Why FTP could soon disappear from the Internet (2020) | Hacker News Reader

Why FTP could soon disappear from the Internet (2020)

tedium.co

> And I’m sure some person in some suitably technical job somewhere is going to claim that FTP will never die because there will always be a specialized use case for it somewhere. Sure, whatever. But for the vast majority of people, when Chrome disconnects FTP from the browser, they likely won’t find a reason to reconnect.

I'm some person in a suitable technical job somewhere. Yeah, FTP will be around for a long, long time. Will it be around forever? Not likely. Will it "soon disappear from the internet"? Even less likely.

Hooray for clickbait.

For me, I SFTP from 5 locations around the globe daily. I could build a complex system to manage the transfers.. but why, when it just works for our use case.

SFTP is basically just SSH, the only thing it shares in common with FTP is the name.

perhaps op meant FTPS?

SSH is just the transport, you use a different protocol inside it. But yeah, it's not FTP

The only difference is the security transport / authentication, otherwise if functions the exact same way.

The original RFC for SFTP was written to actually be a simpler version of FTP. While v3 seems to be the standard and the final RFC was never ratified, SFTP is still FTP.

Please link to that RFC then.

They are very different. SFTP isn't even textual, nor does it have separate control and data channels of FTP.

Are these exactly the same?:

https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc959.txt

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-moonesamy-secsh-...

Are you perhaps referring to FTPS, which is FTP with SSL/TLS added? SFTP is very, very different from FTP.

Note that SFTP is not a protocol for security transport / authentication. It doesn't do that. It assumes that you've already secured/authorized the channel with SSH. See section 1 of the RFC.

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-secsh-filex...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTPS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSH_File_Transfer_Protocol

It's secure tunneled FTP. Functionally it performs the exact same way as ftp only it's not in clear text and you have better authentication options.

No, that's FTPS. FTPS wraps FTP in TLS; SFTP is a protocol in the SSH protocol that can transfer files and that happens to implement an FTP-like interface.

Unfortunately SFTP isn't a good replacement when speed is a concern, anything running over OpenSSH will have its bandwidth limited by the fixed window size. I long for the day when HPN-SSH replaces OpenSSH everywhere.

I just found out this is a thing. Thank you for this.

Adding to the thanks for sending me down a new fun rabbit hole

Most of our transfers are limited by our backbone, but because we chunk files we're able to do multiple concurrent transfers and max out traffic as best we can. We mostly have 10g links, but anything over that tends to get into serious diminishing returns in value/performance.

Mainly that the storage medium is not going to be able to usually keep up with the Link speed of 100gbps for long

Bonus points for equating Chrome use with "the Internet"

Most of my own use of (unsecured) FTP has been with hacked consoles. Server software is usually written pretty soon after a toolchain works, and is a huge quality of life upgrade. Really don't see that trend stopping.

Anecdotally, pestering a nontechnical buddy of mine to learn how to FTP games onto a ps3 gave him a headstart on a tech support role he got years later.

If FTP disappears the US healthcare industry will go with it.

FTP isn't disappearing and I'm pretty sure the US healthcare industry would find a different way to transfer files instead of disappearing.

In my experience in healthcare, SFTP is far more common than FTP/FTPS.

Maybe because it's simpler to administer (no active vs passive issue). In any case, it's the preferred choice.

FTP did have some odd features that were useful at times.

The SITE EXEC command allowed programs to be run remotely, with their output filtered back to the client.

The proxy command allowed functionality similar to modern jump host ssh.

Of course, anonymous ftp has no equivalent in ssh/sftp.

It was also a great way to break into buggy SunOS systems and gain root access... Oh, the early days of the internet!

Being able to send files between two ftp servers without having to download then upload is a pretty interesting feature that arises from the two connection model of data transfer. Of course, that model also makes ftp hard to secure and hard to NAT.

yepp, FXP. Popular in the warez scene back then, disabled for security reasons everywhere else. You could send arbitrary ASCII data to any remote ASCII based protocol - such as IRC or email. Countermeasures included limiting ports, or disallow download of files you uploaded etc.

There are plenty of line of business systems that even today integrate by putting a request document on an ftp server, then polling the server for a response document.

These systems are there for the same reason COBOL and RPG are alive and well.

I'd be surprised if it wasn't in use 50 years from now.

I won't miss it. It was good for its time but we now have better alternatives for the same purpose.

In other news, usenet won't be accessible using gopher.

Nah, i have recently seen some dude mirroring Usenet posts in his gopherhole... granted, its not posting, but still..

It will never disappear from many legacy systems

OK how about Telnet first

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