home | help 
BBFTPD(1)	       User Contributed Perl Documentation	       BBFTPD(1)

NAME
     bbftpd - BBFTP protocol server

SYNOPSIS
     bbftpd -v

     bbftpd  -s [-f] [-e EphemeralPortsRange] [-l LogLevel] [-m MaxStreamNumber]
     [-w PortNumber] [-R ProfileFile]

     bbftpd -b [-f] [-e EphemeralPortsRange] [-l LogLevel] [-m	MaxStreamNumber]
     [-w PortNumber] [-R ProfileFile] [-u] [-c|-p]

     bbftpd [-f] [-e EphemeralPortsRange] [-l LogLevel] [-m MaxStreamNumber] [-w
     PortNumber] [-R ProfileFile] [-u] [-c|-p]

DESCRIPTION
     bbftpd is a server that supports the BBFTP protocol. This protocol has been
     developed	in  order to speed up transfer by using multiple TCP streams be-
     tween client and server, and also to take advantage of the RFC 1323.

     As one of the major problems of the FTP protocol was the unencrypted trans-
     mission of the username and password, BBFTP uses several  methods	for  au-
     thentication.   The  first  one is to generate at each new connection a RSA
     key pair, to send the public key to the client who will encrypt  the  user-
     name  and password using this public key, and then to decrypt them with the
     private key. As these keys are 1024 bits long and	generated  at  each  new
     connection, it will be quite difficult to steal a password. This method re-
     quires  OpenSSL to be installed on both sides. The second connection method
     is based on ssh; instead of making a connection to a  running  daemon,  the
     client  will remotely start the daemon with ssh (with a command like ssh -l
     user remotehost "bbftpd -s").  A third additionnal authenticate mode allows
     to use certificates to log on. This mode is based on the Grid Security  In-
     frastructure and requires Globus software to be installed.  The client side
     needs a certificate to identify itself and the daemon needs a host certifi-
     cate

     BBFTP protocol works in the following way :

     -	After  the  authentication procedure has ended there is what is called a
     control connection between the client and the server.  On	that  connection
     all control commands will circulate.

     -	When a data transfer occurs (get or put command sent by the client), the
     server can work in passive or non-passive mode:

     - In passive mode (with client >= 3), the server gets all TCP ports  needed
     by the transfer (one per stream) and sends those ports to the client on the
     control connection. If the server is built or run with a range, those ports
     will be chosen in this range.

     - In non-passive mode, the client gets all TCP ports needed by the transfer
     (one  per stream) and sends those port numbers to the server on the control
     connection.  The server will then connect to those ports (using  a  defined
     port number if the -f is not used) and use them to transfer data.

     To  meet security requirements (firewalls filters), you may want to use the
     passive mode with a defined range of ephemeral ports.

     The behaviour of the server is controlled by commands sent  by  the  client
     (see bbftp(1)).

     The server can be used in different ways :

     Through  inetd (and tcpwrapper if needed). In this case the line in the in-
     etd.conf file will look like :

     bbftp stream tcp nowait root /usr/local/bin/bbftpd bbftpd [-f] [-e Ephemer-
     alPortsRange] [-l LogLevel]  [-m  MaxStreamNumber]  [-R  ProfileFile]  [-u]
     [-c|-p]

     As  a standalone server. In this case the starting procedure has to contain
     the following line:

     bbftpd -b [-f] [-e EphemeralPortsRange] [-l LogLevel] [-m	MaxStreamNumber]
     [-w PortNumber] [-u] [-R ProfileFile] [-u] [-c|-p]

     Started via ssh. In this case the remote command started by the client will
     look like:

     bbftpd  -s [-f] [-e EphemeralPortsRange] [-l LogLevel] [-m MaxStreamNumber]
     [-w PortNumber] [-R ProfileFile]

OPTIONS
     -b  Use this option to start bbftpd in background. In this case the  server
	 will bind and listen on a control port which can be changed with the -w
	 option.

