NAME
ftp-proxy - application level proxy for the FTP protocol
SYNOPSIS
ftp-proxy [-c] [-d|-i] [-f file] [-n] [-v level] [-V]
DESCRIPTION
FTP-Proxy acts as an application level gateway between FTP clients and
servers. Its main purpose is to secure local FTP servers against
possibly insecure clients or malicious attacks. FTP-Proxy is believed
to be immune against current known attacks based on the FTP protocol.
FTP-Proxy can be started from the inetd (or xinetd, or any other)
internet super daemon or executed on its own as a standalone daemon, in
which case it will fork child processes to handle connections. The
behaviour depends on the ftp-proxy.conf(5) configuration option
ServerType or the -i and -d command line switches, where the latter two
take precedence.
FTP-Proxy features a rich set of auditing and command restriction
capabilities and is specifically suited for deployment in firewall
environments.
OPTIONS
-V Print the program’s version information and terminate with exit
code 0.
-c Read the configuration file, output its contents sorted by
section and option name to standard output, and terminate with
exit code 0. This option is mostly interesting for diagnostic
purposes.
-d Force FTP-Proxy to run in standalone (daemon) mode, even if a
ServerType inetd directive exists in the configuration file.
-i Force FTP-Proxy to run in inetd mode, even if a ServerType
standalone directive exists in the configuration file.
-f filename
Specify an alternate configuration file to be read instead of
the standard /etc/proxy-suite/ftp-proxy.conf file.
Please note that the default path for the configuration file is
a compile time option. It can be changed using the --prefix and
--sysconfdir options when running the configure script - see
also the INSTALL file for usage description.
-n Do not detach from the controlling terminal. This prevents the
default of becoming a daemon and is ignored if running in inetd
mode. The main purpose of this option is to support the AIX
System Resource Controller or similar setups, where several
daemons are controlled by a master daemon.
-v level
Enable diagnostic output to be sent to the file /tmp/ftp-
proxy.debug. The given level must be in the range from 0 (no
output at all) to 4 (maximum verbosity). See also DIAGNOSTICS
bellow.
SIGNALS
SIGTERM, SIGQUIT, SIGINT
These signals instruct FTP-Proxy to abort any existing transfer,
close all connections and terminate the process. If the target
of the signal is a running FTP-Proxy daemon, all current child
processes wil also be terminated.
SIGHUP This signal will be accepted if running in daemon mode and
ignored in inetd mode.
It causes the FTP-Proxy to reread its configuration file and to
reopen the log destination if it was changed in the
configuration file, or rotated if it is a log file.
See also dedicated rotation singnal SIGUSR1 bellow.
SIGUSR1
This signal will be accepted if running in daemon mode and
ignored in inetd mode.
It causes the FTP-Proxy to close its current logfile, rename it
to a date and time derived value, and open a new logfile. This
procedure is also known as Logfile Rotation. Child processes
forked before the reception of this signal and processes run
from inetd will not be affected.
See also the ServerRoot configuration option in ftp-
proxy.conf(5).
NOTES
When running FTP-Proxy in inetd mode, it is always an excellent idea to
check that the inetd configuration file includes a line that invokes
FTP-Proxy. An example for a line in /etc/inetd.conf follows:
ftp stream tcp nowait root /usr/sbin/ftp-proxy -i
Please note that this is just an example and does not provide much
security, like running as a non-privileged user or using the TCP
Wrapper functionality.
DIAGNOSTICS
The -v option is is only avaliable if enabled using the --enable-debug
option when running the configure script - see also the INSTALL file
for usage description. This option should be used with great care
only. It is strongly recommended to not to use it in production
environments.
If debugging is activated, it always adds output to the file /tmp/ftp-
proxy.debug which is created with 0666 mode. This allows child
processes to open and write the file after they have given up their
root privileges.
If the configuration file contains a ServerRoot directive, child
processes and processes run from inetd will try to open the file within
their chroot(2) environment. If this fails, e.g. because there is no
/tmp directory, it is silently ignored and no debug output is
generated.
Please note that the program makes no attempt to erase the debug file
after use. Thus it will stay around with world writeability until the
operator manually removes it!
FILES
/etc/proxy-suite/ftp-proxy.conf
/usr/sbin/ftp-proxy
SEE ALSO
ftp-proxy.conf(5)
The SuSE Proxy-Suite documentation included in the doc subdirectory of
the package.
AUTHORS
Jens-Gero Boehm <jens-gero.boehm@suse.de>
Pieter Hollants <pieter.hollants@suse.de>
Volker Wiegand <volker.wiegand@suse.de>
Marius Tomaschewski <mt@suse.de>
COPYRIGHT
The whole SuSE Proxy-Suite is released under the
GNU General Public License (GPL).