Advanced FTP Server Usage Examples
Some features in zFTPServer Suite are very powerful and might need some explaining to highlight their full potential. Here you find a selection of some of these.
Securing FTP Services with Certificate management
zFTPServer can handle encrypted sessions for both users' regular connections and file transfers as well as for the administration interface. If you intend to use a certificate stored in Windows Certificate Personal Store it is important that you imported the certificate into Windows without enabling strong private key protection, otherwise you will be prompted with a Windows dialog every time zFTPServer is started. Provided certificates are imported correctly zFTPServer supports most certificate types, ciphers and encryption techniques used in HTTPS, FTPS and SFTP.
Events and Messages : Proactive (scripting examples)
The Proactive features essentially lets the server react to events before they happen.
Following a request to e.g. login or upload a file the server can for instance verify login or upload operations against external databases or check whether the user is permitted to upload a file of that specific type. We can for instance enforce that a specific user only be able to upload .doc-files.
In combination with the Reactive module we can script more advanced business applications rules verifying a user login against a SAP database and subsequently when the user is allowed to login, run scripts that execute financial reporting in SAP, directly posted and available to the specific user on the fly (reports are then automatically removed after logout).
Virtual users (examples)
Have zFTPServer integrate with any system for user authentication and configuration! With virtual script-based integration zFTPServer can connect to just about any data source (e.g. databases, management information systems, flat-files, ...) to verify and configure accounts. All you have to do is setup two access points; one for verifying that a user will be allowed access, and one that tells zFTPServer the user configuration (home directory structure, limitations, security settings, etc.).
Tip 1: Use the graphical user interface to create a user account the way you want the setup to be. Then use this account file as a template for your user file creations.
Tip 2: Use groups to define basic functionalities and then simply return which groups a user should get its configuration from.
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Events and Messages : Reactive (scripting examples)
The Reactive features basically lets the server react to events after they happen by executing batch scripts or to send custom messages.
An example would be to automatically scan uploaded files for viruses. The ability to execute external batch scripts also makes it possible to launch custom programs, scripts or to perform specific actions based on actual events.
Scripting and FTP Integration Examples
These scripts utilizes the administration protocol to manage the server from custom applications. This technique may be used to integrate zFTPServer Suite with custom systems, such as web applications or business systems.
The easiest way to explore the scripting API is to use a simple telnet application (included with Windows) and connect to the admin port (default 3145):
telnet localhost 3145
220 .
user admin
331 User name received, need password.
pass abc
230 User logged in, proceed.
help
214-The following commands are recognized:
...
Authentication Integration for Windows (examples)
This allows zFTPServer to authenticate users with a Windows SAM / Domain / Server / Active Directory making user management a breeze. In fact, a part from these few selected examples, for starters, this feature has awesome power waiting to get harnessed...
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