Teleporter is a small utility in the vein of netcat to send files quickly from point A to point B. It is more convenient than netcat in that you don't have to run a separate command with file redirection for each file you wish to transfer.
Teleporter lets you pass the destination and a list of files you wish to send and it will create those files with the proper filenames on the receiving end. Each Teleporter binary can act as a client or a server so there's no need to move multiple software packages around.
Teleporter can recursively copy files as well, just pass a directory name and it will copy files all the way down.
Teleporter now does delta file transfers using the Blake3 hashing algorithm for files being overwritten.
The protocol Teleporter implements to transfer files is called Teleport.
``` Teleporter is a simple application for sending files from Point A to Point B
USAGE: teleporter [FLAGS] [OPTIONS]
FLAGS: --allow-dangerous-filepath Allow absolute and relative file paths for transfers (server only) [WARNING: potentially dangerous option, use at your own risk!] -b, --backup Backup the destination file to a ".bak" extension if it exists and is being overwritten (consecutive runs will replace the *.bak file) -e, --encrypt Encrypt the file transfer using ECDH key-exchange and random keys -f, --filename-append If the destination file exists, append a ".1" (or next available number) to the filename instead of overwriting -h, --help Prints help information -k, --keep-path Keep path info (recreate directory path on remote server) -n, --no-delta Disable delta transfer (overwrite will transfer entire file) -o, --overwrite Overwrite remote file -r, --recursive Recurse into directories on send -V, --version Prints version information
OPTIONS:
-d, --dest
To start a teleporter in server (receiving) mode, just run:
./teleporter
or
cargo run
Teleporter will default to listening on 0.0.0.0:9001 for incoming connections.
To start a teleporter in client (sending) mode, run:
./teleporter -d <destination IP> -i <file> [[file2] [file3] ...]
Teleporter will transfer files with their name information as well as their file permissions. Any file path information will be lost unless the -k option is enabled. All the received files will be written out in the CWD where the server side was started unless the server was started with the --allow-dangerous-filepath option.
Teleporter can now set remote file locations, or file renaming, via the : operator. Similar to how Docker allows quick mounting of directory locations, Teleporter will first attempt to open a file by the full given path, if that file does not exist, it will see if there are any colons (:) in the filename. If present, it will split the filepath and attempt to open on the first portion of the name. If that succeeds, Teleporter assumes this is a file rename / copy-to. Teleporter will also need the -k option, to keep filepath information. Otherwise only the file name will be changed.
For example, given the following command:
bash
./teleporter -i ~/Downloads/ubuntu-20.04.3-live-server-arm64.iso:/tmp/ubuntu.iso -k
(and assuming the server was started with --allow-dangerous-filepath), Teleporter will first attempt to open ~/Downloads/ubuntu-20.04.3-live-server-arm64.iso:/tmp/ubuntu.iso, if that fails, it will attempt to split the path on : and open ~/Downloads/ubuntu-20.04.3-live-server-arm64.iso. If that succeeds, then it knows it is a rename / copy-to operation and will set the destination filepath to be the second part of the string: /tmp/ubuntu.iso. On the server, it will only receive the file for /tmp/ubuntu.iso. If the -k argument was ommitted, the server would just receive the original file renamed as ubuntu.iso.
If you have Rust and Cargo installed, Teleporter can be quickly compiled and installed by running the following command:
cargo install teleporter
This will install Teleporter to ~/.cargo/bin/teleporter, which might need to be added to your shell's PATH variable.
$ teleporter
Teleporter Server 0.6.0 listening for connections on 0.0.0.0:9001
Receiving: ["archlinux-2021.11.01-x86_64.iso", "ubuntu-20.04.3-live-server-arm64.iso"] => Received file: "archlinux-2021.11.01-x86_64.iso" (from: 127.0.0.1:54708 v[0, 6, 0]) (17.67s @ 398.270 Mbps)
Receiving: ["ubuntu-20.04.3-live-server-arm64.iso", "ArchLinuxARM-aarch64-latest.tar"] => Received file: "ubuntu-20.04.3-live-server-arm64.iso" (from: 127.0.0.1:54709 v[0, 6, 0]) (24.55s @ 390.689 Mbps)
Receiving: ["ArchLinuxARM-aarch64-latest.tar", "laughing_man_by_geno.jpg"] => Received file: "laughing_man_by_geno.jpg" (from: 127.0.0.1:54713 v[0, 6, 0]) (952.46µs @ inf Mbps)
Receiving: ["ArchLinuxARM-aarch64-latest.tar", "unnamed.jpg"] => Received file: "unnamed.jpg" (from: 127.0.0.1:54714 v[0, 6, 0]) (832.04µs @ inf Mbps)
Receiving: ["ArchLinuxARM-aarch64-latest.tar"] => Received file: "ArchLinuxARM-aarch64-latest.tar" (from: 127.0.0.1:54712 v[0, 6, 0]) (27.57s @ 388.182 Mbps)
Receiving: []
$ teleporter -i ~/Downloads/*iso ~/Downloads/ArchLinuxARM-aarch64-latest.tar ~/Downloads/*jpg
Teleporter Client 0.6.0
Sending file 1/5: archlinux-2021.11.01-x86_64.iso
=> 846.324M of 846.324M (100.00%) done! Time: 17.63s Speed: 398.270 Mbps
Sending file 2/5: ubuntu-20.04.3-live-server-arm64.iso
=> 1.145G of 1.145G (100.00%) done! Time: 24.51s Speed: 390.689 Mbps
Sending file 3/5: ArchLinuxARM-aarch64-latest.tar
=> 1.279G of 1.279G (100.00%) done! Time: 27.54s Speed: 388.182 Mbps
Sending file 4/5: laughing_man_by_geno.jpg
=> 19.230K of 19.230K (100.00%) done! Time: 1.15ms Speed: inf Mbps
Sending file 5/5: unnamed.jpg
=> 16.374K of 16.374K (100.00%) done! Time: 834.29µs Speed: inf Mbps