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FTP now is rarely used. Typically only scp is provided nowadays. HTTP can be used instead of ftp too. On modern processors encoding and decoding of the stream is instant. 

In the past servers wu-ftpd used to be the king of the hill among free ftpd implementations.  But many Linux distributions install different servers:

Notes:

FTP client can provide virtual filesystem. That can be done in several ways:

As for traditional command line clients lftp - Wikipedia is probably the best option. lftp can transfer files via FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, FISH, SFTP, BitTorrent, and FTP over HTTP proxy. It also supports the File eXchange Protocol (FXP), which allows the client to transfer files from one remote FTP server to another.

See also Comparison of FTP client software

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[May 20, 2020] How to set up an FTP Server on CentOS 8 using VSFTPD

May 20, 2020 | vitux.com

How to set up an FTP Server on CentOS 8 using VSFTPD What is FTP?

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is a client-server network protocol that allows users to exchange files to and from remote computers.

FTP uses plain text to transfer data and access data. There are several different open-source FTP servers available for the Linux operating system platform. The most commonly used FTP servers are VSFTPD, ProFTPD and PureFTPD. The FTP protocol uses port number 21 for connection and port 20 for data transfer. In passive mode, additional ports are used.

In this tutorial, we will learn how to set up and configure VSFTPD. It is very secure and stable and available in the CentOS 8 package repository.

Install VSFTP FTP-Server

To install the VSFTPD package on CentOS 8, open up a terminal or connect to your server by SSH as root user and type in the following command:

# dnf install –y vsftpd

<img src="https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-9.png" alt="Installing VSFTPD" width="409" height="72" srcset="https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-9.png 409w, https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-9-300x53.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 409px) 100vw, 409px" />

Once the package is installed, start and enable the VSFTPD service by using the following command:

# systemctl enable vsftpd
# systemctl start vsftpd

<img src="https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-10.png" alt="Enable FTP service" width="429" height="65" srcset="https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-10.png 429w, https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-10-300x45.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 429px) 100vw, 429px" />

Start FTP service <img src="https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-11.png" alt="Start FTP service" width="403" height="63" srcset="https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-11.png 403w, https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-11-300x47.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 403px) 100vw, 403px" />

Take a copy of original configuration file /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf by typing the following command:

# cp /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf.bk

Make a backup copy of the original configuration file <img src="https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-12.png" alt="Make a backup copy of the original configuration file" width="666" height="64" srcset="https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-12.png 666w, https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-12-300x29.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 666px) 100vw, 666px" />

Now edit the configuration file, by using the following command:

# vim /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf

Edit the configuration file with vim <img src="https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-13.png" alt="Edit the configuration file with vim" width="433" height="64" srcset="https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-13.png 433w, https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-13-300x44.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 433px) 100vw, 433px" />

Find and set following directives therein:

anonymous_enable=NO # disable anonymous users(Unknown users)
local_enable=YES # allow local users
write_enable=YES # allow ftp write commands
local_umask=022 # set default umask
dirmessage_enable=YES # enable messages on change directory
xferlog_enable=YES # enable logging of uploads and downloads
connect_from_port_20=YES # ensure PORT transfer connections from port 20 xferlog_std_format=YES # keep standard log format
listen=NO # prevent vsftpd run in stand-alone mode
listen_ipv6=YES # allow vsftpd to listen on IPv6 socket
pam_service_name=vsftpd # set PAM Service name to vsftpd
Configure user list in FTP Server

By default, all the users that are in the user_list file located at /etc/vsftpd/user_list are allowed to use FTP services.

To restrict users in a chrooted environment , use the following directives:

chroot_local_user=YES # Create chrooted environment for users
allow_writeable_chroot=YES # Allow write permission to a user on chroot jail directory

To keep user restrict to their home directory, use the following directives:

userlist_enable=YES # enable vsftpd to load usernames
userlist_deny=NO # allow access to users in the user list

If you want to provide an overall access to our system add this directive into your configuration file:

chroot_list_enable=YES
chroot_list_file=/etc/vsftpd/chroot_list #users in this file list have an overall access

Save and close the configuration file.

