Summary

   

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This chapter has taken a look at how to make the optional FTP process more secure. Although OS X comes with an FTP server provided by Apple, we suggest that if you do want to provide FTP services, you run the more configurable wu- ftpd . No matter which server you decide to run, restrict access to the server as much as possible, regularly check your logs, and keep the FTP server up to date. For the default FTP server, you can do this with the OS X software updates, or by compiling and installing the more recent versions by hand. For wu-ftpd , you have to update manually.

You also saw alternative suggestions to simply using FTP. Most preferable is using scp or sftp . If you need an anonymous FTP server, then have the regular users use scp and sftp while you provide an anonymous FTP server. However, you may also discover a need for having an FTP server available for your real users. In that case, consider compiling a real-users-only FTP server, wrapping it with TCP Wrapper, and teaching your users to tunnel connections to it over SSH.

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