Re: OpenSSH and ftp tunnel

Christopher Reagoso wrote:
> Looking for a FAQ on using OpenSSH to create an inbound secure tunnel 
> to an insecure FTP server on a Windows 2003 server host.
>
> Any good references I've been missing...? 
As far as protocols go, FTP is a pain in the butt, which is one of the 
reasons SFTP exists.

The problem is that you won't be able to set up one tunnel to handle all 
the connections (either one inbound and one outbound in the case of 
active FTP, or two inbound in the case of passive). In the first case 
you have an outbound connection to a random high port you probably won't 
be able to predict at the time you're setting up your tunnel, and in the 
second you're going to have a connection coming in from some random high 
port on the client to some random high port on the server that, again, 
you won't know at the time you need to set up your tunnel.

You'd probably be a lot better off with SFTP, or one of the FTP servers 
that supports SSL.