Now, create a chroot_list under /etc/vsftpd/ directory, by using the following command:

# touch /etc/vsftpd/chroot_list

Chroot FTP users <img src="https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-14.png" alt="Chroot FTP users" width="458" height="67" srcset="https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-14.png 458w, https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-14-300x44.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 458px) 100vw, 458px" />

Add only those users in that list to whom you want to provide overall access on the system.

Create a user to access FTP Services

To create a user for using FTP service, use the following command:

# useradd user1
# passwd user1

Add that user in user_list file to restrict a user to their home directory, use the following command:

# vim /etc/vsftpd/user_list

Type " i " for insert and type that user name, as shown in the figure:

Create FTP user <img src="https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-15.png" alt="Create FTP user" width="273" height="41" srcset="https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-15.png 273w, https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-15-270x41.png 270w" sizes="(max-width: 273px) 100vw, 273px" />

Press ESC and type :wq! for save the file.

If you want to provide a specific user an overall access to the system add that user in /etc/vsftpd/chroot_list.

Restart the VSFTPD Service:

# systemctl restart vsftpd

Apply configuration changes <img src="https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-16.png" alt="Apply configuration changes" width="443" height="72" srcset="https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-16.png 443w, https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-16-300x49.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 443px) 100vw, 443px" />

Verify the status of FTP Service using the following command:

# systemctl status vsftpd

Check FTP service status <img src="https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-17.png" alt="Check FTP service status" width="568" height="184" srcset="https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-17.png 568w, https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-17-300x97.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 568px) 100vw, 568px" />

Configure Firewall for FTP

To allow FTP service through the firewall, use the following command:

# firewall-cmd - - add-service = ftp - - permanent
# firewall-cmd - - reload

Configure firewalld for FTP <img src="https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-18.png" alt="Configure firewalld for FTP" width="635" height="60" srcset="https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-18.png 635w, https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-18-300x28.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 635px) 100vw, 635px" />

Apply Firewall configuration changes <img src="https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-19.png" alt="Apply Firewall configuration changes" width="404" height="71" srcset="https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-19.png 404w, https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-19-300x53.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 404px) 100vw, 404px" />

Testing FTP Server from Windows Machine

To connect to FTP Server need a client software. The most commonly used software for FTP is FileZilla , WINSCP, etc. I am using FileZilla for connection.

Open Up your FTP Client Software, enter the following details to connect:

Host -- > IP address or hostname.

Username : FTP username (In my case it is user1)

Password

Port: 21

Test FTP Connection <img src="https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-20.png" alt="Test FTP Connection" width="754" height="37" srcset="https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-20.png 754w, https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-20-300x15.png 300w, https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-20-750x37.png 750w" sizes="(max-width: 754px) 100vw, 754px" />

After successfully connected, you can upload/download files according to your need.

FTP Connection tested successfully <img src="https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-21.png" alt="FTP Connection tested successfully" width="588" height="312" srcset="https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-21.png 588w, https://vitux.com/wp-content/uploads/word-image-21-300x159.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 588px) 100vw, 588px" />

Conclusion

In this tutorial we learned how to set up an FTP server on Centos 8, how to restrict users to their home directory and how to grant them read/write access. We also saw how to give the specific user general access to the system.

How to set up an FTP Server on CentOS 8 using VSFTPD Karim Buzdar May 18, 2020 CentOS , Linux , Shell

FTP Script Writing - How Do I Automate an FTP Session

Oct 5, 2006 | columbia.edu
This page is written for users of Unix operating systems -- Linux, FreeBSD, AIX, HP-UX, IRIX, Solaris, etc. The Kermit FTP client is also available in Kermit 95 2.0 for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP, for which some of the applications, examples, and terminology used here might need minor adjustments (e.g. directory path syntax).

Also see: Accessing IBM Information Exchange with Kermit for a discussion of making securely authenticated and encrypted FTP connections.

Hardly a day goes by without an FTP automation question appearing in the newsgroups. Until now, the stock answers (for Unix) have been as follows (the options for Windows are sparse indeed):
  1. Pipe commands into FTP's standard input. This works great when it works, but doesn't allow for synchronization, error handling, decision making, and so on, and can get into an awful mess when something goes wrong. For example, some FTP clients do special tricks with the password that tend to thwart piping of standard input or "here" documents into them. Also, the exact syntax of your procedure depends on which shell (sh, ksh, csh, bash, etc) you are using. Also, your password can be visible to other people through "ps" or "w" listings.

