[wplug] Intro to running (s)ftp service?

[Michael Semcheski]

Vance Kochenderfer wrote:
> If I were setting up a server, I wouldn't use FTP.  A lot of today's
> firewalls and port filtering thingies interfere with the way it
> operates (even with passive mode sometimes, I've found).  The often-
> used wuftpd server is in a similar class as bind and sendmail as far
> as security problems go.

I agree with this statement 100%.  FTP is a relic from a different era...


> So if you want authenticated uploads and downloads, I'd say go with
> sshd.  If all you need are anonymous downloads, a web server will do
> nicely.

The one thing about ftpd vs sshd is speed.  In my experience, on a fast
network, sshd tops out well below the line speed and is essentially
processor bound.  FTP (and HTTP to a lesser extent) are much faster and
operate with a much lower overhead.  It has been my experience that they
are always network bound.

At home, I have a DSL line.  SSH is the only thing I transmit over the
DSL when I want to connect to my home PC from work.  This is because I
am limited by the relatively low upload speed of my DSL.  At home, when
I am on a 100Mb network, I never use ssh to transfer files, because it
is much, much slower than everything else (even SMB).

Mike