Linux Gazette: ssh suite: Sftp, scp and ssh-agent

“The aim of this article is to provide an introduction to some
useful programs in the SSH suite, i.e. sftp, scp, ssh-agent and
ssh-add. In the following we suppose that sshd2 daemon is well
configured and running.”

“Let’s focus our attention on sftp and scp. The first one
(Secure File Transfer) is a ftp-like client that can be used in
file transfer over the network. It does not use the FTP daemon
(ftpd or wu-ftpd) for connections, allowing a significant
improvement in the system security. In fact, monitoring some logs
file of our systems, we noted that about 80% of attacks in last
month was against ftpd daemon. The use of sftp prevents all these
tries since it permits to stop the potentially dangerous
wu-ftpd.”

“The second (Secure Copy) is used to copy files over the network
securely. It is a replacement for rcp insecure command.”

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