  2. Put the commands to be executed into the .netrc file in your login directory in the form of a macro definition. Except for avoiding shell syntax differences, this is not much different than the first option, since FTP commands don't have any capability for error detection, decision making, conditional execution, etc. Note that the .netrc file can also be used to store host access information (your username and password on each host). It's a glaring security risk to have this well-known file on your disk; anybody who gains access to your .netrc also gains access to all the hosts listed in it.

  3. Use Expect to feed commands to the FTP prompt. This improves the situation with synchronization, but:

    • It's cumbersome and error-prone, since it relies on the specific messages and prompts of each FTP client and server, which vary, rather than the FTP protocol itself, which is well-defined. Expect scripts break whenever the client or server prompts or text messages change, or if the messages come out in different languages.
    • You're still stuck with same dumb old FTP client and its limited range of function.

  4. Use FTP libraries available for Perl, Tcl, C, etc. This might give direct programmatic access to the FTP protocol, but still offers limited functionality unless you program it yourself at a relatively low and detailed level.

Now there's a new alternative. The latest generation of Kermit software:

includes its own built-in FTP client, allowing FTP sessions to be automated using the same cross-platform scripting language we've been using for serial-port, modem, Telnet, and X.25 connections since the 1980s, in its advanced modern form: 

http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/ck80specs.html#scripts

and has loads of features that you won't find in the regular UNIX FTP client: 

http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/ftpclient.html

Here's a brief tutorial on writing C-Kermit FTP scripts. But the commands presented below are not just for scripts. You can also use them interactively, just as you would give commands to the regular UNIX or Windows FTP client, except that with Kermit you also get built-in help, context-sensitive help (if you type "?"), command recall, keyword and filename menus and completion, keyword abbreviation, and command shortcuts and macros.

Also see:

[Mar 16, 2010] Resuming interrupted sftp transfers in Linux

Free Software

Even though the Linux version of the sftp client doesn't offer a direct way to resume an interrupted transfer, doing so is quite simple by using common shell tools, as long as you are able to login to the remote server through a console. Assuming that you are transferring data.zip from source_server to target_server and the transfer was interrupted, you can do the following:

This works for both text and binary files. Apparently a better way would be integrating this ability into the sftp client, which is the way some clients such as putty and winscp work, but until that happy day you can use the tips above as a workaround.

Comments

mikeX:

lftp is a very nice command line ftp client, which supports tab completion, directory mirroring and of course resuming of interrupted downloads. It can also work as an sftp client, with the right protocol prefix, e.g. lftp sftp://user@host, and can even be used in batch mode. You can find a copy at http://lftp.yar.ru/. Still, nice trick :)

Software Search Result for Ftpd

Bftpd
Single-threaded, fast, small FTP daemon (server).
Licence : GPL
Bftpd is a small, easy-to-configure FTP server. It strives to be fast, secure and quick to install and configure. Bftpd file server is designed to be as small and easy to manage as possible, while providing most of the features you would expect from a file server. On most home systems, Bftpd is ready to work out-of-the-box without requiring any extra configuration. Production systems can be set ...
Licence : GPL


Download|Update
3 - Kproftpd
Kproftpd is a graphical Qt and KDE libs based frontend to the ProFTPD ftp-server. The target is to build a easy to use appliaction, to configure the proftpd. its designed with the help of KDevelop.
Licence : GPL

Keywords : proftpd, proftpd, kproftpd, kdevelop, kdevelop
Download|Update
4 - ProFTPD
ProFTPD is an FTP daemon for unix and unix-like operating systems, developed, released and distributed under the GNU Public License. ProFTPD is designed to be powerful, for the FTP administrator who needs a powerful, configurable and secure FTP daemon.
Licence : GPL

Keywords : ftp, server, proftpd
Download|Update
5 - Pure FTP server
Pure-FTPd is a fast, production-quality, standard-conformant FTP server, based upon Troll-FTPd. Unlike other popular FTP servers, it's designed to be secure in default configuration, has no known buffer overflow, it is really trivial to set up and it is especially designed for modern Linux kernels (setfsuid, sendfile,capabilities). It was also successfuly compiled on FreeBSD, NetBSD and ...
Licence : GPL

