Columbia Kermit/kermit.zip/newsgroups/misc.20010306-20010921/[e-mail] _Thu Apr 26 17:45:38 2001.msg

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From: Rich Gray <[e-mail]>
Organization: Plus Technologies Div. of Digital Controls Corp.
Subject: Re: copying a file to a ftp-server
Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 17:37:23 -0400
To: [e-mail]

Frank da Cruz wrote:
>
> In article <[e-mail]>,
> <[e-mail]> wrote:
> :
> : how do i put a single file to a ftp server from the command line. With=20
> : the ftp program i always end up in interactive mode, but i want to do=20
> : this from within a script.
> :
> : So i need something like: ftpcopy myfile ftp://myftpserver
> :
> If you use the new Kermit FTP client:
>
>   http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/ftpclient.html
>
> you can do it like this:
>
>   ftp -A kermit.columbia.edu -D kermit/incoming -bp debug.log
>
> In this example:
>
>   ftp is a symlink to the C-Kermit 7.1 binary
>   -A means "log in as user anonymous"
>   -D means CD to the given directory
>   -b means force binary mode
>   -p means PUT
>
> You can also specify a real username and password:
>
>   ftp -u christian.verbeek -P secret ...
>
> And before anybody objects that cleartext passwords should never be used:
>
>  1. Sometimes you have no choice.

Yep!  :-(

>
>  2. The Kermit FTP client supports several secure authentication
>     methods: Kerberos 4, Kerberos 5 GSSAPI, SRP, SSL/TLS.
>
> Secure FTP servers are available.  To find out more, see:
>
>   http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/ftpd.html
>
> - Frank

And subsequently wrote:
>...
> As for password safety, putting passwords in the .netrc file is no safer
> than putting them in scripts.  The only solution to this problem is to
> use secure authentication methods.  But the limiting factor in this case
> is whether a secure server is available on the other end.  At the moment,
> this is generally not the case.  But increasingly, it can be.  As noted
> previously, secure FTP servers are available:
>
>   http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/ftpd.html
>
> and as time goes on they will find their way into standard UNIX
> distributions.
>
> - Frank

There can be a heck of a difference between getting a userid/password
from a .netrc file or some other indirect source and specifiying
directly on the command line.   If you put it in on a command line, it
can show up in ps! Talk about exposed!  A non-command line user:password
is at least "secured" by file permissions.  The cURL
(http://curl.haxx.se) utility has the ability to take parameters from a
file or standard input.  I use it to do an ftp transfer by invoking it
in a popen(), piping in parms I don't want to show up on the command
line (like -u user:password) and letting things I want visible in ps go
on the command line.  I trust kermit has a similar capability?

Cheers!
Rich

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