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Thursday, March 24, 2011, 06:00 pm
Inside Mac OS X 10.7 Lion: Apple drops FTP, adds WebDAV file sharing for iOS
The upcoming release of Mac OS X Lion and Lion Server dramatically simplifies file sharing, removing official support for FTP and Sun's NFS file sharing protocols while adding a new WebDAV option making it easy to share files with iOS devices.Changes in Mac OS X desktop file sharing
The most obvious change for desktop users is the removal of FTP from the available protocols in System Preference's File Sharing. FTP is a very simple, early protocol for making files available over the Internet, but offers little in terms of security.
While FTP is still available and configurable from the command line, it's no longer supported as an easy to turn on option in System Preferences, leaving only the Mac's native AFP and Windows-style SMB as options.
As noted previously, Apple's SMB (aka CIFS) file services are now home grown in Lion, as the company is no longer relying upon the Samba project to deliver its core Windows File Sharing software.
Developers working with the new build say FTP does appear to still be supported from the Finder as a download client. Apple has never supported FTP uploads from the Finder, necessitating a full fledged FTP client for users who need to both download and upload files.
The removal of FTP services appear to be motivated by the non-obvious security implications involved with opening up unencrypted FTP file sharing from a client system. Additionally, there are often better methods for sharing files, particularly for Mac users who depend upon support for file and file system features that FTP does not support well.
On page 2 of 3: Changes in Mac OS X Server file sharing
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Previous Comments View All
Server looks nice.
Looks like, by simplifying (and eliminating redundancy in some of) the configuration panels, Apple is preparing for the Server edition to be adopted by a much wider audience.
As for the near-elimination of FTP and NFS server protocols, FTP is rarely used anymore (at least not without SSH/SFTP), and any pure Unix shops utilizing NFS are almost certainly using Solaris (or another flavor of Unix) for file serving. As long as OSX still supports these protocols as a client, this should mostly be a non-issue.
From the status of the LInux web-dav system, I thought that protocol was considered dead. It's a great way to handle remote access, and I wish we could easily have a maintained system on our LInux server.
Looks like, by simplifying (and eliminating redundancy in some of) the configuration panels, Apple is preparing for the Server edition to be adopted by a much wider audience.
Actually there is not going to be a Server edition. Server is actually going to be IN Lion. Meaning the $200ish(NZ) copy of Mac OS X will actually be a full server.
There's no mention anywhere of a separate server edition on the Mac OS X Lion site.
Actually there is not going to be a Server edition. Server is actually going to be IN Lion. Meaning the $200ish(NZ) copy of Mac OS X will actually be a full server.
That was actually my point - server and client are now the same package (although you don't have to install the server components). By including them both, Apple is putting server in the hands of a lot more people, hence the need for Apple to make it more approachable.
This is great news. The easy access control panels in Mac OS X Server 10.5 were great; I ditched OS X server for MAMP on 10.6.
My mac mini is my media center and web server; so I only needed the web services bit of OS X server.
This means I can upgrade to Lion and go back to using OS X as the web server.
I also use CrushFTP as the FTP server - much more control than OS X ftp access.
Pulling FTP sucks. I'm assuming this also means SFTP support available easily through the Preference Pane is also removed.
This is a shame because it's a protocol that has free clients on every platform, is incredibly easy to use, and was incredibly easy to configure in OS X.
Hopefully the command line won't be difficult to deal with or some 3rd party GUI app will be available.
Am I the only the one thinking that dropping FTP support is a bad idea?
Am I the only the one thinking that dropping FTP support is a bad idea?
It's looking like it.
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Very interesting, especially the WebDAV stuff. I'm curious what kind of iOS sharing I should think of seeing this, and what it means for Linux and Windows clients.
Removing FTP from the UI only seems logical, it's like telnet in terms of security and features, completely outdated.