Keywords : ftp, fxp, server, secure, security, ldap

Download|Update
6 - Vsftpd Secure, fast and stable FTP server for UNIX systems, including Linux.
Vsftpd is a secure and fast FTP server for UNIX-like systems that is used on many large and critical Internet sites. It has a rich feature set which includes SSL encryption, IPv6, bandwidth throttling, PAM integration, virtual users, virtual IPs and per-user / per-IP configuration.
Licence : GPL

Keywords : ftp, server, vsftpd
Download|Update
7 - Wu-ftpd FTP daemon for Unix systems.
Wuarchive-ftpd, more affectionately known as wu-ftpd, is a replacement ftp daemon for Unix systems developed at Washington University by Bryan D. O'Connor (who is no longer working on it or supporting it!) wu-ftpd is the most popular ftp daemon on the Internet, used on many anonymous ftp sites all around the world.
Licence : BSD type
Download|Update
8 - Wzdftpd Portable, modular, small and efficient FTP server.
Wzdftpd is designed to be a small, efficient and highly modular/configurable FTP server for various platforms including Linux and Windows. The server is RFC compliant, multithreaded and can be configured entirely online using SITE commands. You can write your own extensions to the server in your choice of language, extending on existing MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Tcl, Perl, PAM and SFV plugins. ...
Licence : GPL

Keywords : ftp, server, ftp server, ftpd, ftps, file sharing, file transfer protocol, modular, extensible, small, efficient, secure

[May 8, 2009] Free FTP CoffeeCup Software

What do you want in an FTP client? If your answer is "just the basics," you've come to the right place. CoffeeCup Free FTP gives you all the great FTP features you'd expect from CoffeeCup Software without all that extra stuff. Set up multiple server profiles, transfer files in binary, ASCII, or auto mode, and upload files by dragging and dropping them from your computer to your server!

CoffeeCup Free FTP is a simplified, intuitive, and best of all free FTP client! It uploads and downloads files quickly and reliably, keeps your FTP server settings in one place, and allows you to pause or cancel transfers. Make CoffeeCup Free FTP your choice for a no-cost, highly effective tool to complement your Webmaster suite

[Jan 28, 2008] lftp 3.6.3 by Alexander V. Lukyanov

This is a very good client. It will reconnect and continue transfers in the event of a disconnection. if you quit the program while transfers are still in progress, it will switch to nohup mode and finish the transfers in the background. Mirroring capabilities are not that important: most mirroring program like wget support ftp

About: lftp is a sophisticated command line based file transfer program. Supported protocols include FTP, HTTP, SFTP, and FISH.

It has a multithreaded design allowing you to issue and execute multiple commands simultaneously or in the background.

It also features mirroring capabilities and will reconnect and continue transfers in the event of a disconnection. Also, if you quit the program while transfers are still in progress, it will switch to nohup mode and finish the transfers in the background. Additional protocols supported: FTP over HTTP proxy, HTTPS and FTP over SSL. There are lots of tunable parameters, including rate limitation, number of connections limitation and more.

Changes: The sftp:use-full-path setting was added. sftp FSETSTAT is not used when it is not needed. The sftp:charset and fish:charset settings were fixed. URL escapes are not decoded in get/put when no URL schema is used. Counting of file removal errors in mirror was fixed. A 2-byte buffer overflow when showing transfer percents was fixed. A problem with incorrect port/host name in HTTP requests was fixed. Some core dumps were fixed. Compilation on some systems was fixed.

[Dec 04, 2007] CLI Magic Quick and easy backup with lftp by Dmitri Popov

wget has similar functionality and is more versatile (can use HTTP).
December 04 | Linux.com

No matter what Linux distribution you are using, chances are you'll find more than one graphical FTP client in its repositories, but if you are looking for a powerful command-line FTP tool, your best bet is lftp. Of course, you can always use the good old ftp command, but lftp takes the task of managing files and directories using the FTP protocol to a new level. To see what I mean, let's use lftp to write a script that creates a local backup copy of a Web site.


