File Transfer Protocol

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"FTP" redirects here. For other uses, see FTP (disambiguation).
File Transfer Protocol
Communication protocol
Purpose File transfer
Developer(s) Abhay Bhushan for RFC 959
Introduction April 16, 1971; 52 years ago
OSI layer Application layer
Port(s) 21 for control, 20 for data transfer
RFC(s) RFC 959
Internet protocol suite
Application layer
BGPDHCP (v6)DNSFTPHTTP
(HTTP/3)HTTPSIMAPIRCLDAPMGCPMQTTNNTPNTPOSPFPOPPTPONC/RPCRTPRTSPRIPSIPSMTPSNMPSSHTel
netTLS/SSLXMPPmore...
Transport layer
TCPUDPDCCPSCTPRSVPQUICmore...
Internet layer
IP v4v6ICMP (v6)NDPECNIGMPIPsecmore...
Link layer
ARPTunnelsPPPMACmore...
vte
The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the
transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is
built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data
connections between the client and the server.[1] FTP users may authenticate
themselves with a plain-text sign-in protocol, normally in the form of a username
and password, but can connect anonymously if the server is configured to allow it.
For secure transmission that protects the username and password, and encrypts the
content, FTP is often secured with SSL/TLS (FTPS) or replaced with SSH File
Transfer Protocol (SFTP).

The first FTP client applications were command-line programs developed before
operating systems had graphical user interfaces, and are still shipped with most
Windows, Unix, and Linux operating systems.[2][3] Many dedicated FTP clients and
automation utilities have since been developed for desktops, servers, mobile
devices, and hardware, and FTP has been incorporated into productivity applications
such as HTML editors and file managers.

An FTP client used to be commonly integrated in web browsers, where file servers
are browsed with the URI prefix "ftp://". In 2021, FTP support was dropped by
Google Chrome and Firefox,[4][5] two major web browser vendors, due to it being
superseded by the more secure SFTP and FTPS; although neither of them have
implemented the newer protocols.[6][7]

History of FTP servers

The original specification for the File Transfer Protocol was written by Abhay
Bhushan and published as RFC 114 on 16 April 1971. Until 1980, FTP ran on NCP, the
predecessor of TCP/IP.[2] The protocol was later replaced by a TCP/IP version, RFC
765 (June 1980) and RFC 959 (October 1985), the current specification. Several
proposed standards amend RFC 959, for example RFC 1579 (February 1994) enables
Firewall-Friendly FTP (passive mode), RFC 2228 (June 1997) proposes security
extensions, RFC 2428 (September 1998) adds support for IPv6 and defines a new type
of passive mode.[8]

Protocol overview
Communication and data transfer

Illustration of starting a passive connection using port 21

FTP may run in active or passive mode, which determines how the data connection is
established.[9] (This sense of "mode" is different from that of the MODE command in
the FTP protocol.)

In active mode, the client starts listening for incoming data connections from the
server on port M. It sends the FTP command PORT M to inform the server on which
port it is listening. The server then initiates a data channel to the client from
its port 20, the FTP server data port.
In situations where the client is behind a firewall and unable to accept incoming
TCP connections, passive mode may be used. In this mode, the client uses the
control connection to send a PASV command to the server and then receives a server
IP address and server port number from the server,[9] which the client then uses to
open a data connection from an arbitrary client port to the server IP address and
server port number received.[10]
Both modes were updated in September 1998 to support IPv6. Further changes were
introduced to the passive mode at that time, updating it to extended passive mode.
[11]

The server responds over the control connection with three-digit status codes in
ASCII with an optional text message. For example, "200" (or "200 OK") means that
the last command was successful. The numbers represent the code for the response
and the optional text represents a human-readable explanation or request (e.g.
<Need account for storing file>).[1] An ongoing transfer of file data over the data
connection can be aborted using an interrupt message sent over the control
connection.

