sFTP works on my new file server running Ubuntu Server - should I install an FTP server (e.g. vsftpd)?

Question

I recently installed Ubuntu Server for the first time followed by LAMP. My plan is to have a separate computer to host my websites. So, next step I wanted to allow for FTP uploading. I'd heard of FTP servers and guessed this was the step required to open a server up to FTP access (much in the same way as installing SSH server to allow SSH access). Before I installed anything though I just tried to access the server using FileZilla over sFTP .. to my surprise it worked. So I did't need to install anything?? Does that mean I have an FTP server running already? When I view tutorials of allowing FTP access on Ubuntu Server people recommend vsftpd. Why install additional FTP software when I can already transfer files? Or does this let me do more with my server? Sorry to sound like a complete beginner here but, well, I am :) Would appreciate if someone could shed a little light on the matter so I can feel I've achieved some understanding of how to do properly set up a server with FTP access.

Answer 1

No. Actualiy you are better off with SFTP acess.

There are scenarious where old school FTP is to be preferred, but they don't seem to apply in your case. You will be fine with SFTP access.

EDIT: For a more complete answer, we need to distinguish between the protocols FTP and SFTP and the server software using those protocols, e. g. openssh and proftpd.

If we are talking about the protocols, there is a single use case in favor of FTP. Namely, you require the smallest possible bandwidth use with anonymous access. The FTP protocol allows anonymous access (much like http does) and has a very small overhead, thus allowing bigger payload per packet sent (much like rsync does.) If you only need anonymous access, use http or maybe WebDAV. If you only want small overhead, use rsync. Otherwise there is no reason I'm aware of to not use SFTP.

If we are talking about servers, there are good reasons to use proftpd (or other ftpds) over openssh. While openssh offers enough features to make secure, shell-denying access for SFTP use possible, full-fledged ftpds offer more features you might want, such as quota support, bandwidth throttling or non-system-user based authentification.

Answer 2

sFTP provides FTP like functionality over the top of SSH. If sFTP does what you want, that would be the prefered option. Plain FTP does not use encryption and is less secure than sFTP.

Unless you specifically need an FTP server for what you are doing, I'd recommend you stick with sFTP.

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSH_File_Transfer_Protocol for further info.