4.2 Inline methods

Inline methods use the same login connection to transfer file contents. Inline methods are quick and easy for small files. They depend on the availability of suitable encoding and decoding programs on the remote host. For local source and destination, TRAMP may use built-in equivalents of such programs in Emacs.

Inline methods can work in situations where an external transfer program is unavailable. Inline methods also work when transferring files between different user identities on the same host.

TRAMP checks the remote host for the availability and usability of mimencode (part of the metamail package) or uuencode. TRAMP uses the first reliable command it finds. TRAMP’s search path can be customized, see Remote programs.

In case both mimencode and uuencode are unavailable, TRAMP first transfers a small Perl program to the remote host, and then tries that program for encoding and decoding.

To increase transfer speeds for large text files, use compression before encoding. The variable tramp-inline-compress-start-size specifies the file size for such optimization.

rsh

rsh is an option for connecting to hosts within local networks since rsh is not as secure as other methods.

ssh

ssh is a more secure option than others to connect to a remote host.

ssh can also take extra parameters as port numbers. For example, a host on port 42 is specified as host#42 (the real host name, a hash sign, then a port number). It is the same as passing -p 42 to the ssh command.

telnet

Connecting to a remote host with telnet is as insecure as the rsh method.

su

Instead of connecting to a remote host, su program allows editing as another user. The host can be either ‘localhost’ or the host returned by the function (system-name). See Multi-hops for an exception to this behavior.

sudo

Similar to su method, sudo uses sudo. sudo must have sufficient rights to start a shell.

sshx

Works like ssh but without the extra authentication prompts. sshx uses ‘ssh -t -t host -l user /bin/sh’ to open a connection with a “standard” login shell.

Note that sshx does not bypass authentication questions. For example, if the host key of the remote host is not known, sshx will still ask “Are you sure you want to continue connecting?”. TRAMP cannot handle such questions. Connections will have to be setup where logins can proceed without such questions.

sshx is useful for Windows users when ssh triggers an error about allocating a pseudo tty. This happens due to missing shell prompts that confuses TRAMP.

sshx supports the ‘-p’ argument.

krlogin

This method is also similar to ssh. It uses the krlogin -x command only for remote host login.

ksu

This is another method from the Kerberos suite. It behaves like su.

plink

plink method is for Windows users with the PuTTY implementation of SSH. It uses ‘plink -ssh’ to log in to the remote host.

Check the ‘Share SSH connections if possible’ control for that session.

plink method supports the ‘-P’ argument.

plinkx

Another method using PuTTY on Windows with session names instead of host names. plinkx calls ‘plink -load session -t’. User names and port numbers must be defined in the session.

Check the ‘Share SSH connections if possible’ control for that session.