Comments for RFC 959 – File Transfer Protocol

I do not allow people to use Telnet on servers that I manage, because usernames and passwords are transmitted over the network as clear text. As concerned about security as people are, I am surprised at peoples’ insistence on using FTP. FTP, a network protocol that also transmits password information as clear text, continues to be widely used. Problems arise in the use of FTP when firewalls are set up between clients and servers. For example, giving clients the option to use either active or passive modes creates more headaches for network administrators who may already have configured FTP servers to listen on specific ports that firewalls are configured to expose. Even more problems are apparent when trying to use FTP over a tunnel.

FTP is broken. Stop using it and adopt secure file transfers with SFTP. FileZilla is an open source SFTP client for Microsoft Windows. Other graphical SFTP clients that support other operating systems are also available.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 13th, 2007 at 8:07 pm and is filed under IT Administration, Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

2 Responses to “Comments for RFC 959 – File Transfer Protocol”

  1. Steve Says:
    February 20th, 2007 at 1:37 am

    I also use gFTP, when I’m in a graphical environment. It can be a bit quirky, but it is acceptable. I’d welcome any recommendations for a graphical SFTP client that is targeted for the X Window System.

    I typically manage computers over SSH, and plain ol’ sftp works fine for me. :)

  2. Ben G. Says:
    February 19th, 2007 at 7:07 am

    So … what about *nix? What’s a good sftp client for that? Currently I’m using Fireftp and gftp.

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