From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Aug 27 05:19:49 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6C82B1065693 for ; Fri, 27 Aug 2010 05:19:49 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk) Received: from smtp.infracaninophile.co.uk (smtp6.infracaninophile.co.uk [IPv6:2001:8b0:151:1:3fd3:cd67:fafa:3d78]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E85D28FC1B for ; Fri, 27 Aug 2010 05:19:48 +0000 (UTC) Received: from seedling.black-earth.co.uk (seedling.black-earth.co.uk [81.187.76.163]) (authenticated bits=0) by smtp.infracaninophile.co.uk (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id o7R5JbN8038774 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Fri, 27 Aug 2010 06:19:45 +0100 (BST) (envelope-from m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk) Message-ID: <4C774AE1.2040800@infracaninophile.co.uk> Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2010 06:19:29 +0100 From: Matthew Seaman Organization: Infracaninophile User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-GB; rv:1.9.2.8) Gecko/20100802 Thunderbird/3.1.2 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Ed Flecko References: In-Reply-To: X-Enigmail-Version: 1.1.1 OpenPGP: id=60AE908C Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="------------enigE82AD68E9255BD30F0D713C6" X-Virus-Scanned: clamav-milter 0.96.2 at lucid-nonsense.infracaninophile.co.uk X-Virus-Status: Clean X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.8 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_20,DKIM_ADSP_ALL, SPF_FAIL autolearn=no version=3.3.1 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.1 (2010-03-16) on lucid-nonsense.infracaninophile.co.uk Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Advantage -vs- Disadvantage: SFTP -vs- SCP X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2010 05:19:49 -0000 This is an OpenPGP/MIME signed message (RFC 2440 and 3156) --------------enigE82AD68E9255BD30F0D713C6 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On 26/08/2010 23:07:35, Ed Flecko wrote: > I have a server I'm building that is internet accessible and I'm > wondering if there's any advantages/disadvantages of using either SFTP > -vs- SCP? >=20 > My primary concern is overall security of the server (even if that > means inconveniencing the end users), and I'm wondering if one method > might be better than the other? It depends what you mean by SFTP. If you mean the SSH sub-system (file transfer tunnelled over SSH using a client which works like the FTP client), then there is no practical difference in security compared to scp(1). sftp(1) and scp(1) are very similar over the wire and server-side: it's just the client interface that's different. On the other hand, if you mean crusty old FTP tarted up with some SSL trappings -- which should really be called FTPS, but lots of people are confused about the naming -- then *run away*. It may run over SSL, but it has all of the design flaws of regular FTP plus the fact that it's over SSL means you can't even use firewall proxies like ftp-proxy(8). If you want a means of secure upload that can be used natively from windows, try WebDAV. You can, in theory, mount a WebDAV directory as a partition in Windows, although this is a lot more painful than it needs to be. (As they say: with Windows, failure is not an option). The same thing on a Mac works beautifully, but then it's Unix already and you can just use sftp or scp natively from Terminal.app. See the appendix to the SVN manual for some useful hints: http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.5/svn-book.html#svn.webdav Cheers, Matthew --=20 Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 7 Priory Courtyard Flat 3 PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Ramsgate JID: matthew@infracaninophile.co.uk Kent, CT11 9PW --------------enigE82AD68E9255BD30F0D713C6 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" Content-Description: OpenPGP digital signature Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG/MacGPG2 v2.0.14 (Darwin) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAkx3SukACgkQ8Mjk52CukIwNegCfZC97j1okM///Nk2DeGdKaUdr WrEAn34KQZWeYMPbeGjFDAjL9J252n9f =CgJ6 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------enigE82AD68E9255BD30F0D713C6--