Still, VSFTPD can be configured as an FTP over the SSH approach, but still, this is not truly an SFTP server. Although VSFTPD is famous around the web as an SFTP server, the reality is that VSFTPD and SFTP are two completely different things. In addition, VSFTP comes with a built-in jail functionality, which saves many headaches in terms of configuration overhead.
It is free and open-source and supports IPV6, TLS/SSL, and FTPS. VSFTPD is handy if you use UNIX-like or Linux, as it is the default FTP server for various Linux distributions, including Ubuntu, CentOS, RHEL, Fedora, and more. Use a standalone FTP server, like vsftpd or ProFTPD OpenSSH is the recommended path to take if you are configuring a dedicated SFTP server. The OpenSSH includes demons and utilities like SFTP, an FTP replacement to securely copy files between computers, SCP, a substitute for RCP, and Deamon (sshd), the program for the SSH client. OpenSSH is developed for OpenBSD Operating Systems, but now, it can be integrated into different systems, including Linux, macOS, and Windows. OpenSSH is a collection of command-line networking tools based on the SSH protocol. There are different approaches to setup up an SFTP server. So, you’ll need to enforce some access control in case you are allowing multiple users access to your SFTP resources. By default, all SSH SFTP users can access directories and files from users outside their home directory. FTP over SSH is the old FTP, but running through SSH's cryptographic algorithms, and FTP over SSL is the old FTP but using SSL/TLS cryptography.Īlthough SFTP has the benefits of security that FTP does not, SFTP still has one drawback. Unfortunately, many people confuse FTP terms and end up configuring something they don’t need.ĭo not confuse SFTP with FTP over SSH or FTPS (FTP over SSL). SFTP is a file transfer protocol that provides manipulation capabilities and routes data through an SSH tunnel. Therefore, it needs an SSH client to connect to an SSH server. SSH provides a secure channel using the client-server architecture. It creates a tunnel to allow remote command execution, login, and command-line, but it also protects any network service, including SFTP and SCP. Secure Shell (SSH) is a cryptographic networking protocol that gives users secure access to remote resources via unsecured networks.