Transfer 10MB backup file: ftp, ssh, some other way?

[eraker]

Hello,

I have been working on a laptop that I sometimes plug directly into a router here at my house, and the work I do on the laptop is daily backed up in a zip file that I have been emailing to myself so I can download it on the desktop. This seems horribly inefficient, however, and the zip file has been getting bigger and bigger.

Anyway, it occurred to me that I could make the desktop into an ftp server and then ftp into it with the laptop, or that I could use SSH, but both of these seemed like they had security risks. Is there a preferred method for this operation that I will be doing about once a week?

Also, I should say that I'm mostly looking for opinions. If someone could point me in the right direction, I should be able to read everything necessary to get it going. Ideally, I'll script the whole operation so that it zips and then sends the file all in one step.

[Zelmo]

I'd recommend scp, which copies files over the network using ssh encryption. If you're just moving files within your internal network, you get two layers of security: your router's NAT firewall won't allow connections from outside the network (assuming you don't have open ports), and scp (like ssh) uses your username and password for authentication. Note that if your desktop machine also has a firewall on it, you'll need to open port 22 on that to allow scp to connect.

[eraker]

Thank you for the prompt response. I'll go with that solution.