To write the script, you need to know how to use lftp to connect to an FTP server and synchronize a remote directory with a local one. If your FTP server supports anonymous connections, you can connect to it using the simple command lftp ftpsite. If the server requires a user name and password, the connection command would look like lftp -u username,password ftpsite.

To synchronize a remote directory with a folder on your hard disk, lftp utilizes the mirror command. Used without switches, this command syncs the current local and remote directories. You can also specify explicitly the source and target directories:

mirror path/to/source_directory path/to/target_directory

The mirror command offers a comprehensive set of switches, which you can use to control the synchronization process. For example, used with the --delete switch, the mirror command deletes the files in the local folder that are not present in the remote directory, while the --only-newer option forces lftp to download only newer files. Another handy switch is --exclude; it allows you to specify which files and directories to skip during synchronization. And if you prefer to keep an eye on the syncing process, you can use the --verbose switch.

Typing all those switches every time you want to synchronize two directories can be a bit of a bother. Fortunately, lftp understands complex commands that can perform several actions in one fell swoop. All you have to do is to use the -e switch, so lftp stays connected and runs the specified commands:

lftp -u username,password -e "mirror --delete --only-newer --verbose path/to/source_directory path/to/target_directory" ftpsite

Using this command, lftp connects to the FTP server using the provided credentials, and then runs the command(s) in the quotes. You can save the entire command in a text file, then run it by pointing lftp to it using the -f switch:

lftp -f /home/user/ftpscript.txt

lftp has a few other clever tricks up its sleeve. The at switch can come in handy when you want to run the backup at a specific time. The following command, for example, runs at midnight:

lftp at 00:00 -u username,password -e "mirror --delete --only-newer --verbose path/to/source_directory path/to/target_directory" ftpsite &

Notice the ampersand, which sends the command to the background so you don't have to keep the terminal window open.

Now you know how to create local backup of files and directories stored on an FTP server. But how do you restore the data if disaster strikes? Quite easily, actually. All you have to do is to add the --reverse switch to the mirror command:

lftp -u username,password -e "mirror --reverse --delete --only-newer --verbose path/to/source_directory path/to/target_directory" ftpsite

As the name suggests, the switch reverses the source and target directories, so lftp uploads files from the local directory to the remote FTP server.

That's all there is to it. Check lftp's man pages to get an overview of lftp's other useful options, and start FTPing like a pro.

Dmitri Popov is a freelance writer whose articles have appeared in Russian, British, US, German, and Danish computer magazines.

[Apr 22, 2006] FTP Client supporting SFTP and WebDAV Support SFTP.

BitKinex integrates the functionality of an innovative FTP, SFTP and WebDAV client for Windows. In addition to features found in other popular FTP programs (like support for the SSL/SSH, multipart and multithreaded transfers, remote edit or FXP) our FTP client introduces several unique approaches and solutions like:

[Mar 14, 2006] Linux.com Upload directories recursively with NcFTP

wget has similar functionality and is more versatile (can use HTTP).

I recently had to upload some content to a Web site, and the only access available was via FTP. I needed an FTP client capable of uploading a directory structure recursively. I found what I needed in an application called NcFTP.

I started by looking into Mozilla Firefox, but to my surprise, Firefox supports only FTP downloads, not uploads. Mozilla, on the other hand, does support uploads, but it can upload only one file at a time.

Next, I turned to command-line FTP clients. Again, the standard FTP command doesn't support recursive directory upload. Fortunately, many graphical and command-line FTP clients do, including NcFTP, yafc, and LFTP. I picked NcFTP.

After installing the software, connect to your host anonymously by entering the ncftp command followed by the hostname:

ncftp ftp.somedomain.com

or if you need to log in with a valid username, use the -u and -p parameters:

ncftp -u username -p password ftp.somedomain.com

A successful connection puts you in an NcFTP shell. If you've used the standard FTP command before, you should feel right at home here. I'll presume you're familiar with basic FTP commands such as dir and cd. You can use the lls and the lcd commands to list and navigate the local working directory.

NcFTP supports autocompletion for both commands and filenames. For instance, you can type in the first few characters of a filename and then press Tab to fill in the rest of the name automatically.

