[SOLVED] Is gFTP safe to use?

pghvlaans · 01-06-2021, 04:24 AM

I recently installed -current and am currently testing it out for use as a work distro and daily driver. I have to do FTP-related stuff occasionally and found gFTP in the included packages. It looks like version 2.0.19 was originally released quite some time ago. Does it still get security updates?

gmgf · 01-06-2021, 04:33 AM

A new beta-version is available here:

https://github.com/masneyb/gftp/releases

It work here, but isn't finalised, some bugs are presents and no compil with gtk+3, for the moment.

pghvlaans · 01-06-2021, 05:04 AM

Thank you! I'll keep an eye on that beta.

It looks like the version in -current is actually from October, so that's probably fine. Should've checked the mirror file tree first. Sorry about that. Will mark as "solved."

teckk · 01-06-2021, 10:52 AM

The question here is, is ftp:// safe to use over the internet. The answer is no.
https://security.stackexchange.com/q...s-of-using-ftp
https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/se...nefits-of.html

There is sftp, or shh
https://www.ssh.com/ssh/sftp/

And gftp seems to support that.
https://github.com/masneyb/gftp

pghvlaans · 01-06-2021, 11:13 AM

Quote:

And gftp seems to support that.

That sounds great; thanks very much.

drgibbon · 01-06-2021, 11:23 AM

There is also FileZilla which is actively maintained (and on SBo).

bassmadrigal · 01-06-2021, 01:14 PM

Also, many file managers support ftp, sftp (using your ssh credentials), cifs/samba, nfs, etc. I know dolphin with KDE supports it and I'd bet Thunar supports it as well (I prefer to use krusader, which is a dual pane file manager that supports all those things).

shelldweller · 01-06-2021, 11:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by teckk

And gftp seems to support that.

Possibly, but not as-provided in Slackware I believe. When I try to connect to an FTPS connection, I get:

Code:

FTPS Support unavailable since SSL support was not compiled in. Aborting connection.

Same with SFTP. I have not yet tried an SSH connection though.

Am I doing something wrong?

bassmadrigal · 01-07-2021, 11:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shelldweller

Possibly, but not as-provided in Slackware I believe. When I try to connect to an FTPS connection, I get:

Code:

FTPS Support unavailable since SSL support was not compiled in. Aborting connection.

Same with SFTP. I have not yet tried an SSH connection though.

Am I doing something wrong?

FTPS is different than SFTP. FTPS vs FTP is basically the same difference as http vs https. They have an SSL cert that is used to secure the connection. I don't know of any FTPS servers to test whether or not it works on my system.

SFTP is basically doing file transfers over an ssh connection. SFTP isn't listed in gFTP because it's listed as an SSH2 connection.

shelldweller · 01-13-2021, 04:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bassmadrigal

FTPS is different than SFTP. FTPS vs FTP is basically the same difference as http vs https. They have an SSL cert that is used to secure the connection. I don't know of any FTPS servers to test whether or not it works on my system.

SFTP is basically doing file transfers over an ssh connection. SFTP isn't listed in gFTP because it's listed as an SSH2 connection.

Wow, cool, I learn something new every day! Thank you for enlightening me. I will try an SSH2 connection, I was unaware that's what that was.