Re: The yearly FTP rant (Was: Re: Passive FTP and NAT/PAT with PIX and Serv-U)

[Tom Kistner <tom () duncanthrax net>]

On Wed, Apr 03, 2002 at 01:07:11AM +0200, Mikael Olsson (mikael.olsson () clavister com) wrote:

> Heck, simply moving the data channel to an in-line channel in
> the port 21 connection would be by far more preferable, and easier
> to implement to boot. I can't believe they botched the perfectly 
> good chance of clearing up this old mess when they adapted FTP to 
> IPv6, rather than just extending the "PORT" and "227" messages to 
> handle IPv6 addresses in ASCII format. (But then again, I'm a 
> grumpy security guy whose pet peeve is protocols with dynamic 
> channels, not a stressed-out engineer who needs to get things 
> working yesterday.)

Theres a good reason for the data channels to be on separate connections:
Server-to-Server transfers, commonly known as "FXP".

That feature was used quite a lot in "the old days". Today, it's
used mainly for warez currying.

So i'd say it's not an old mess, FTP just stays the way it is even in IPv6.

There are umpteen other ways to transfer files, why not use one of those ?


/tom


-- 
Tom Kistner  <tom () duncanthrax net>
ICQ 1501527  dcanthrax@efnet
http://duncanthrax.net
_______________________________________________
firewall-wizards mailing list
firewall-wizards () nfr com
http://list.nfr.com/mailman/listinfo/firewall-wizards