(Another tutorial I wrote years ago. Remote editing became much easier in the meanwhile. But still emacs plays its role for me.)

Tramp is a tool that allows you to edit remote files through ssh and other
non-ftp clients using the Emacs-Editor and makes the live
much easier, it is intended to
replace ange-ftp. Please, read the manual for details. Go here for download.

Simple Installation Procedure
How to use tramp in emacs to open a file?
Auto-Save
Older emacs version
Installation directory
Emacs keeps using ange-ftp
~/.emacs configuration example

Simple Installation Procedure

On linux:

1.download (best in your emacs directory, something like /usr/local/share/emacs/) and extract:

tar -zxf tramp-2.0.38.tar.gz

2. make link in /usr/…/emacs/:

ln -s tramp-2.0.38 tramp

3. install:

cd tramp
./configure
make
make instal
l

For Problems and extra options see the manual and the hints below!
You also might need to upgrade certain packages on your system like texinfo etc.

How to use tramp in emacs to open a file?

Simply type Ctr-x Ctr-f. You will be prompted for file-name:
Find file: /home/ (or similiar)
Suppose you are going to use a ssh-connection, type something like this:
Find file: /ssh:username@myhost.world.univ:filename

Problems

Auto-Save and Backup

Set tramp-auto-save-directory.
Set backup-directory-alist to nil or turn off backup-directory-alist for tramp:

 (require 'tramp)
     (add-to-list 'backup-directory-alist
                  (cons tramp-file-name-regexp nil))

Older emacs version

Use the USE_CONTRIB option to install some packages missing in older Emacsen:

./configure 
make USE_CONTRIB=1
make USE_CONTRIB=1 install

Installation directory

By default, the files will be installed in /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp
and /usr/local/info. You can specify an installation prefix other than
/usr/local by giving configure the option –prefix=PATH.
For instance on SuSe 8.2 the default Emacs installation directory is
/usr/share/emacs, so you can use:
./configure --prefix=/usr

If after installation the compiled lisp files are in an other directory (search for
tramp-ftp.elc ), you can still make it work by adding the following lines in
your emacs configuration file ~/.emacs:

(add-to-list 'load-path "~/emacs/tramp/lisp/")

(require 'tramp)

or if you use the USE_CONTRIB option:

(add-to-list 'load-path "~/emacs/tramp/lisp/")
(add-to-list 'load-path "~/emacs/tramp/contrib/")
(require 'tramp)

Emacs keeps using ange-ftp

Put this in your ~/.emacs:

;; Ange-FTP temporarily required
(require 'ange-ftp)
;; TRAMP cleans up file-name-handler-alist
(require 'tramp)

~/.emacs configuration example

;; Ange-FTP temporarily required
(require 'ange-ftp)
;; TRAMP cleans up file-name-handler-alist
(add-to-list 'load-path "/usr/local/share/emacs/tramp/lisp/")
(require 'tramp)