Re: Problems with Apt-Get
On Thu, Mar 20, 2003 at 06:01:13PM -0600, Joseph A Nagy Jr wrote:
> Colin Watson wrote:
> >On Thu, Mar 20, 2003 at 04:39:51PM -0600, Joseph A Nagy Jr wrote:
> <snip>
> >>Perhaps one day they'll improve upon FTP.
> >
> >HTTP improved upon FTP long ago. The fact that the name hasn't been
> >changed doesn't affect this.
> >
> >(I do this for a living.)
> >
> >Cheers,
>
> Then what purpose does the continued use of FTP serve?
As far as I can tell, the continued use of FTP provides a convenient
way to get root on poorly administered servers. Sadly, there seem to
be a lot of those.
FTP also serves as a major PITA for people trying to set up firewalls;
either you have to load a module to do some magic, or you need to
force users to use passive mode (and forcing users to do anything
unexpected is doomed to failure).
Personally, I will not run an FTP server. I've done my best to expund
this philosophy at my workplaces as well :-)
As Colin points out, HTTP is simply a better protocol for transferring
files of any type, especially since HTTP 1.1 came into use. There is
a reason apt prefers HTTP.
--
Nathan Norman - Incanus Networking mailto:nnorman@incanus.net
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