[ih] FTP RIP

[Grant Taylor]

On 9/27/20 7:29 PM, Joseph Touch via Internet-history wrote:
> This thread begs the question of where we’d be had TBL had tried 
> to leverage FTP rather than reinventing the wheel with HTTP.

I feel like I've dabbled with this in the past.  E.g. retrieved an HTML 
page via FTP and used ftp:// links in the src parameters for elements.

I want to say I did similar with Gopher.  Or rather, I created a local 
file that used a gopher:// link for the source of an image that I knew 
was on a Gopher server.

I seem to recall it working surprisingly well.  Though it wasn't practical.

> I recall an early interview that claimed the rationale was that 
> FTP opened two connections for every transfer and he only wanted 
> one.

I don't know that that's /completely/ accurate per say.  Yes, there are 
two connections; control and data.  But I believe the control connection 
can be re-used for multiple subsequent data connections.

Firewalling and NATing are two of FTP's Achilles Heals.  Specifically FTPS.

Aside SFTP (SSH) is significantly different than FTPS (FTP over SSL / TLS).

> It’s been unfortunate how many of FTP’s features had to be (or 
> still remain to be) reinvented in HTTP.

I learned in the last few years that it's possible to establish FTP 
connections with two servers and instruct them to exchange data directly 
between themselves without traversing the common client.  Or at least 
the protocol supports it.  I'm not aware of it being a common 
implementation, much less execution.  --  I do think that FTPS may 
hinder this somewhat.



-- 
Grant. . . .
unix || die