[lug] ftp how-to

[Nate Duehr]

luke p wrote:
> Hey,
> I was wondering if anyone knew of a good ftp server setup how-to guide 
> other than the 'official' how-to?
> Thanks,
> Luke

It really depends on *which* ftp daemon you want to run.  You may have 
to do some looking around to see which one you like.

RedHat recently switched to using vsftpd ("very secure ftp daemon) after 
a long run of wu-ftpd (washington university ftp daemon) being their 
"standard", however almost all ftpd projects have binaries for all sorts 
of Unix platforms.  Many people are quite happy with boring old "ftpd", 
originally from BSD and ported long ago to a multitude of Unix versions.

Most all of the popular ones have decent documentation that comes with 
them or is available on their respective project websites... and zealots 
will recommend different ones to you for different reasons.  (GRIN)

Don't you hate it when you ask a simple question and get the answer as 
"you have a number of choices you can make!"?

Being there's usually no lack of opinions in this group, I'm sure some 
folks will pipe up with opinions.  (GRIN)

I can say I'm happily using vsftpd (and the crazy default "beat me! 
break me!" READY message -- hah!), and also have used proftpd in the 
past.  wu-ftpd seems to have gotten a lot of press for various major 
security issues over the last couple of years, and I still don't trust 
its security, but then again... FTP isn't exactly a secure service 
anyway....

I tend to lean toward HTTP directories with indexing and junk turned on 
instead of public FTP servers these days... most folks can operate a web 
browser well enough to get a download accomplished these days...

Nate, nate at natetech.com