FTP needs two ports (one for sending and one for receiving) because it was
originally designed to operate on top of Network Control Protocol (NCP), which was
a simplex protocol that utilized two port addresses, establishing two connections,
for two-way communications. An odd and an even port were reserved for each
application layer application or protocol. The standardization of TCP and UDP
reduced the need for the use of two simplex ports for each application down to one
duplex port,[12]: 15 but the FTP protocol was never altered to only use one port,
and continued using two for backwards compatibility.

NAT and firewall traversal

FTP normally transfers data by having the server connect back to the client, after
the PORT command is sent by the client. This is problematic for both NATs and
firewalls, which do not allow connections from the Internet towards internal hosts.
[13] For NATs, an additional complication is that the representation of the IP
addresses and port number in the PORT command refer to the internal host's IP
address and port, rather than the public IP address and port of the NAT.

There are two approaches to solve this problem. One is that the FTP client and FTP
server use the PASV command, which causes the data connection to be established
from the FTP client to the server.[13] This is widely used by modern FTP clients.
Another approach is for the NAT to alter the values of the PORT command, using an
application-level gateway for this purpose.[13]
A model chart of how FTP works
Data types
While transferring data over the network, five data types are defined:[2][3][8]

ASCII (TYPE A): Used for text. Data is converted, if needed, from the sending
host's character representation to "8-bit ASCII" before transmission, and (again,
if necessary) to the receiving host's character representation, including newlines.
As a consequence, this mode is inappropriate for files that contain data other than
ASCII.
Image (TYPE I, commonly called Binary mode): The sending machine sends each file
byte by byte, and the recipient stores the bytestream as it receives it. (Image
mode support has been recommended for all implementations of FTP).
EBCDIC (TYPE E): Used for plain text between hosts using the EBCDIC character set.
Local (TYPE L n): Designed to support file transfer between machines which do not
use 8-bit bytes, e.g. 36-bit systems such as DEC PDP-10s. For example, "TYPE L 9"
would be used to transfer data in 9-bit bytes, or "TYPE L 36" to transfer 36-bit
words. Most contemporary FTP clients/servers only support L 8, which is equivalent
to I.
Unicode text files using UTF-8 (TYPE U): defined in an expired Internet Draft[14]
which never became an RFC, though it has been implemented by several FTP
clients/servers.
Note these data types are commonly called "modes", although ambiguously that word
is also used to refer to active-vs-passive communication mode (see above), and the
modes set by the FTP protocol MODE command (see below).

For text files (TYPE A and TYPE E), three different format control options are
provided, to control how the file would be printed:

Non-print (TYPE A N and TYPE E N) – the file does not contain any carriage control
characters intended for a printer
Telnet (TYPE A T and TYPE E T) – the file contains Telnet (or in other words, ASCII
C0) carriage control characters (CR, LF, etc)
ASA (TYPE A A and TYPE E A) – the file contains ASA carriage control characters
These formats were mainly relevant to line printers; most contemporary FTP
clients/servers only support the default format control of N.

File structures
File organization is specified using the STRU command. The following file
structures are defined in section 3.1.1 of RFC959:

F or FILE structure (stream-oriented). Files are viewed as an arbitrary sequence of

bytes, characters or words. This is the usual file structure on Unix systems and
other systems such as CP/M, MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. (Section 3.1.1.1)
R or RECORD structure (record-oriented). Files are viewed as divided into records,
which may be fixed or variable length. This file organization is common on
mainframe and midrange systems, such as MVS, VM/CMS, OS/400 and VMS, which support
record-oriented filesystems.
P or PAGE structure (page-oriented). Files are divided into pages, which may either
contain data or metadata; each page may also have a header giving various
attributes. This file structure was specifically designed for TENEX systems, and is
generally not supported on other platforms. RFC1123 section 4.1.2.3 recommends that
this structure not be implemented.
Most contemporary FTP clients and servers only support STRU F. STRU R is still in
use in mainframe and minicomputer file transfer applications.

