Chapter 23. Creating a Web Server

Summary

This chapter looked at how to make the optional FTP server more secure. Although Mac 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 ProFTPD. 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 Mac OS X software updates or by compiling and installing the more recent versions by hand. For ProFTPD, you have to update manually.

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

You might have found some parts of the chapter confusing. However, as your needs evolve, so does your understanding. You can always return to this chapter to get a start on customizing your FTP needs.