FTP Servlet

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1 Overview
2 Architecture
3 Security
4 Issues and Drawbacks
5 Related Links
6 See also
- 6.1 FTP-like protocols

[edit] Overview

A FTP servlet in computing language is an intermediate application that resides between the FTP server and the FTP client. It works as a proxy between the client/server communications and helps to unload some of the computing power of the FTP server and distribute it to the FTP servlet. It also provides a firewall and proxy friendly file transfer environment by wrapping FTP traffic over HTTP. FTP traffic can be wrapped over HTTPs using a SSL certificate to provide enhanced security.

[edit] Architecture

FTP clients can connect to the FTP servlet through the Internet. In most cases FTP is wrapped over an application layer protocol. Most commonly used are HTTP (for easy, unencrypted transfers) or HTTPs (for encrypted transfers). The use of HTTPs requires a SSL certificate to be present at the site of the FTP servlet. A number of simultaneous connections can be made to the FTP servlet. The number of connections is restricted to the computing power of the server. The number of end-users supported through the number of connections is usually more. As all connected end-users aren’t “active” until they make a request from the server. Consequently, the number of end-users simultaneously online on the FTP server can be greater than the number of active connections supported by the FTP server.

[edit] Security

FTP servlet protects direct access to FTP server from the outside world. The FTP servlet can be housed on the DMZ. The internal network can house the FTP server. Direct access from the outside can’t be initiated with the internal FTP server. For additional security, port forwarding can also be used to enhance security between DMZ and internal network

[edit] Issues and Drawbacks

FTP serlvets can only work with advanced FTP clients that support the wrapping of FTP over HTTP or HTTPs. There are a number of commercially available clients/FTP servlets that work in such a way. Refer to Related links below.