Professional Microsoft IIS 8

Installing and Configuring an FTP Server

Microsoft's FTP service has been around since the Windows NT days, and the core code has always been a solid implementation of the RFCs describing the FTP service. This makes the FTP service extremely compatible with compliant FTP clients on all platforms. It has also historically caused some limitations in the service, including large file transfers and the lack of secure FTP services, which are in high demand today.

Windows Server 2012 has increased the security of FTP and supports FTP over SSL (FTPS) as well as account-lockout policies, IP restrictions, and request filtering. FTP also still supports user isolation, as it did in previous versions; traditionally, Microsoft's FTP service used a single FTP root folder and relied on Windows permissions for securing these folders. User isolation also seems to have caused the most problems for IIS administrators in configuring FTP services. In Windows Server 2012, the FTP service has the option of configuring user isolation based on IIS user accounts or Windows user accounts.

The transfer of larger files is supported, assuming that the hardware meets the requirements, and Windows Server 2012 supports larger file partitions. Time-out control of FTP sites makes it easy to support both longer file transfer sessions and less reliable connections. Administrators will find that Microsoft's FTP service provides the features that all but the most demanding organizations will need.

FTP Basics

At its ...