Re: ftp server shutdown: your statements are not completely true

Hi,

The decision has been discussed here months ago.

In order to make copies of he mirror to your local netwowork you should try ftpsync[0]. Is the recommended way of mirroring debian. Or at least try rsync (ftpsync uses it in their guts), it has wonderful capabilities like compression, downloading only modified files and many more.

[0]: https://www.debian.org/mirror/ftpmirror

Best regards,
Alejandro Suárez

On 14 June 2017 at 10:31, Tim <tim@treaki.tk> wrote:

Hi there,

with regards to your post at https://www.debian.org/News/2017/20170425

This decision is driven by the following considerations:

FTP servers have no support for caching or acceleration.

there are proxys who can cache ftp.

Most software implementations have stagnated and are awkward to use and configure.

but its one of the oldest and most used protocols that is able to list directories in a standardized way which is on the other hand not possible with http

Usage of the FTP servers is pretty low as our own installer has not offered FTP as a way to access mirrors for over ten years.

no matter that, i guess the little usage it has still would be very problematic for the users to switch over to http... That would become a pain in the ass for many now happy users!

The protocol is inefficient and requires adding awkward kludges to firewalls and load-balancing daemons.

Not true, only on active ftp but 95% of ftp today used uses passive mode. There is no problems with it and firewalls or load-balancing because its just plain tcp, the same http (even better because separated control and data channel)

We, and i venture to say, a lot of other associations/companys/people, are using ftp to mirror the debian mirror to our local network which enables us to update/install hundreds of debians over a very slow internet uplink. It would create a unnecessary and inappropriate work to switch our systems to mirror http correctly. So please keep providing the ftp mirrors!!!

On the pro site of ftp is:

it can be build into file managers because it has standardized file listing which isnt possible with http. You always get unnecessary index.html files if you are mirroring this and you have to follow any link for a full file listing. Thereby its much more complicated to build up a system that is intender to mirror files from you.

So what are the concrete reasons for switching off ftp after it has been running grate for so long?

Dose it cost that much, i mean the configuration is up and running (never touch a running system). Or why dont you want to provide it anymore. I am sure there would be a lot of donaters that are interested in having still the ftp mirrors...

Thanks for your comments on this issue

tim