Dumping FTP in favor of SCP or SFTP

Donboy · 07-14-2004, 03:41 PM

I've been running ProFTPd for a while now, and I like it a lot... but of course I don't like the cleartext passwords.

I wanted to try SCP or SFTP, but I need a client that supports it. I looked at WinSCP which is excellent, but I had major problems getting it chrooted.

I also tried wrapping ProFTPd using TLS, but that was a pain too. Can anyone recommend a good howto for setting that up??? Any other alternatives I might consider??

netmask · 07-14-2004, 04:00 PM

You could always transfer files using SSH.

There's additional configuration needed and everything is encrypted. The only thing you need is a ssh file transfer client.

Donboy · 07-14-2004, 04:05 PM

Ok, but what about chrooting people who login? I've never tried setting that up so I'm not sure how complicated that is. I've got a slew of users who will be using this, and I'm a bit wary about letting Joe-user login that way.

All I want to do is let people transfer files in the same manner they are using for FTP. These users are not really technical people, so turning them loose on SSH via command line isn't a good idea, methinks.

netmask · 07-14-2004, 04:08 PM

No you don't understand.

The way i'm describing works exactly like an ftp server, only it's over ssh. You have a window with local files and a window with remote files, etc.

I'm not sure wether or not users are chrooted in their homedir, but I know they won't have a hard time transfering files.

Donboy · 07-14-2004, 04:19 PM

Your suggestion sounds great. A few screenshots perhaps? Maybe a link to somethign I can look at?? You described a couple of windows showing local and remote files... would this be a software package I can download and review? Or are you simply saying (very blue sky) that I should look for a package that would do what you're suggesting?

netmask · 07-14-2004, 04:22 PM

The client I was describing is actually a windows client I use when I transfer files to my slack server.

If you want to see it in "action", look at http://www.ssh.com/support/documenta...ransfer-3.html

(There are a lot of clients that support sFTP other than that one)

Donboy · 07-14-2004, 04:31 PM

Looks good! This is pretty much what I'm looking for. But of course, I still have the same problem of keeping my users chrooted to their home directories. I'll begin looking for info about this, unless somebody has a quick URL handy?

stickman · 07-14-2004, 11:25 PM

You could use scponly or rssh to chroot a user to their home directory.