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I'm looking for an FTPS (explicit FTP over SSL) UNIX client.

I've checked out several, including those from this list on Wikipedia. Some of my favorites are lftp and cURL, however both are foreign source.

Does the serverfault community have any recommendations for U.S. developed FTPS clients, either open source or commercial? I'm primarily looking for any good clients that are not on that list, however I didn't exhaustively check out everything Wikipedia listed.

edit: Preference for command-line interface. A GUI client might be used as a last resort.

edit: Many of you share exactly my opinion of the "no foreign source" policy. It is completely retarded - I've brought up both Linux and PHP as examples of foreign source software that are used widely in our enterprise. It does frighten me that our security organization is so clueless, but never-the-less, we have been asked to look at U.S. developed options.

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Why can't it be "foreign source"? –  Kristof Provost Jun 25 '09 at 21:23
Why do you need one that is developed in the US? btw. lftp is my favorite too ;-) –  cstamas Jun 25 '09 at 21:23
The no-foreign source thing is one of those retarded policies from above. Don't get me started.... –  Cooper Jun 25 '09 at 21:38
Does that mean you can't use Linux because it was (originally) written in Finland? –  LiraNuna Jun 26 '09 at 0:12
Would you care to elaborate on the requirement? I wish to get you started :) You need to realize that almost all FTPS implementation use OpenSSL, which is originally from Australia IIRC, because at the time the project was started, the US gov't was still trying to block export. –  niXar Jun 26 '09 at 7:44
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5 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

You'll never be able to use anything open source, because the chances of every contributor to the code being provably from the US is as near to zero as makes no difference. Getting a commercial product to certify that it's completely US-developed isn't going to be easy, either (unless it's just "sold by a US company" that's important, in which case it's a bit easier).

Personally, I'd be running (not walking) away from a job that required me to only choose software based on such an irrelevant criteria as where the software was developed.

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Additionnally, due to 90s-era crypto export regs braindead-ness, every single F/OSS crypto implementation was done outside the US. –  niXar Jul 23 '09 at 13:07
niXar: Very, very good point. –  womble Jul 23 '09 at 21:39
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For Unix machines, you can use the very common daemon, vsFTPD and configure it to run securely using SSL. There are many many sites that give you the instructions on this and vsftpd is in RPM form and binary and also avaible on many respositories if you are a yum fan.

As for clients, there are still many command line FTP clients that are preinstalled that can be configured to use encryption. If you are a GUI fan, you can use things like WinSCP to be configured to be FTP clients, CoreFTP, and a whole slew more. Just as long as you trust it.

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Way to completely not answer the question. –  womble Jun 25 '09 at 23:19
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Did you look at gFTP?

Written by

Brian Masney masneyb@gftp.org
Morgantown, WV USA

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I look at gFTP. gFTP has a dependency on GTK. GTK has several foreign contributers. Given that I am a huge proponent of open source (a large majority of which probably have foreign contributers), see my 2nd edit to understand why I might be interested in not finding a satisfactory answer to this question. ;) –  Cooper Jun 26 '09 at 14:13
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vsftpd is widely used, and accepted in a lot of companies as well as the public service entities.

I'm curious as to the reason it has to be US.. If you work for a Govt. (state or fed) entity, most have regulations encouraging the usage of open source software.

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The "d" at the end of vsftpd stands for "dæmon." The question asked for a client. –  niXar Jun 26 '09 at 7:43
yep, misread the question.. Edited the answer –  huntjp123 Jun 26 '09 at 11:37
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Not an answer to the question, but for the longest time the US had some, well, let's call them "not very wise" rules around encryption software.

So probably as a result of that, most of the development of anything involving encryption moved out of the US.

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