Announcement of Impending Switch to Secure FTP 


Dan Lineberger recently announced plans for moving Aggie Horticulture to secure FTP. This entry is the text of an email sent to all Aggie Horticulture contributors on 12 August 2005. 

Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2005 11:44:31 -0500
To: Aggie Horticulture Contributors
From: Dan Lineberger <dan-lineberger@tamu.edu>
Subject: Secure FTP - IMPORTANT

You are receiving this message because you (or someone who works with/for you) has an FTP login account for Aggie Horticulture.

In compliance with TAMU Network Security mandates, all FTP traffic through the TAMU firewall must use encrypted passwords after September 1, 2005. See the CIS Web site for their announcement:
http://net.tamu.edu/network/plaintext.html

I have examined several solutions to meet this requirement. Using Filezilla server and having the users connect with Filezilla FTP client seems to be best in our situation. You may download the FREE Filezilla client from the Web site:
http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/

We are still having some firewall issues with CIS, so we're not ready to go live yet. When the switch occurs, I will announce it in the Aggie Horticulture WEBlog:
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/blogs/

You will also notice the switch since your old connection WILL NO LONGER WORK. Be alert to the WEBlog, since the setup of Filezilla is not trivial, but I will be posting a guide to facilitate the process. That address will be featured in the WEBlog.

The main "anticipated" impacts of this change will be:
1. The FTP port will be changed from 21 (standard FTP setting) to 990 (standard secure FTP setting). This may affect firewall settings on your end; check with your ISP.
2. I may have accidentally entered an outdated password for you; contact me immediately to find out the one I assigned to you.
3. The FTP setting will be changed to FTP over explicit SSL.
4. Programs with "built in" FTP capabilities (Dreamweaver, Adobe GoLive, etc.) may no longer work or need to be re-configured. The new Dreamweaver 8 is reportedly capable of SSL FTP, but Dreamweaver 2004 and earlier are NOT!
5. When you connect, you will be prompted to accept a self-signed certificate which starts the secure process. This certificate is named Aggie Horticulture and has my email address and the Aggie Horticulture Web address on it. You have to accept the certificate to allow the connection to proceed.

Keep an eye on the WEBlog for further instructions.

Dan 

Posted: Fri - August 12, 2005 at 11:49 AM          

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