[uug] FTP vs. HTTP

[Andrew Jorgensen]

Dave Smith and I had a brief discussion of this topic so I thought I'd post a link to this thread.

http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/02/13/2132221

Personally, even for very large files, I like HTTP better. Experience has shown that it's faster and more reliable (I haven't studied the protocols much).

Also, what I know about FTP really scares me. It's one of those protocols that was designed around the idea of a safe internet where everyone has a public IP. Yeah, it can work behind a firewall if the firewall is aware of it and will allow it, but the multiple socket thing wierds me out.

As for the future I keep hearing people discussing the advantages of WebDAV (an extension of HTTP) over FTP for the kinds of things FTP was written for. Apple uses it for iDrive (or whatever it's called). BYU plans to use it for remote access to your AccessPoint account (They already do for the public_html directory, but will be extending that when they feel they have the right solution.).

The basic problem is:
For anonymous access FTP doesn't give you anything HTTP doesn't.
For authenticated access FTP /can't/ encrypt your password. WebDAV /can/. (I guess you could kerberize it... but I could go on for hours about the troubles that might cause).

Of course, there isn't a good WebDAV solution for this kind of thing yet so that part's moot.

One of my dreams is to replace my FTP server with a WebDAV solution that will respect filesystem ACLs and authenticate to whatever the system auth scheme is, all over TLS.

Wow, that was more than I intended to say. Enjoy!


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