Data transfer modes

Data transfer can be done in any of three modes:[1][2]

Stream mode (MODE S): Data is sent as a continuous stream, relieving FTP from doing
any processing. Rather, all processing is left up to TCP. No End-of-file indicator
is needed, unless the data is divided into records.
Block mode (MODE B): Designed primarily for transferring record-oriented files
(STRU R), although can also be used to transfer stream-oriented (STRU F) text
files. FTP puts each record (or line) of data into several blocks (block header,
byte count, and data field) and then passes it on to TCP.[8]
Compressed mode (MODE C): Extends MODE B with data compression using run-length
encoding.
Most contemporary FTP clients and servers do not implement MODE B or MODE C; FTP
clients and servers for mainframe and minicomputer operating systems are the
exception to that.

Some FTP software also implements a DEFLATE-based compressed mode, sometimes called
"Mode Z" after the command that enables it. This mode was described in an Internet
Draft, but not standardized.[15]

GridFTP defines additional modes, MODE E[16] and MODE X,[17] as extensions of MODE
B.

Additional commands
More recent implementations of FTP support the Modify Fact: Modification Time
(MFMT) command, which allows a client to adjust that file attribute remotely,
enabling the preservation of that attribute when uploading files.[18][19]

To retrieve a remote file timestamp, there's MDTM command. Some servers (and
clients) support nonstandard syntax of the MDTM command with two arguments, that
works the same way as MFMT[20]

Login

A computer at Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station logging into an FTP server and
transferring a file, in 1994
FTP login uses normal username and password scheme for granting access.[2] The
username is sent to the server using the USER command, and the password is sent
using the PASS command.[2] This sequence is unencrypted "on the wire", so may be
vulnerable to a network sniffing attack.[21] If the information provided by the
client is accepted by the server, the server will send a greeting to the client and
the session will commence.[2] If the server supports it, users may log in without
providing login credentials, but the same server may authorize only limited access
for such sessions.[2]

Anonymous FTP
A host that provides an FTP service may provide anonymous FTP access.[2] Users
typically log into the service with an 'anonymous' (lower-case and case-sensitive
in some FTP servers) account when prompted for user name. Although users are
commonly asked to send their email address instead of a password,[3] no
verification is actually performed on the supplied data.[22] Many FTP hosts whose
purpose is to provide software updates will allow anonymous logins.[3]

Differences from HTTP

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citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
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HTTP essentially fixes the bugs in FTP that made it inconvenient to use for many
small ephemeral transfers as are typical in web pages.

FTP has a stateful control connection which maintains a current working directory
and other flags, and each transfer requires a secondary connection through which
the data are transferred. In "passive" mode this secondary connection is from
client to server, whereas in the default "active" mode this connection is from
server to client. This apparent role reversal when in active mode, and random port
numbers for all transfers, is why firewalls and NAT gateways have such a hard time
with FTP. HTTP is stateless and multiplexes control and data over a single
connection from client to server on well-known port numbers, which trivially passes
through NAT gateways and is simple for firewalls to manage.

Setting up an FTP control connection is quite slow due to the round-trip delays of
sending all of the required commands and awaiting responses, so it is customary to
bring up a control connection and hold it open for multiple file transfers rather
than drop and re-establish the session afresh each time. In contrast, HTTP
originally dropped the connection after each transfer because doing so was so
cheap. While HTTP has subsequently gained the ability to reuse the TCP connection
for multiple transfers, the conceptual model is still of independent requests
rather than a session.

When FTP is transferring over the data connection, the control connection is idle.
If the transfer takes too long, the firewall or NAT may decide that the control
connection is dead and stop tracking it, effectively breaking the connection and
confusing the download. The single HTTP connection is only idle between requests
and it is normal and expected for such connections to be dropped after a time-out.

