File Provider via the InternetAug 27 '01 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line An FTP server is a software applciation that allows you to provide file services to a variety of users. Which one is right for you?
A File Transfer Protocol Server is an application or a suite of applications that work together to provide file transfer services on your server. As files that get downloaded over the internet get larger and larger, the commonly used hypertext transfer protocol used to transfer webpages gets less and less eficient for these sorts of downloads both in terms of bandwidth used and resources on the source computer that are used. A solution that most companies and groups have turned to is having a public File Transfer Protocol server where anonymous users can either log in via a link on a webpage or with an FTP client and download larger blocks of data at a more efficient rate with less taxation on the server that is providing the files. An FTP server usually runs much in the way of a webserver. You have configuration options but for the most part it runs in the background as a service off of a machine or as a memory resident program that spawns threads for downloads. Almost all FTP servers allow anonymous logins, that is the ability to get into the shared directory(s) without having an explicit username and password assigned them by the system. In addition, almost all servers allow the administrator to change the port number from 25 to any unused TCP port. Many server offer a wide host of features which vary from server to server, I will do my best to explain some of the more common features below: 1) File Resume - This is the most common and one of the most important optional features that you will find in an FTP server software suite. File Resume allows the client to start downloading a file from a specific byte offset. This is importanat because it is the way that many download acceleration engines work. Instead of relying on one connection for a single stream of data for the file, it opens up four with each file stream downloading a specific quarter of the file from a specific byte offset to another specific byte offset. Other common uses for this reature on FTP servers are to resume a broken transfer. If for some reason a download crashes or breaks off at some point during the download, the client software is able to make use of this feature on the server in order to be able to resume the file download and complete the file. 2)OS Integration - Some of the newer and more comprehensive servers out there offer Operating System integration, that is the ability to restrict access rights on the FTP server and its directories based on domain or local permissions. That way, an administrator can set up an account and the FTP server will use COM+ events to learn of the account creation and hense set up the user and its access rights in the FTP server's user access. 3) User Accounts - Other servers allow the administrator to set up his or her own permissioning system with users that do not have access to your computer or domain. The administrator then can go in the shared directory structure and assign rights to that user within the shared files, on what he or she can and cant see, whether or not things can be read if seen, written to if read, and executed if read. This featureset gives the administrator a greater degree of control over the server that he or she administrates. 4) IP Address Control - There are two parts to this featureset and many servers may claim this functionality that do not have both featuresets. On the one hand, this could indicate that the server software in question has the ability to define and enforce blocked Ip addresses. By assigning blocked IP addresses, the administrator can restrict problematic clients or hackers from accessing the FTP site. IF they make a request, they will be summarily denied, often not even getting a response. The other featureset this refers to is the ability to set the server to only pay attention to requests coming on a specific IP. By implementing this featureset, administrators can set up several small FTP servers on the same computer and have them each look at requests from a different nic card. In this way, a single physical server is used even though it is hosting several different FTP servers. 5) Upload/Download ratios - Much of the time, the administrator setting up an FTP server will not want to allow too much bandwidth for any one particular task. If the server is a full duplex file server (that is, a server which people both upload and download to), then the strain on bandwidth and be considerable if too many people are trying to do too much of one thing. For that reason, administrators can set up a bandwidth ratio to specify a specific amount of bandwidth that each direction is allowed to use. They could separate a 1.5MBps connection so that no more than .5Mbps is used to upload which leaves 1 full MBps to be used for downloading files from the server. 6) Real-time User monitor - Most FTP servers use a logging system that logs the commands that a user executes but doesent actually display the commands and actions that are being executed in real time. With some more advanved servers, the administrator has the ability to call up a display that shows the current downloads and uploads that are going on NOW. This allows an extra step of accessibility and control to ensure that the FTP server that the administrator is running has been properly controlled and is not running of its own accord outside specified boundaries. 7) Disk Quota Limitations - Many servers that have user support also support the ability to set exactly how much space a user can upload data to or download from. In this way you cna restrict users from using up too much of the avilible resource pool so that no specific user has too much in the way of resources over any other. All in all there are a wide range of FTP server applications out there from a variety of manufacturers. Whether you are using Serv-U, Coffeecup FTP, IIS, War FTP, or any one of a host of other servers, the administrator needs to make sure that it offers the features and abilities that are right for you. Once you transition to an FTP server, it is rather difficult to move to a new one so be careful in which server you select for your needs.  |
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