Castaglia
Translate between FTP and SFTP protocols
There will be cases where sites wish to use SFTP on the frontend, but use FTP (e.g. to an old/legacy FTP server) on the backend. Or, vice versa, for supporting old/legacy FTP-only clients in talking to an SFTP server.
The mod_proxy module would be in a position to handle such protocol translations, as best as possible.
Hi @Castaglia. That would be great to have such a translation between the protocols. We are trying to put PorFTPd into a Kubernetes cluster and that would be way much easier with the SFTP protocol. Is it something you would prioritize? Thanks, Mike.
With support for proxying of SSH (see Issue #56), mod_proxy now has the basic building blocks needed for implementing this protocol translation feature.
Now the question is: just which protocols need to be translated to/from what? The main use cases I can envision are:
- translate from frontend SFTP to backend FTP (e.g for providing SFTP access to a legacy FTP-only server)
- translate from frontend FTP to backend SFTP (not sure where this might be useful, though?)
And then there are things like: how much do people want to support frontend SCP to a backend FTP server?
Please add/contribute your thoughts, use cases to this ticket, to help me understand what kinds of situations you face, where this protocol translation feature will be useful. Thanks!
translate from frontend FTP to backend SFTP (not sure where this might be useful, though?)
Our use case would be to support using an SFTP backend with a legacy application that is only capable of FTP.
I also am primarily interested in translating FTPS frontend to SFTP backend, to support legacy FTP users while being able to proxy through a firewall without the weird FTP complexities.
@kdesjard @pedanticdan for your frontend FTP/FTPS use cases, would mod_proxy be used as a reverse proxy, or as a forward proxy, to the SFTP backend?
Reverse in my case.
Sorry I only just saw this ... upgrading to ProFTPd 1.3.8 just became a priority.