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  3. September 2006

Re: Secure FTP Using SSH



How is secure ftp implemented on an AS400 using SSH?
There are two different (and non-compatible) things that people refer to as secure FTP. There's "FTP over SSL", and there's the "sftp" utility from SSH.
Technically, the "sftp" tool from SSH isn't FTP. It's a tool that looks a lot like FTP, it has the same commands as FTP, but under the covers it does not speak the FTP protocol when transferring data over the network, it actually speaks the SSH protocol.
On the other hand, FTP over SSL (sometimes called "ftps") actually does use the FTP protocol (with a few extensions) the main difference is that the sockets used for the FTP session are encrypted with SSL.
Which one should you use? That depends on your situation. Based on the way you're approaching this question, I'm guessing that someone (maybe a customer or vendor?) wants you to use SSH FTP (sftp) to send/receive data with them. In that case, you may have no choice, because if they want to use SSH, you'll have to use SSH as well or you won't be able to talk to one another. 

On the other hand, if you're able to



Do I have to purchase 3rd party to implement this?
FTP over SSL is included with TCP/IP Connectivity Utilities of i5/OS. (It comes with the operating system, and costs nothing extra). If you have the FTP command on your iSeries, then you already have it installed. You may have to install the cryptographic services (5722-AC3) if you don't have it already, and you may have to configure an SSL certificate store if you haven't done that already. But, since FTP over SSL is a native component of the operating system, it's fairly popular on i5/OS.
SFTP (The FTP-like interface to SSH) is also available on i5/OS, but it's a separate licpgm you have to order from IBM. It runs under PASE, not as a native CL command. That can make it a little more confusing for someone with a System i background because they're not used to working with Unix commands. SFTP (and SSH in general) is extremely popular on Unix systems.
Security-wise, they're both very well done. I don't think one is signifncantly more secure than the other.

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