Securing FTP with TLS

Abstract

This document describes a mechanism that can be used by FTP clients and servers to implement security and authentication using the TLS protocol defined by RFC 2246, "The TLS Protocol Version 1.0.", and the extensions to the FTP protocol defined by RFC 2228, "FTP Security Extensions". It describes the subset of the extensions that are required and the parameters to be used, discusses some of the policy issues that clients and servers will need to take, considers some of the implications of those policies, and discusses some expected behaviours of implementations to allow interoperation. This document is intended to provide TLS support for FTP in a similar way to that provided for SMTP in RFC 2487, "SMTP Service Extension for Secure SMTP over Transport Layer Security", and HTTP in RFC 2817, "Upgrading to TLS Within HTTP/1.1.".

This specification is in accordance with RFC 959, "File Transfer Protocol". It relies on RFC 2246, "The TLS Protocol Version 1.0.", and RFC 2228, "FTP Security Extensions". [STANDARDS-TRACK]

Abstract as published in the RFC, via rfc-editor.org.

What “Proposed Standard” means

An entry-level standards-track specification: stable, peer-reviewed and a solid basis for implementation, though it may still evolve before becoming an Internet Standard.