Encrypting FTP sessions with vsftpd

[arlequin]

Hello all.

I have a linux box running RedHat9. I use vsftpd as the FTP server and connect through internet using the SmartFTP 1.0 client software (win32 platform).

I don't want my user & passwords values to travel as plain text, so I want to enable the security featrues of the vsftpd daemon.

I know I have to generate a kind of TLS certificate (similar to the SSL used with HTTPS) but don't know how. The documentation about the vsftpd project doesn't have an example, nor do the man pages.

Does anyone out there have implemented a secure authentication login within a FTP daemon?

Where can I find documentation about generating my own TLS certificates? (It's not necessary for the cert to be generated by VeriSign or so..., I just need cryptography)

TIA,

Arlequín
arlequin@montevideo.com.uy

 

[dbase77]

Hi,

You can use stunnel. Check out

http://www.stunnel.org

for example.

feroz

 

[arlequin]

dbase77,

Thanks for your reply, but I was reading stunnel's documentation and found this in the FAQ:


[tt]FTP over Stunnel won't work
I just can't get ftp to work over Stunnel no matter how hard I try.

Answer: Stunnel cannot be used for the FTP daemon because of the nature of the FTP protocol which utilizes multiple ports for data transfers. There are SSL aware FTP servers available.

Alternitively you could use a different protocol. All versions of SSH include a program called scp which works like rcp. Recent versions of OpenSSH include a program called sftp which has an ftp-like feel.[/tt]ç

Well, my FTP server is SSL capable.... I want to know how to use the power of that feature.

Arlequín
arlequin_AT_internet_DOT_com_DOT_uy

 

[dbase77]

Hi,

What is your ftp server called? You should be able to use SSL feature with your current ftp server. Usually you have to create some sort of key like openssh. Have you try google them?

feroz