Comparison of network file systems for private filesharing

2020-12-30

NFS

Pros

• widely available
• fast
• file locking

Cons

• either no security and authentication or you have to setup a whole Kerberos environment
• listens to all interfaces and addresses by default, then restrict them later, should be the other way round

sshfs

sshfs

Pros

• only needs a ssh server
• secure by default
• easy setup

Cons

• no file locking
• needs fuse for mounting

ipfs

ipfs

Pros

• easy setup
• distributed by default

Cons

• intended for public sharing
  • no authentication
  • no access control
  • not usable for private filesharing

9p / Styx

9p / Styx

Further investigation needed.

πp / piep

πp / piep
Didn't find any implementation.

CephFS

Ceph
Further investigation needed.

GlustreFS

Gluster
Further investigation needed.

Lustre

Lustre
Further investigation needed.

BeeGFS

BeeGFS
Further investigation needed.

MooseFS

MooseFS
Further investigation needed.

Tahoe-LAFS

Tahoe-LAFS
Further investigation needed.

Samba

Samba / CIFS

Pros

Cons

• windows thingy
• complicated setup

FTP

Pros

• fast
• well known

Cons

• ancient protocol (needs two ports, ...)
• hardly to secure (ftps)
• needs fuse for mounting

webdav

Pros

• well known

Cons

• needs trusted certificates for TLS (don't want to setup a CA for my home network and all my computers)
• needs fuse for mounting