SftpDrive Rules

I support a number of developers. These developers all have Windows desktops, but need to edit their code which resides on UNIX hosts (AIX, Solaris, and Linux).

I love Samba, but not if it’s installed on 300 UNIX hosts. It’s another software package that needs to be configured, firewalled, monitored, patched, and maintained. The permission model for Samba is somewhat orthogonal to the permission model for UNIX hosts, too, so my tools for handling user accounts won’t work.

My developers want to edit their code with local GUI text editors. Getting them to use X11, or even text editors via SecureCRT is not a good solution, mainly because they resist. I’m cool with that. I know what tools I’m most productive with, and take the same stance when someone tells me otherwise.

Not a week goes by where some developer does not lament the lack of Samba, though. This has been happening for years. I have mental callouses now for the complaints. We had looked for other alternatives about two years ago and found nothing that wasn’t more complex than just using SecureFX/scp. Yesterday, though, one of our junior admins was lamenting the lack of Samba, too, and with a little searching found SftpDrive. Like their web site says, it just works.

Hell yeah. Problem solved. Guess what our desktop support guys are going to be deploying next week…