It is strange to think about how long the File Transfer Protocol ( ) has been around. First developed in 1971 by Abhay Bhushan, a student at MIT, it was initially used to transfer files between computers on the ARPANET. Needless to say it evolved - with authentication, encryption, and compression features. It remains a widely used protocol for transferring files over the Internet, particularly in cases where large files or large numbers of files need to be transferred quickly and reliably. FTP While the S3 API is fundamentally superior, it lacks the bare bones simplicity of and the ability to run in highly constrained environments. As a result, MinIO has added support for and into the MinIO Server. With this new functionality, the user (or application) thinks they are talking to an server when in fact they are talking to MinIO. The advantages should be apparent - it becomes seamless to move data onto MinIO and from the application/user perspective everything is essentially the same - from policies, security etc. FTP/SFTP FTP SFTP FTP Currently supported operations are as follows: FTP/SFTP ftp-client commands supported get yes put yes ls yes mkdir yes rmdir yes delete yes append no rename no MinIO supports following based protocols to access and manage data. FTP/SFTP Secure File Transfer Protocol ( ) – Defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as an extended version of SSH 2.0, allowing file transfer over SSH and for use with Transport Layer Security (TLS) and VPN applications. SFTP File Transfer Protocol over SSL/TLS ( ) – Encrypted communication via TLS certificates. FTPS FTP File Transfer Protocol ( ) – Defined by RFC114 originally, and replaced by RFC765 and RFC959 unencrypted FTP communication FTP This is NOT recommended What is covered in this release: All IAM Credentials are allowed access excluding rotating credentials, rotating credentials are not allowed to login via ports. You must use S3 API port for if you are using rotating credentials. FTP/SFTP Access to bucket(s) and object(s) are governed via IAM policies associated with the incoming login credentials. Allows authentication and access for all Built-in IDP users and their respective service accounts LDAP/AD users and their respective service accounts OpenID/OIDC service accounts On versioned buckets, only operates on the latest objects. If you need to retrieve an older version you must use an such as . FTP/SFTP S3 API client mc All features currently used by your buckets will work “as is” without any changes -SSE (Server Side Encryption) -Replication (Server Side Replication) Essentially, this should be a seamless protocol addition from the developer/administrator’s perspective. Prerequisites and Notes This functionality is available beginning with . RELEASE.2023-04-20T17-56-55Z It is assumed users have already been created and configured with . MinIO recommends starting with a basic "readwrite" canned policy to test all the operations before finalizing what level of restrictions are needed for a user. relevant access policies There are no "admin:*" operations needed for access to the bucket(s) and object(s). They may be skipped for restrictions. FTP/SFTP Important note: is not enabled by default. It needs to be enabled on setup. Further, there is no admin functionality available via , this must be done through the command line. FTP/SFTP FTP Usage Start MinIO in a distributed setup, with enabled. FTP/SFTP minio server http://server{1...4}/disk{1...4}
--ftp="address=:8021" --ftp="passive-port-range=30000-40000" \
--sftp="address=:8022" --sftp="ssh-private-key=/home/miniouser/.ssh/id_rsa"
...
... The following example shows connecting via client using credentials, and list a bucket named : ftp minioadmin runner ftp localhost -P 8021
Connected to localhost.
220 Welcome to MinIO FTP Server
Name (localhost:user): minioadmin
331 User name ok, password required
Password:
230 Password ok, continue
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files.
ftp> ls runner/
229 Entering Extended Passive Mode (|||39155|)
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for file list
drwxrwxrwx 1 nobody nobody            0 Jan  1 00:00 chunkdocs/
drwxrwxrwx 1 nobody nobody            0 Jan  1 00:00 testdir/
... The following example shows how to list an object and download it locally via client: ftp ftp> ls runner/chunkdocs/metadata
229 Entering Extended Passive Mode (|||44269|)
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for file list
-rwxrwxrwx 1 nobody nobody           45 Apr  1 06:13 chunkdocs/metadata
226 Closing data connection, sent 75 bytes
ftp> get
(remote-file) runner/chunkdocs/metadata
(local-file) test
local: test remote: runner/chunkdocs/metadata
229 Entering Extended Passive Mode (|||37785|)
150 Data transfer starting 45 bytes
45        3.58 KiB/s
226 Closing data connection, sent 45 bytes
45 bytes received in 00:00 (3.55 KiB/s)
... Notes on SFTP If there are certificates enabled on the server, can be used. Provided the client is capable, TLS can be used to secure the transmission. This will require an additional flag for the private key. SFTP FTP The following example shows connecting via client using credentials, and list a bucket named : sftp minioadmin runner sftp -P 8022 minioadmin@localhost
minioadmin@localhost's password:
Connected to localhost.
sftp> ls runner/
chunkdocs  testdir The following example shows how to download an object locally via client: sftp sftp> get runner/chunkdocs/metadata metadata
Fetching /runner/chunkdocs/metadata to metadata
metadata     
100%  226    16.6KB/s   00:00
sftp> Advanced options Change default FTP port Default port can be changed via 8021 --ftp="address=:3021" Change FTP passive port range By default requests that the OS provide a free port automatically, however you may want to restrict this to specific ports in certain restricted environments via FTP --ftp="passive-port-range=30000-40000" Change default SFTP port The default port can be changed via 8022 --sftp="address=:3022" TLS (FTP) Unlike server, server is insecure by default. To operate under TLS mode, you need to provide certificates via SFTP FTP --ftp="tls-private-key=path/to/private.key" --ftp="tls-public-cert=path/to/public.crt" : if MinIO distributed setup is already configured to run under TLS, will automatically use the relevant certificates from the server certificate chain, this is mainly to add simplicity of setup. However if you wish to terminate TLS certificates via a different domain for your servers you may choose the above command line options. NOTE FTP FTP Limitations We noted earlier that Append and Rename are not support functions. Given the simplicity of - versioning is also problematic. Versioning is not supported by and the clients don’t know what it actually is - but buckets will generally have multiple versions of an object. As a result, the same object with a new name will be a new object. The same object with the same name will be a new version - but has no concept of that, it needs to be managed via S3. It can move the data, but it doesn’t have the sophistication of S3 to understand certain concepts. FTP FTP FTP FTP Finally, as noted, there are no admin functions available over . FTP Summary are exceptionally long lived protocols and they continue to find new use cases and utility well into their 50s. We have made it simple to use to get data into MinIO and to get it out. FTP/SFTP FTP More importantly, functionality will work seamlessly with your existing MinIO deployment - just upgrade and go feeding you MinIO buckets with all the data you had to previously transform into MinIO. FTP/SFTP We have a great video on the subject . We have our GitHub page . We are available to support the community and obviously, if you are a commercial customer you can find us 24/7/365 on SUBNET. here here here Also published . here

The code in this story is for educational purposes. The readers are solely responsible for whatever they build with it.

This writer has a vested interest be it monetary, business, or otherwise, with 1 or more of the products or companies mentioned within.

Walkthroughs, tutorials, guides, and tips. This story will teach you how to do something new or how to do something better.

Setting Up a MinIO FTP/SFTP Server — Now With More Data Options Than Ever

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