Re: [tlug] Secure alternative to ftp?

[ayako kato <ayako.kato@example.com>]

On Wed, 29 May 2002, Jean-Christian Imbeault wrote:

> I want to allow people on the outside to connect to my sftp server and
> upload files (even delete then perhaps) but that is all. I don't want
> them to have local accounts or anything else on my server. It seems that
> for sftp to work (in an non-anonymous fashion) I need to create a user
> account for anyone I want to allow to connect to the sftp server?

There was a discussion on this a while back on the secureshell mailing
list.  I did a search but I can't find the exact message. But I think I
read (could have been some other mailing list) that ssh made by ssh.com
offers a shell called ssh-dummy-shell which provides a means of secure
file transfer without actually granting users a shell access.

If you're ok with a different implementation of ssh then you may want to
take a look at www.ssh.com.  You may also want to check out the licensing
terms. I think it was something like, as long as you use it for
non-business purposes you can download it and use it freely. (It's been a
while since I last looked.)

There are a certain number of anti-openssh people on this list too. Maybe
they can provide better answers.  :)

One other solution I read about (using openssh) is giving sftp-server as
the user's default shell. (in the /etc/passwd file) Again, I don't quite
know how well this works.