[gentoo-user] Re: replacement for ftp?

[Kai Krakow]

Am Sat, 29 Apr 2017 20:02:57 +0100
schrieb lee <lee@××××××××.de>:

> Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@×××××.com> writes:
>
> > On 25/04/2017 16:29, lee wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> since the usage of FTP seems to be declining, what is a replacement
> >> which is at least as good as FTP?
> >>
> >> I'm aware that there's webdav, but that's very awkward to use and
> >> missing features.
> >>
> >>
> >
> > Why not stick with ftp?
>
> The intended users are incompetent, hence it is too difficult to
> use ...

If you incompetent users are using Windows: Have you ever tried
entering ftp://user@××××××××.tld in the explorer directory input bar?

> > Or, put another way, why do you feel you need to use something
> > else?
>
> I don't want to use anything else.
>
> Yet even Debian has announced that they will shut down their ftp
> services in November, one of the reasons being that almost no one uses
> them.  Of course, their application is different from what I'm looking
> for because they only have downloads and no uploads.

And that's the exact reason why: Offering FTP just for downloads (not
even for browsing) is inefficient. Getting a file via HTTP is much more
efficient as the connection overhead is much lower. Removing FTP is
thus just a question of reducing attack surface and server load.

Your scenario differs a lot and doesn't follow the reasoning debian put
behind it.

> However, another reason given was that ftp isn't exactly friendly to
> firewalls and requires "awkward kludges" when load balancing is used.
> That is a pretty good reason.

This is due to FTP incorporating transfer of ports and IP addresses in
the protocol which was a good design decision when the protocol was
specified but isn't nowadays. Embedding FTP into a tunnel solves that,
e.g. by using sftp (ssh+ftp). HTTP also solves that by not embedding
such information at the protocol level. But tunneling FTP is not how
you would deploy such a scenario, so the option is HTTP, hence FTP can
be shut down by debian. KISS principle.

> Anyway, when pretty much nobody uses a particular software anymore, it
> won't be very feasible to use that software.

Nobody said that when debian announced to shut down their FTP servers.
Debian is not the king to rule the internet. You shouldn't care when
they shut down their FTP services. It doesn't matter to the rest of the
world using the internet.

> > There's always dropbox
>
> Well, dropbox sucks.  I got a dropbox link and it didn't work at all,
> and handing out the data to some 3rd party is a very bad idea.  It's
> also difficult to automate things with that.

There's also owncloud (or whatever it is called now). You can automate
things by deploying a sync application on your clients side.


-- 
Regards,
Kai

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