On Tue, Aug 07, 2018 at 09:53:57AM -0700, Fred wrote:
> On a new Sid installation I need to ftp some files to another computer on
> the network.  sftp appears to be the only ftp program available.  The other
> computers on the network do not use ssl so the ftp connection is refused
> from both directions.  One computer is using vsftp under Jessie.  I don't
> see any option that makes sftp just do plain ordinary ftp.  Is this
> hopeless?

https://mywiki.wooledge.org/FtpMustDie

SFTP and FTP are completely different protocols.  They have nothing in
common except 3 letters in their names.

SFTP is implemented on the server side by sshd.  You connect with an SFTP
client (e.g. the sftp command, or an sshfs mounted file system) using
the same credentials that you would use for a regular ssh session.  SFTP
is encrypted, it can be tunnelled through a firewall, etc.

FTP has none of those features.

If you actually *need* to use FTP for some reason (legacy systems on the
network), note first that Debian does NOT install an FTP server package
by default, but it offers several of them.  You can choose one, and
install it, and then you will be able to make FTP connections to your
Debian system.  Authentication will be done using whatever your chosen
FTP server package uses.  Traffic will be unencrypted, and will fly
around in random directions depending on which mode you use, and everything
will fall apart when there are firewalls between client and server.

If you think that you need FTP because of Microsoft Windows systems,
please note that there are many user-friendly graphical SFTP clients
for Microsoft Windows.  You are probably not restricted to its built-in
FTP client.

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