HTTP protocol is capable of doing absolutely everything FTP does and do it better in every way. The number of times I downloaded files using FTP and then had to download them a second time because of the cretinous requirement that mangle the files in case we are moving from EBCDIC to ASCII MUST be the default, like the server couldn't tell the client that it is a stupid, non-standard O/S.
The limitation to using the Web in place of FTP comes in the affordances of the client and the fact that Web servers do not provide directory listings by default or in a standardized format.
What we would need to close the gap is a standardized mechanism for reporting the directory listing and a client that allows for scripted and user interactions.
On Thu, Jul 4, 2024 at 5:20 PM John Levine <johnl@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It appears that John C Klensin <john-ietf@xxxxxxx> said:
>It is relatively easy to set up and run at least a minimal FTP
>server. If the content of files being shared are sensitive, having
>those files encrypted before being made available to the server is
>perceived by those who have taken the FTP path as safer than having
>them encrypted only in transit. By contrast, there is a widely held
>perception that setting up and operating web services has become
>difficult and complex enough that more organizations are better off
>contracting those out. ...
Perception among who? It's no harder to set up a little web server on
a VPS than a little FTP server. I've done both and I'm sure I'm not
the only one here who has.
I suppose that since nobody cares about FTP any more, you're not going
to get the complaints about an unencrypted FTP server that you do
about a non-SSL web server, but even there, getting and installing a
cert with certbot takes only a minute or two.
On the third hard, most VPS setups come with ssh already set up,
so you get scp for free.
R's,
John