Recall that my main goal was to upload a directory structure. Use the put -R command to do a recursive directory upload:

ncftp /path > put -R somedir

Standard FTP also supports a put command, but it's limited to uploading single files.

Similarly, you can download a directory recursively using the NcFTP get -R command:

ncftp /path > get -R somedir

More handy features

If you FTP to the same sites regularly, you can save time by using NcFTP's bookmark feature. Bookmarks store the connection information, including the username, the password, the hostname, and the target directory location.

To create a bookmark on a particular directory location, first navigate to that directory and then enter the bookmark command followed by a name to identify the bookmark. For example, type these commands to bookmark /path/somedir and name it topsecret: 

ncftp /path > cd somedir
ncftp /path/somedir > bookmark topsecret

A bookmark editor lets you open, edit, delete, replicate, and add bookmarks. Invoke the editor by entering the bookmarks command with no parameters:

ncftp /path > bookmarks

Once you create a bookmark, you can connect to the corresponding host and directory quickly by using the bookmark name. Login is automatic because the bookmark stores the username and password.

For instance, you can connect using a bookmark named topsecret by entering this command in the Linux shell:

ncftp topsecret

Alternatively, you can open a connection while inside the NcFTP shell:

ncftp> open topsecret

Wrapping it up

File Transfer Protocol (FTP) was once a commonly used method for transferring files over the Internet, but recent security concerns have lessened its use in favor of the more secure SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) or Secure Copy (SCP). Nevertheless, FTP may be the only access available to you on occasion.

NcFTP is loaded with useful features. I've touched on only the basics. If you ever require an FTP client more powerful than the standard FTP command, consider NcFTP.

freshmeat.net Project details for NetFTPServer

Net::FTPServer is a full-featured, secure, extensible, and highly configurable FTP server which can serve files from a standard file system or a relational database. It is written in Perl, which provides natural protection against buffer overflows. It has feature parity with popular C-based servers such as wu-ftpd. The server offers virtual hosts (IP-based and experimental IP-less). It is configurable in Perl, for both small Perl "hacks" in the configuration file all the way up to complete server "personalities". It supports the latest RFCs and Internet Drafts. Authentication may be done through /etc/passwd, PAM or an authentication plug-in. Resource limits are supported. The server may run standalone or from inetd. chroot() jails are supported along with sophisticated programmable access control rules. All aspects of server use and configuration are comprehensively documented in a manual running to some 50 pages.

Linux Today - Linux Journal Configuring and Using an FTP Proxy Squid as FTP proxy

gFTP Official Homepage by Brian Masney

About: gFTP is a multithreaded FTP client for X Windows written using GTK+. It features simultaneous downloads, resuming of interrupted file transfers, FTP, HTTP, and SSH protocols, file transfer queues, downloading of entire directories, FTP and HTTP proxy support, remote directory caching, passive and non-passive file transfers, drag-n-drop support, a very nice connection manager, and more.

Changes: Lots of small bug fixes and translations updates.

[Oct 14, 2000] TheLinuxGurus.org: Automating FTP: Part two

"A few weeks ago I wrote an article on how to automate FTP via the .netrc file. ... Because the volume of mail was so high I decided to write a second part to the article to detail two other ways to automate FTP. ...for more complex tasks, or tasks needing greater error checking and flexibility you will probably want to use one of the methods outlined below."

[Mar 20, 2000] LinuxHelp.net: ProFTPd Setup Guide

"ProFTPd is a nice alternative to the wu-ftpd server, which normally ships as the default FTP server with Linux. The thing I enjoy about ProFTPd is the simple configuration file (/etc/proftpd.conf) that allows you to fully customize your FTP server."

Linux Today - New Proftpd Guide by Vince

"Well today I decided to write up a guide on proftpd installation and configuration, after answering many questions on mailing lists, I decided that it was time for a guide."

For a full guide listing, goto the Lansystems.com Howto page.

WebDrive FTP Client Software by RiverFront Software

a revolutionary FTP client. Highly recommended. Shareware $39.

WebDrive is a Windows 95/98 FTP software client that allows you to map an Internet FTP site to a local drive utilizing the standard FTP protocol. This enables you to connect to an FTP site and perform familiar file operations like copy, xcopy, and directory functions with the Windows explorer, a DOS box, or any other application like Microsoft Word, Excel, etc. WebDrive instantly FTP enables any application that reads or writes files by allowing the application to read files from or write files to the FTP site.

