This works well when I need to make a quick change or test 1 file, but If I have to synchronize several files it is a very time consuming task.

So what I use in this cases is sshfs it is a pretty cool tool, to allow me to mount any filesystem so I can use any rsync on a remote server without dealing with opening ports configure, the server or do other stuff,

Gentoo is my main OS, so it was really easy to have this working, I had to reconfigure the kernel to support fuse

Symbol: FUSE_FS [=m]
Location:
  -> File systems
      -> Filesystem in Userspace support

and after this was ready I only installed sys-fs/sshfs-fuse

[I] sys-fs/sshfs-fuse
     Available versions:  1.9 ~2.1 2.2
     Installed versions:  2.2(12:33:09 PM 09/08/2009)
     Homepage:            http://fuse.sourceforge.net/sshfs.html
     Description:         Fuse-filesystem utilizing the sftp service.

when it was ready I did the following to mount the remote filesystem:

ivan@gondor ~ $ sshfs phpfix@prestant.citizenhawk.net: preasent/

After this I’m able to use the remote file system as usual.