sFtp and FTPS: What's the difference??

aplnubaplnub
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
I have FUGU working (I love that program) and am using it to connect to my iMac during the day. I started this thread here: http://forums.appleinsider.com/showt...900#post732900



I thought I was doing a secure way of transferring files until I read the Best FTP Program thread stickied in the software forum.



Someone complimented FUGU and said how great it was for SFTP. Then someone made this comment:



Quote:

Yeah, if we were talking sftp, but we're talking ftps (or FTP SSL/TLS) which is secure ftp done the right way.



So, is FTPS better than SFTP for security?



I'm lost.



Eric

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    dobbydobby Posts: 797member
    FTPS is ftp over a SSL (secure sockets layer) connection.

    SFTP is not ftp but SCP (secure copy) commands (or similar) over a SSH2 (secure shell) connection.



    Dobby.
  • Reply 2 of 7
    toweltowel Posts: 1,479member
    This is confusing. So "Secure FTP" is actually FTPS, while SFTP is "SSH File Transfer Protocol", which has nothing to do with regular ftp. I use sftp all the time and never knew that.



    Wikipedia to the rescue.



    Secure FTP (FTPS) is regular ftp where the commands are send over a secure SSH connection, but the data is sent in the clear.



    SFTP is a protocol derived from scp, not ftp, where the entire transaction, data and all, is done over a secure SSH connection. Despite the fact that it's called sftp, and when you run it from the command line it acts just like regular ftp, it's not ftp.
  • Reply 3 of 7
    qchemqchem Posts: 73member
    I was under the impression that secure FTP is not the same as ftps. ftps as I understand it is like standard ftp which uses SSL encryption for everything, a bit like a secure web page (https).



    I'm not sure which is technically better security wise but if I was using either I wouldn't be worrying about security. SFTP is a nice and easy choice, switch on remote login and its up and running, you'd have to mess about with certificates and similar for ftps.
  • Reply 4 of 7
    toweltowel Posts: 1,479member
    Thanks for the correction. So there's two completely different flavors of SFTP (couldn't they have picked different acronyms?), and then there's FTPS, which is another thing altogether. The one to avoid is Secure FTP, which isn't really secure (data-wise, at least). What a jumble.
  • Reply 5 of 7
    aplnubaplnub Posts: 2,605member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Qchem

    I'm not sure which is technically better security wise but if I was using either I wouldn't be worrying about security.



    Are you saying neither is worth a flip for transferring data securely or that both are good at it?



    Eric
  • Reply 6 of 7
    qchemqchem Posts: 73member
    Quote:

    Are you saying neither is worth a flip for transferring data securely or that both are good at it?



    Sorry for not making it clear, both are good!!
  • Reply 7 of 7
    aplnubaplnub Posts: 2,605member
    Thanks. I love FUGU too much.



    Eric
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