FTP Guard4i is now completed and available for download. We have placed the manuals online as well as the objects required to install the product. You will need to sign in as a member to download the objects and once installed you will need a key to allow the product to function. The PHP interface is available and requires the Easycom i5_toolkit functions to allow connectivity to the IBM i. We have not tested it with the Zend Free toolkit at this time and would need to make some additional changes due to the lack of support for some objects. If this is needed we can work with you to make those changes.
FTP Security is something we have been looking at for a long time, our initial requirement was highlighted because of the access to the source code for our products by the developers. We needed to give them access to the code to allow them to carry out their activities but we did not want them to be able to copy the code to other systems. The original product we created also provided an FTP Client so we could make the object transfer a lot easier than the FTP Client provided by the OS but this release only provides the security aspects required.
As part of the rewrite we have made a number of improvements in the methods we used to control the access particularly around the accept and reject IP addresses set for individual users. This allows you to set a range of IP addresses a user can connect to and from in the same manner as you can set the connection accept and reject addresses. We have also changed the logging to a Database file which allows us to add much more meaningful data about the activities carried out. While the clean up routines we have provided only allow the log to be cleared, using standard SQL against the file will provide a lot more granular entry removal.
FTP Security is an area most IBM i shops ignore because they believe the IBM i is naturally more secure than other platforms, that is not true and as we see more and more IBM i systems being linked to a wider audience we could see more intrusions being logged. FTP Guard4i also has a very comprehensive logging feature so you can now see who connects to your server and what they did while they were connected.
If you need more information about FTP Guard4i or would like to see a working demo please let us know using the demo request forms on the website.
Chris…