SEX is a F*EX companion: Stream EXchange

You can imagine SEX as network wide UNIX pipes with a relay between. This
can be usefull for piping data from A to B where A and B cannot establish
a direct connection, but both can connect by HTTP to the SEX-server. SEX
is a synchronous service in conjuction to F*EX which is asynchronous.

For seamless integration into the UNIX tool chain, there are the
shell-tools sexsend and sexget.

Using web browsers for sexing will not work, because they cannot handle
streams in a pipe. So far, there are only the UNIX clients. Feel free to
implement other clients for other operating systems :-)

Authentication is the same as with F*EX.

Example:

root@lanldap:/var/log: tail -f syslog | sexsend framstag@rus.uni-stuttgart.de

framstag@blubb:/tmp: sexget | grep ldap


If you need encryption, then use the standard UNIX toolbox and add a
appropriate program to the pipe, for example: openssl bf


Tips for using SEX for file exchange:

I have a lot of (administrative) accounts on even more hosts, where I have
to exchange a lot or big files. These hosts often cannot make direct
tcp-connects to each other, because of IP-filters, firewalls or missing
server software. Only outgoing connections are possible.

Therefore NFS, ssh or even ftp are no option.

Since today my solution was F*EX:

1) on source host send the files within a container to the F*EX-server:

	fexsend -a container.tar file1 file2 ... .

2) read or copy the FEXURL with mouse

3) on destination host get container.tar from F*EX-server and extract it:

	fexget FEXURL 
	tar xvf container.tar
	rm container.tar


Backdraws:

- a lot of manually work
- creation of container.tar needs (a lot of) time
- container.tar needs (too much) disk space on source and destination host
  and on the F*EX-Server
  

Small solution:

Usage of xx (wrapper for fexsend) eliminates manually handling of
container.tar. But it will be still created, only automatically.
The ressource problems are still there.


The new sexy solution:

I use SEX (Stream EXchange) instead of FEX (File EXchange)!

There is no more a temporary container.tar, but the files are transfered
as a stream with the new client sexxx!

An example (*):

On the source host:

	root@obertux:~/bin# sexxx .
	streaming:
	./
	./autopatch
	./subsys
	./pwsync
	./cspread
	./fspread
	./spread
	./iptconf
	./esxbackup
	./esxlist
	./getxx
	./rscreen


On the destination host:

	framstag@flupp:/tmp: sexxx
        extracting from stream:
	drwxr-xr-x root/root         0 2010-08-06 12:48 ./
	-rwxr-xr-x framstag/users  170 2010-01-20 13:26 ./autopatch
	-rwxr-xr-x root/root       336 2006-02-02 15:15 ./subsys
	-rwxr-xr-x root/root       278 2010-01-18 23:38 ./pwsync
	lrwxrwxrwx root/root         0 2009-11-03 15:49 ./cspread -> spread
	lrwxrwxrwx root/root         0 2009-11-03 15:49 ./fspread -> spread
	-rwxr-xr-x root/root     10354 2010-02-12 14:49 ./spread
	-rwxr-xr-x root/root      1380 2010-01-14 08:54 ./iptconf
	-rwxr-xr-x root/root       116 2010-05-04 18:36 ./esxbackup
	-rwxr-xr-x root/root       344 2010-05-06 13:33 ./esxlist
	-rwxr-xr-x root/root        93 2010-08-06 12:32 ./getxx
	-rwxr-xr-x 1000/users      173 2009-11-26 13:40 ./rscreen


Now I can transfer any files from a new installed (VM) server to my
admin workstation behin a firewall. Or the other direction.


(*) The example above has only a few kB, but one can use sexxx for many GB
    or even TB!
    On my VMs I get a throughput of 90 MB/s.