-Network-Drive would be closer to a "normal" Workflow on the System, i think.

In the Open-Store there is also a KeePass but it doesnt support SFTP right out of the Box - but shows the File-Explorer. So if i could mount via SMB i had my easy access.

Sorry for misleading Topic-Name.

arubislander

@GeraltvonNVIDIA Ah, the classic x y problem... lol

The question is: How can I access my Keepass database on my phone?

You are correct in that there are multiple answers. I would suggest trying Syncthing if the SMB option does not pan out.