Craig's FTP FAQ & Hosting Service Review
FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. It was developed to transfer files over network. The protocol was initially developed over 30 years ago, but has evolved over the years. The initial version FTP was not very secure, however, there are many extensions to FTP that make it very secure. Thus FTP remains to be a very popular file sharing solution.
Who need FTP service?
- If you need to share a lot of files, or if you need to share very large files that cannot be emailed
- If you need to share files with your colleagues in remote offices;
- If you need to travel a lot and need to access your files in a central location;
- If you need to transfer a lot of contents with your clients;
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Steps to setup and use FTP service
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How to setup an FTP server?
This is the most difficult part. Typically, setting up an FTP server requires you to
- purchase a server machine;
- Iinstall / configure FTP server software;
- Expose your FTP server to the external network (DMZ);
- Ccreate FTP accounts;
- Set FTP folder permissions, etc.
An FTP server typically has a low requirement on hardware. So usually you can just use any low-end PC or server for your FTP server unless you have hundreds of users that need to use it at the same time.
To a small company, if setting up your FTP server is too hard, you can also consider an outsourced service, such as DriveHQ FTP hosting service or FTPToday.
There are a lot of FTP server software available on the market place. In fact, you don't have to buy any FTP server software; most modern operating system come with a web server and FTP server. Both Microsoft Windows server and Linux server already have FTP server. If you are using Windows XP home, you need to install an FTP server application. There are free FTP server applications, such as FileZilla; or you can purchase more professional FTP server software from IPSwitch, etc.
Host your FTP server
You need a dedicated IP address to host your FTP server, which means normally you cannot host your FTP server on a home broadband connection, such as DSL / Cable Modem. Of course, you might want to sign up Dynamic DNS service so that even if your host IP changes, the FTP server name remains the same. But anyway, there are other problems related with hosting your FTP server at home:
- Speed issue: while todays ADSL and Cable Modem are extremely fast in downloading files, they are relatively slow when uploading files. Usually, upload speed is limited to 384Kbps, i.e. about 48KB/sec.
- Security issue: by default, almost all broadband routers block FTP protocol. Even worse, FTP has two modes: Active FTP and Passive FTP. In general, Active FTP is almost always blocked by the routers on the client side; Passive FTP is almosy always blocked on the server side. You must carefully configure your router such that FTP protocol is enabled. Moreover, to let other FTP client connect to your FTP server, you need to open a lot of other ports, possibly all other ports, which exposes all the security risks on the Internet.
- Availability: your FTP server must be on all the time, and it should not be busy on some other tasks. ideally, you need to have a dedicated FTP server.
Setup FTP accounts and folder permission
To let other people to logon your FTP server, you must create FTP server accounts. If you use the default FTP server comes with the operating system, such as Microsoft's IIS, then FTP accounts are integrated with your operating system accounts. Otherwise, you need to use the FTP server administrative tools to create FTP accounts. When creating FTP accounts, usually, you can also specify the default FTP folder, or even set FTP quota for the user account.
Anonymous FTP access
A lot of times, you use FTP for other people to download files even if they don't have an account. In this case, you need to setup anonymous FTP.
More Resources
- The official FTP protocol RFC959
- DriveHQ FTP Hosting service and FTP client software download.
- FTP Today FTP service.
- Active FTP vs. Passive FTP explained on Slacksite
- The open source FTP servers: wu-FTP server and Filezilla FTP server and client