emacs tramp ftp or ssh

Question

I'm using emacs 23.1 on Windows XP with the following configuration

(require 'tramp)
(setq tramp-default-method "ftp")

I can open/save remote files. Find-file auto-completion with TAB works as well. But I cannot open a remote directory, it shows an empty buffer with a directory name on the top.

Here are log messages

ls -lhA d:/temp/ange-ftp2876pvQ
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening data connection for /bin/ls.
226 Transfer complete.
quote mdtm /soft/mysrv/jboss-4.2.3.GA/bin/
550 /soft/mysrv/jboss-4.2.3.GA/bin/: not a plain file.
quote mdtm /soft/mysrv/jboss-4.2.3.GA/bin/
550 /soft/mysrv/jboss-4.2.3.GA/bin/: not a plain file.

And I cannot dired-do-copy several marked files to the remote directory. It copies only the first file and says "No file on this line". Should I switch to ssh tramp to resolve these problems?

What are other advantages of changing to ssh if I don't care about security and clear text passwords?

UPDATE: I changed

(setq tramp-default-method "pscp")

and it works now.

Answer 1

I can't tell you how well the ftp method works in general as I usually work with scp or ssh. Advice like "If the ftp method doesn't work, use it" is probably not what you are looking for.

However, you may want to have a look at the tramp-default-method-alist variable that lets you specify which method to use based upon the remote user and the remote host.

Answer 2

Yes, it was necessary to change tramp-default-method

(setq tramp-default-method "pscp")

Now it works correctly on the servers where ssh is installed.