what! thats so dumb xD. so ftps
stands for file transfer protocol secure, and sftp
stands for ssh file transfer protocol
? we have reached recursive acronyms.
Comment on How do you manage your server files?
kevincox@lemmy.ml 8 months agoftp
ans sftp
are completely different things. ftp
is a very old protocol and can be run encrypted as ftps
. sftp
runs over SSH and is pretty common to use.
Naming is truly one of the hardest problems in computer science.
blotz@lemmy.world 8 months ago
kevincox@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
Yup super confusing. The way I remember it is that
https
ishttp
+ SSL softps
isftp
+ SSL. The weird onesftp
is an entirely different protocol that uses SSH to transfer files.blotz@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Okay this has made it so much worse. i figured that the
s
inhttps
andftps
stands forsecure
like a reasonable person. of course it doesnt xD. you would think that this is at least consistent but alas. guess whats
inssh
doesnt stand for :)kevincox@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
I don’t know if the
s
is actually “SSL” or “secure” but the point is that the are the same protocol, running over an encryption layer. So adding ans
suffix is running the same protocol over some encrypted transport. You see thiss
suffix for lots of things likeirc
/ircs
anddav
/davs
.This is different to
sftp
which isn’t related toftp
at all other than they are both protocols that transfer files.
FabianRY@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Thanks😅. I wasn’t aware, and until today thought that sftp is just like “the secure version of ftp” (never heard of ftps), and not different things at all. I have still a lot to learn in this field.
kevincox@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
Unless you went out of your way to set up FTP and get a TLS certificate I would put my money on you using SFTP which uses SSH for authentication and transport security. It doesn’t require anything to set up other than TOFU server keys and a client key or password for authentication.
Which is probably the right thing to use. Really you shouldn’t be using FTP anymore. Probably you just want HTTP for public data and SFTP for private authenticated data.