Monday, March 03, 2008

Tools for Server-Related Development

Here's some (free) tools I use in server-related development in Windows. The combination of them ease the development considerably, almost like all related-things are on local.

  • Putty. This one is the most basic. It's an SSH client, got you connected to the shell where you can do virtually everything on the server. However, for operation that related to file/directory management, you'll need...
  • WinSCP. It's an SFTP/FTP client with the look and feel of midnight commander, very handy for file/directory-related operation. It has a large number of feature that I find really useful e.g: shell command execution (you send the whole command instead of typing each character to server), directory synchronization (this sync feature has large number of option with convinient interface).
  • JEdit with FTP and SshConsole plugin. Despite it's name, FTP plugin could also connect using SFTP and enable you to deal with the file in the server like you do with the local one. SshConsole work together with the FTP Plugin to enable you to send command with the current opened dir as working dir. You don't know what you've missed until you try this one. It's very helpful if you edit lots of files on the server e.g: working with several configuration files. Within JEdit, almost every aspect of editing file on the server feels like working the local ones, from browsing/opening, speed (it's cached on local buffer), savings, highlighting, history, etc.
As an addition, I think you'll find network monitoring tools would come in handy too when something does not look right. Here are two of them that I have ready to be used :
  • NetLimiter free version. The free one enable you to monitor the traffic of your connection e.g: how many bandwidth certain application used, overall bandwidth usage also the detail of what kind of connections (ip, port) that certain application open.
  • Whiteshark. Very advanced tool to monitor your network packets. It takes time to get used to this one, but really useful once you get the hang of it.
Given the right setup and some mix and match of tools, server-related development could still be fun and convenient.

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