Introduction
File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a reliable and familiar protocol, especially useful for Internet publishing. It may seem as if Microsoft has been delayed in providing a robust, secure FTP solution for the past few years. However, Microsoft will soon release a completely overhauled FTP server, at about the same time as the upcoming Microsoft Server® 2008 release.
This article contains:
Two FTP Servers for IIS 7.0
At first, the story for FTP and IIS 7.0 may seem a little confusing. There are actually two FTP servers available. One comes with either Windows Vista™ or Windows Server 2008. The other we provide as a download from the Web.
Why two FTP servers? The IIS team ran out of time. The one available with Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 is essentially the same FTP service from IIS 6.0. When you select the FTP service to install in IIS 7.0, you are actually setting up the previous IIS 6.0 Manager, in addition to the compatibility tools necessary to run it on Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008.
This provides FTP in a pinch, but if you want to use the new FTP features, you must download the FTP server from the Web and then install it on Windows Server 2008. This article focuses on the new features available for the FTP server available from the Web.
New Features for FTP
Why bother downloading? Because the new features are compelling. For shared hosting, improvements include integrating FTP into your Web site, virtual host name support, and new user isolation features. We offer support for Internet standards like IPv6, UTF8, and SSL. The FTP server is fully integrated with IIS 7.0: this means you see a new user interface, the new XML-based configuration, and the extensibility improvements that all come built-in with IIS 7.0.
There are a few features that we do not support, however. We do not offer support for SFTP (FTP over SSH). You cannot delegate FTP configuration, like you can with many other IIS 7.0 features. There is no support for Windows Server™ 2003 or earlier operating systems.
Here is a closer look at each of the new features.
Integrated Publishing
You expect the new FTP server to be integrated with the new IIS 7.0 user interface, but we go one step further and offer streamlined content publishing. To publish your site content, you bind the FTP protocol to an existing Web site, the same as you bind HTTPS to provide SSL. A wizard helps configure FTP publishing. The minimal configuration steps are to bind the FTP service to a port (the default is 21) and then define your authentication and authorization settings. On the first screen of the publishing wizard (pictured below), you can set up a virtual host and assign a server certificate.
Of course, you do not have to bind the FTP protocol to your Web site. If you want only an FTP site, then set up a site that has a single protocol binding: FTP.
Secure Publishing
FTP uses a data channel and a control channel (for credentials and FTP commands) to transfer files. We offer an RFC-based implementation of FTPS (FTP over SSL), which allows you to encrypt data on the control channel, on the data channel, or on both channels. Since we have a standards-based implementation of FTPS, we support several third-party FTP clients.
The industry has addressed how to secure FTP traffic in several different ways. Although there no single standard has emerged, there are two similarly named protocols: FTPS and SFTP. Unfortunately, this creates confusion.
To clarify, Microsoft offers an FTPS solution. SFTP typically involves using FTP over SSH. Microsoft does not provide any solution for securing FTP traffic that uses an implementation of SSH.
Virtual Host Names
We have added virtual host name support to FTP. By using host name support, you can host multiple FTP sites, each with different domain names, on the same IP address.
User Isolation
We have improved support for user isolation configuration. All the previous FTP isolation features remain available for backward compatibility, but we have made two major changes:
- If you enable isolation with User name directory (disable global virtual directories), users start in a directory that matches the name of their user account when they first logon to the server. In earlier versions of FTP, you had to create a physical directory for each of these accounts. This is no longer necessary. With the new FTP, you can use virtual directories.
However, if you use this new isolation option, you can no longer use global virtual directories. This means that to share a folder between multiple FTP users, you must create a virtual directory for each user.
- In earlier versions of FTP, if you used physical directories for users to start in when they first logged on to the server, it was possible to use global virtual directories. If you wanted to share content between a number of FTP users, global virtual directories were helpful.
We have kept this option, but now it is only available with User name physical directory (enable global virtual directories). Obviously, you must create physical directories to use it.
Improved Directory Browsing
With regard to virtual directories, you can now make them available for viewing by selecting an option on the improved FTP Directory Browsing page. Virtual directories were never visible in earlier versions of FTP.
Authentication for Non-Windows Accounts
We have added support for Web Manager authentication and ASP.NET Membership authentication. This enables Web hosters to use non-Windows accounts to authenticate FTP users.
The authentication plan also includes built-in Basic authentication, which is especially useful when combined with the new FTPS feature to secure the user's credentials.
Other FTP Improvements
We now offer better logging support, including logging of all verbs and additional detail fields in FTP logs. These new fields include real session stamps, allowing you to parse logs to discover exactly what users were doing throughout a session. We also offer administrators the option to log the full path for requests for files or folders. This is helpful because servers typically only log the name of the file or folder, and this can make large log files difficult to read.
Finally, the new FTP server has better error messaging and event tracing. These features simplify troubleshooting and enable hosters to better support their customers. And so we offer better integration with Windows Server 2008, including integration with server features such as disk quotas.
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