Sharing files between Mac OS and Linux systems

I'm interested in accessing files on a Mac OS machine over the network from a Linux host. They're both my laptops, and currently on the same network, but this is not always the case (i.e., doing this over the Internet may be desirable at some point). I read a while ago that Apple was moving to SMB for file system access. Is this what I should be looking at? Are secure authentication and encryption supported? Or should I be considering sshfs or NFSv4, or something else? There's no LDAP infrastructure in my home environment. With thanks and regards, Jason.