Until now, in order to upload or download files from an FTP site, you needed to run a client FTP utility that presented a user interface to manually select the files to transfer. The WebDrive FTP client makes the FTP site an extension of the file system which enables you to use any application to upload or download files to the FTP site transparently. For more details, click here

[Jul 28th 2000] Web-FTP 1.3.0

web-FTP is a lightweight Perl/CGI FTP client that can provide quick, easy, and (with an SSL-enhanced Web server) more secure access to your FTP server. Designed with file management in mind, it supports uploads, downloads, and all the usual tasks. No spool directories are used; file transfers are relayed directly from the server to the client and vice versa. It can also serve as an FTP client, allowing FTP access to clients behind a firewall.

Changes: A simple file editor and viewer, simple permissions editing, a fix for a bug that made the whole file get cached before downloading (bad for large files), and other numerous bugfixes.

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Web publishing

siteupdater --Crystal SiteUpdater maintains files and folders on your site, by using conventional FTP. It transfers new or updated files, and also recreates entire folder structures on the remote site, removes old files and old folder

WebDrive - A network redirector for Windows that makes an FTP site look like a network drive. This provides access to FTP servers from any application in Windows.

WholeSite FTP - FTP tool designed for web publishing. Updates a site with a single click, sending only new or modified files. Public domain software, source code is available.

Uploader - Simple FTP uploading utility designed for quick updates of web sites. Supports drag-and-drop. No download support.

NetLoad - Directory mirroring program. Automatically updates a directory on an FTP server to match the local directory, including new files, modified files, and deleted files.

FTP over weak links

Bullet Proof FTP -- designed specifically to keep your transfers flowing despite weak links but cannot beat Net Vampire. For FTP looks like obsolete as WebDrive FTP solved all this problems in a more elegant way.

***** Net Vampire -- From: Alex Shovkoplyas This program is not a simple FTP client -- it is fully automatic FTP and HTTP file downloader. It will start at the time you specify and make as many attempts to download the file as you request. Net Vampire resumes broken connections and restarts downloads at the current position for both FTP and Web servers. To start file retrieval, just drag and drop a URL from your browser. Net Vampire provides flexible job scheduling, dialup control and support for many proxy types, including Socks. You can use multiple downloading locations for the file and switch among them on the fly. In addition to performing real-time testing, Net Vampire collects long-term site statistics, which further helps you to choose the best file location. A built-in search engine can find files on both FTP and HTTP servers. Net Vampire can list FTP directories and extract links from the downloaded HTML pages. All found links can be added to the main Job List. On job completion, Net Vampire can run a virus checker, open the received file, disconnect the modem, or shut down the computer. A detailed session log, data flow histogram, and many configurable options make download troubleshooting easier.

Command line controlled FTP clients

Most mirroring program like wget support ftp

lftp by Alexander V. Lukyanov

About: lftp is a sophisticated command line based file transfer program. Supported protocols include FTP, HTTP, SFTP, and FISH. It has a multithreaded design allowing you to issue and execute multiple commands simultaneously or in the background. It also features mirroring capabilities and will reconnect and continue transfers in the event of a disconnection. Also, if you quit the program while transfers are still in progress, it will switch to nohup mode and finish the transfers in the background. Additional protocols supported: FTP over HTTP proxy, HTTPS and FTP over SSL. There are lots of tunable parameters, including rate limitation, number of connections limitation and more.

Changes: The sftp:use-full-path setting was added. sftp FSETSTAT is not used when it is not needed. The sftp:charset and fish:charset settings were fixed. URL escapes are not decoded in get/put when no URL schema is used. Counting of file removal errors in mirror was fixed. A 2-byte buffer overflow when showing transfer percents was fixed. A problem with incorrect port/host name in HTTP requests was fixed. Some core dumps were fixed. Compilation on some systems was fixed.

FTPmail- FTP by email

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History:

Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOS :  Programming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC development :  Scripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

Classic books:

The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-Month :  How to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

Most popular humor pages:

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The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D

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