     -f  The  standard	behaviour  of the server is to bind the server-side port
	 number on data connection to controlport minus one. This is  useful  if
	 the  server  is  behind a firewall.  If you want the server to take the
	 first free port number use this option.

     -e EphemeralPortsRange
	 In passive mode (ie, requested by a client >= 3), the server can choose
	 the ephemeral ports for data connections in a range defined by this op-
	 tion. The syntax is: min:max.	Make sure to choose relevant values  for
	 min  and  max	ports. If this option is not set, the server will choose
	 the port number in the default range which depends on the system.

     -l LogLevel
	 Use this option to change the log level. By default the server will log
	 nothing.  Loglevel is a string (uppercase or  lowercase)  whose  values
	 are :

	 EMERGENCY
	 ALERT
	 CRITICAL
	 ERROR
	 WARNING
	 NOTICE
	 INFORMATION
	 DEBUG

	 WARNING :

	 This option has to be the last one when used in conjunction with option
	 -s for backward compatibility.

     -m MaxStreamNumber
	 For  each  stream the server forks a child. If you want to limit or in-
	 crease the number of streams use this option.

     -R ProfileFile
	 At  start,  the  daemon  tries  to  execute  commands	located  in  the
	 $HOME/.bbftprc file. The location of this file can be changed with this
	 option. See CONTROL COMMANDS to know the list of control commands

     -s  Use  this option when the server is started remotely via an ssh connec-
	 tion.

     -v  Use this option to write the version of the software and default values
	 to standard output.

     -w  PortNumber
	 Use this option to change the control port number.

     -u  This option allows the daemon to accept non-encrypted username/password
	 messages from a client.

     -c | -p
	 When compiled with certificates authentication  module,  these  options
	 allow	to restrict the way client can authenticate. -c accepts certifi-
	 cates only, whereas -p accepts user/password only.  If  theses  options
	 are  not used, both methods are accepted.  If -c is used, the option -u
	 is meaningless and ignored.

CONTROL COMMANDS
     The control commands are contained by an ASCII file (file specified by  the
     -R option or ~/.bbftpdrc or /etc/bbftpd.conf).

     setackto "Acknowledge time-out"
	 Set  time-out (in seconds) to wait for an acknowledge. Default value is
	 100

     setrecvcontrolto "Input control time-out"
	 Set time-out (in seconds) to wait while reading on the control  socket.
	 Default value is 180

     setsendcontrolto "Output control time-out"
	 Set  time-out (in seconds) to wait while writing on the control socket.
	 Default value is 180

     setdatato "Data time-out"
	 Set time-out (in seconds) to wait while reading on the data socket. De-
	 fault value is 300

     setoption [no]fixeddataport
	 Use a fixed port for listening while using SSH (ie standard port  +1  =
	 5022). Otherwise, use any available port (in range -e if specified).

MESSAGES AND ERRORS
     All informative messages and error messages are written to the syslog.

AUTHORS
     bbftp  was  developed  by	Gilles Farrache.  It is now maintained by Lionel
     Schwarz and Pierre-Emmanuel Brinette at  IN2P3 Computing Center ,	Villeur-
     banne (FRANCE).

CONTRIBUTORS
     Tim Adye (Idea and implementation of ssh mode)

     Gilles  Gallot  (Mutli-IP addresses support, secondary groups support, port
     on various systems and bug fixes)

     Pierre-Emmanuel Brinette (Bug fix)

     Andrew Goodney (Port to Darwin)

     Paola Grosso (Idea and implementation of the -q client option)

     Petr Holub (Port to Windows cygwin)

     Dan Schrager (Idea and implementation of the -D client option)

     Rod Walker & Kostas Georgiou (Idea and implementation of the -g client  op-
     tion)

     Shuwei Ye (Bug fix)

BUGS
     Send bugs / comments to bbftp@in2p3.fr

SEE ALSO
     bbftp(1).

POD ERRORS
     Hey! The above document had some coding errors, which are explained below:

     Around line 1:
	 =cut found outside a pod block.  Skipping to next block.

perl v5.10.0			   2013-02-07			       BBFTPD(1)
home | help