Software support

FileZilla client running on Windows, one of the best known FTP client software
File managers
Many file managers tend to have FTP access implemented, such as File Explorer
(formerly Windows Explorer) on Microsoft Windows. This client is only recommended
for small file transfers from a server, due to limitations compared to dedicated
client software.[23] It does not support SFTP.[24]

Both the native file managers for KDE on Linux (Dolphin and Konqueror) support FTP
as well as SFTP.[25][26]

Primitive FTPd on Android, actively running an FTP and SFTP server

On Android, the My Files file manager on Samsung Galaxy has a built-in FTP and SFTP
client.[27]

Web browser
For a long time, most common web browsers were able to retrieve files hosted on FTP
servers, although not all of them had support for protocol extensions such as FTPS.
[3][28] When an FTP—rather than an HTTP—URL is supplied, the accessible contents on
the remote server are presented in a manner that is similar to that used for other
web content.

Google Chrome removed FTP support entirely in Chrome 88, also affecting other
Chromium-based browsers such as Microsoft Edge.[29] Firefox 88 disabled FTP support
by default, with Firefox 90 dropping support entirely.[30][4]

FireFTP is a discontinued browser extension that was designed as a full-featured

FTP client to be run within Firefox, but when Firefox dropped support for FTP the
extension developer recommended using Waterfox.[31] Some browsers, such as the
text-based Lynx, still support FTP.[32]

Syntax
FTP URL syntax is described in RFC 1738, taking the form:
ftp://[user[:password]@]host[:port]/[url-path] (the bracketed parts are optional).
For example, the URL ftp://public.ftp-servers.example.com/mydirectory/myfile.txt
represents the file myfile.txt from the directory mydirectory on the server
public.ftp-servers.example.com as an FTP resource. The URL
ftp://user001:[email protected]/mydirectory/myfile.txt
adds a specification of the username and password that must be used to access this
resource.

More details on specifying a username and password may be found in the browsers'
documentation (e.g., Firefox[33] and Internet Explorer[34]). By default, most web
browsers use passive (PASV) mode, which more easily traverses end-user firewalls.

Some variation has existed in how different browsers treat path resolution in cases
where there is a non-root home directory for a user.[35]

Download manager
Most common download managers can receive files hosted on FTP servers, while some
of them also give the interface to retrieve the files hosted on FTP servers.
DownloadStudio allows not only download a file from FTP server but also view the
list of files on a FTP server.[36]

Other
LibreOffice supports opening file from FTP servers, but from 7.4 release, this
feature is labeled deprecated, and developers intend to remove it in a future
version.[37]

Security
FTP was not designed to be a secure protocol, and has many security weaknesses.[38]
In May 1999, the authors of RFC 2577 listed a vulnerability to the following
problems:

Brute-force attack
FTP bounce attack
Packet capture
Port stealing (guessing the next open port and usurping a legitimate connection)
Spoofing attack
Username enumeration
DoS or DDoS
FTP does not encrypt its traffic; all transmissions are in clear text, and
usernames, passwords, commands and data can be read by anyone able to perform
packet capture (sniffing) on the network.[2][38] This problem is common to many of
the Internet Protocol specifications (such as SMTP, Telnet, POP and IMAP) that were
designed prior to the creation of encryption mechanisms such as TLS or SSL.[8]

Common solutions to this problem include:

Using the secure versions of the insecure protocols, e.g., FTPS instead of FTP and
TelnetS instead of Telnet.
Using a different, more secure protocol that can handle the job, e.g. SSH File
Transfer Protocol or Secure Copy Protocol.
Using a secure tunnel such as Secure Shell (SSH) or virtual private network (VPN).
FTP over SSH
FTP over SSH is the practice of tunneling a normal FTP session over a Secure Shell
connection.[38] Because FTP uses multiple TCP connections (unusual for a TCP/IP
protocol that is still in use), it is particularly difficult to tunnel over SSH.
With many SSH clients, attempting to set up a tunnel for the control channel (the
initial client-to-server connection on port 21) will protect only that channel;
when data is transferred, the FTP software at either end sets up new TCP
connections (data channels) and thus have no confidentiality or integrity
protection.

