"Marcus Mender" <mmmm@buzz.com> wrote in message
news:4585316a$0$27617$9b4e6d93@newsspool2.arcor-online.net...
>I have seen a couple of different encryption types for ftp connections:
>
> TLS
> SSL

TLS and SSL are two versions of the same protocol (SSL comes in versions 2.0
and 3.0, TLS comes in versions 1.0 and 1.1 - TLS 1.0 is SSL 3.1).

FTP has been extended by a standard that describes the operation of FTP over
SSL and TLS. This extension is commonly known as FTPS. It's a relatively
obvious means of adding security to FTP.

> SFTP
> SSH

These are nothing to do with FTP.

SSH stands for "Secure SHell" - as such, it establishes a secured connection
for a logon shell. Unless your FTP users are significantly trusted, you
don't want them running commands on your system, so you won't want them
connecting to SSH. Same for SFTP, which is simply a file transfer mechanism
added on top of SSH (i.e. you need SSH in order to implement SFTP - so SFTP
users are SSH users and can log on and issue commands)

> Ok, provided an ftp server offers all these types: which type should I
> choose
> to setup the ftp server or to select from the ftp clients view ?
>
> Is the security for all these types similar and the difference refers only
> different protocols?

The encryption and authentication schemes will be similar - the security is
not, because FTPS (FTP over TLS and SSL) allows only for usual FTP
activities (generally, this is file transfer), whereas SFTP and SSH allow
for the user to execute commands that will run on the server.

> What are the pros and cons ?

FTPS allows transfer of files; SFTP / SSH allow transfer of files and
execution of commands through a protocol whose primary designed purpose is
to execute commands on the server.

If you're looking to allow your users to execute commands, go with SSH /
SFTP; if you only want them to be able to transfer files, choose the
protocol (FTPS) that is designed to allow just that.

Alun.
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