VS-FTPD Configuration Issue

[Ed Wilts]

On Tue, May 11, 2004 at 06:01:12PM +0100, mlists at tdbnetworks.org wrote:
> I'm currently in the process of setting up a ftp server using vs-ftpd
> unfortunately I'm having a bit of a problem in that I need to pass urls to
> various files to customers through a html page.
> 
> The files in question will all be under the same directory structure for
> each customer however each customer will have there own account with private
> and general file storage areas.

This is where the fun starts.  
> 
> The problem is as followes if I tell a customer to access the url
> ftp://ftp.bobsfilestore.com then IE attempts to connect to that host,
> prompts for login details and then displays there personal file area,

IE doesn't handle authenticated very easily.  The RFCs actually say that
if you do not pass a username/password in the url, then anonymous FTP is
used.  Unfortunately that's not what you want.

IE and FTP just don't mix very well.  Use a real FTP client and you'll
be far better off.

For our environment at work, we're having a serious look at beehive
(www.thebeehive.com) which layers on top of a Linux server.  It seems to
make a lot of things simpler.  It's not open source but it isn't very
pricey either (for an enterprise).

-- 
Ed Wilts, Mounds View, MN, USA
mailto:ewilts at ewilts.org
Member #1, Red Hat Community Ambassador Program