Otherwise, it is necessary for the SSH client software to have specific knowledge
of the FTP protocol, to monitor and rewrite FTP control channel messages and
autonomously open new packet forwardings for FTP data channels. Software packages
that support this mode include:

Tectia ConnectSecure (Win/Linux/Unix)[39] of SSH Communications Security's software

suite
FTP over SSH should not be confused with SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP).

Derivatives
FTPS
Main article: FTPS
Explicit FTPS is an extension to the FTP standard that allows clients to request
FTP sessions to be encrypted. This is done by sending the "AUTH TLS" command. The
server has the option of allowing or denying connections that do not request TLS.
This protocol extension is defined in RFC 4217. Implicit FTPS is an outdated
standard for FTP that required the use of a SSL or TLS connection. It was specified
to use different ports than plain FTP.

SSH File Transfer Protocol

Main article: SSH File Transfer Protocol
The SSH file transfer protocol (chronologically the second of the two protocols
abbreviated SFTP) transfers files and has a similar command set for users, but uses
the Secure Shell protocol (SSH) to transfer files. Unlike FTP, it encrypts both
commands and data, preventing passwords and sensitive information from being
transmitted openly over the network. It cannot interoperate with FTP software,
though some FTP client software offers support for the SSH file transfer protocol
as well.

Trivial File Transfer Protocol

Main article: Trivial File Transfer Protocol
Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) is a simple, lock-step FTP that allows a
client to get a file from or put a file onto a remote host. One of its primary uses
is in the early stages of booting from a local area network, because TFTP is very
simple to implement. TFTP lacks security and most of the advanced features offered
by more robust file transfer protocols such as File Transfer Protocol. TFTP was
first standardized in 1981 and the current specification for the protocol can be
found in RFC 1350.

Simple File Transfer Protocol

Simple File Transfer Protocol (the first protocol abbreviated SFTP), as defined by
RFC 913, was proposed as an (unsecured) file transfer protocol with a level of
complexity intermediate between TFTP and FTP. It was never widely accepted on the
Internet, and is now assigned Historic status by the IETF. It runs through port
115, and often receives the initialism of SFTP. It has a command set of 11 commands
and support three types of data transmission: ASCII, binary and continuous. For
systems with a word size that is a multiple of 8 bits, the implementation of binary
and continuous is the same. The protocol also supports login with user ID and
password, hierarchical folders and file management (including rename, delete,
upload, download, download with overwrite, and download with append).

FTP commands
Main article: List of FTP commands
FTP reply codes
Main article: List of FTP server return codes
Below is a summary of FTP reply codes that may be returned by an FTP server. These
codes have been standardized in RFC 959 by the IETF. The reply code is a three-
digit value. The first digit is used to indicate one of three possible outcomes —
success, failure, or to indicate an error or incomplete reply:

2yz – Success reply

4yz or 5yz – Failure reply
1yz or 3yz – Error or Incomplete reply
The second digit defines the kind of error:

x0z – Syntax. These replies refer to syntax errors.

x1z – Information. Replies to requests for information.
x2z – Connections. Replies referring to the control and data connections.
x3z – Authentication and accounting. Replies for the login process and accounting
procedures.
x4z – Not defined.
x5z – File system. These replies relay status codes from the server file system.
The third digit of the reply code is used to provide additional detail for each of
the categories defined by the second digit.

See also
Comparison of FTP client software
Comparison of FTP server software packages
Comparison of file transfer protocols
Curl-loader – FTP/S loading/testing open-source software
File eXchange Protocol (FXP)
File Service Protocol (FSP)
FTAM
FTPFS
List of FTP commands
List of FTP server return codes
Managed File Transfer
OBEX
Shared file access
TCP Wrapper
References
Forouzan, B.A. (20