Hi,

I've managed to get proftpd installed and running on my ESX4.1 server. as evidenced by the proftpd -h call working.

I have the ftp ports open and other networking sorted.

My curiosity is how i now actually invoke proftpd to actually send the a file

basically im sending a txt file from /tmp/editme to [remotehost]/tmp/ftptransfers

how do i do this? sorry if this is daft but i've been googling and musing over the man page for ages now.

thanks

Well, proftpd is an FTP server...it listens for an FTP client to connect. You should just have to type in "ftp <FTP server name or IP>", and press ENTER. It'll prompt for user ID/password. Type in "help", and a list of available commands will come up...type "help <command>", and you'll see options for it.

So, if you want to change directories on the FTP server to "/tmp/ftptransfers" (although I'd never put files in /tmp AT ALL, but that's up to you), you type in "cd /tmp/ftptransfers", then type in "put /tmp/editme". Done.

If you want to automate this, it'll be tricky, since FTP is fairly interactive. Personally, I'd use SCP (or SFTP, both of which are probably already running, if you have SSH on your server now), since it uses the existing SSH port, and can be used with key-exchange, for passwordless logins. Then you can just type in "scp /tmp/editme user@host:/tmp/ftptransfers", and off it goes.

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TB0ne please accept my wettest of digital kisses.

I completely didn't realise that proftpd was a serverside application. allowing ftp connections to it! I completely get what you mean about using SCP as an alternative. but in this case i am using FTP to test application wrapping security software that should prevent ftp transfers despite it being enabled.

dummy question 2: why do you denounce /tmp as a bad place to store random stuff?

Well, /tmp is usually used for temporary storage/junk. It's often very easy to forget when you're storing stuff in there, and just 'empty' the directory without thinking about it, if you need space. Also, /tmp is usually less secure...pretty much anyone can read/write to that directory, so files there are less secure.

Just my opinion...I'd create a separate directory for FTP personally, but that's totally your call.