Question: Instead of Nextcloud, why not use a FTPS server with an nice client? reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- antoine849502 · 2023-11-27 17:10 I genuinely courious to know, why has this very old and established protocol lost over cloud solutions like Nextcloud (or even Google Drive)? note: the question is for both FTPs or sFTP ---------------------------------------------------------------------- KoppleForce · 2023-11-27 17:16 Nextcloud does a fair bit more than those things, no? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mabernu · 2023-11-27 17:17 Synchronisation and versions control is the key ---------------------------------------------------------------------- antoine849502 · 2023-11-27 17:18 yes, but why no one uses FTP for personal use? It's simpler and gets the job done, what killer feature do they have? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- antoine849502 · 2023-11-27 17:19 would you mind elaborating? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- KoppleForce · 2023-11-27 17:26 I would imagine most folk’s ISP doesn’t let ftp traffic through. I know mine doesn’t. tbh I didn’t mess around with it too much, I tried about 5-6 different random high port assignments and none of them would come through. I ended up having to set up a [filebrowser](https://filebrowser.org/installation)server -> VPS via reverse proxy for simple file sharing. Took like 5 minutes and has a simple web interface anyone would understand. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- antoine849502 · 2023-11-27 17:33 I'm not well educated on how FTP works, why would a ISP block FTP and not a self hosted Nextcloud? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- flaming_m0e · 2023-11-27 17:34 FTP is inherently insecure, and outdated. FTPS is a process a lot of people don't want to mess with. SFTP is secure, and I use it, but not for everything. Different tools for different purposes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Simplixt · 2023-11-27 17:34 *"with an nice client?"* You gave the answer to yourself. There aren't any user friendly multi- platform clients with synchronization / conflict resolution / versioning. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JoeB- · 2023-11-27 17:42 You're comparing apples and oranges. Nextcloud is a collaboration tool. FTP is a protocol. I use sftp everyday to move files. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- antoine849502 · 2023-11-27 17:46 when do you use SFTP over nextcloud? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- antoine849502 · 2023-11-27 17:47 But if I use nextcloud for personal use, isn't the same as using SFTP? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- antoine849502 · 2023-11-27 17:48 that is what I'm going to, besides interfaces from the 90s, what else is missing? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- flaming_m0e · 2023-11-27 17:55 When I'm transferring files locally or to/from one of my VPSes ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Teknikal_Domain · 2023-11-27 17:56 No (S)FTP(S) client I can think of actually synchronizes files across devices, a la OneDrive / Google Drive / Dropbox / ...Nextcloud. If you want to always have a common folder across your devices without manually connecting to an FTP server and retrieving it (which is what most people want), you need something higher level. Similarly, Nextcloud logs file changes. You can see when you made edits. You can even (with the right settings) record previous copies of files, in the event of a bad edit, file corruption, or just checking what changed between A and B ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CatoDomine · 2023-11-27 18:10 You are comparing apples to bean and cheese burritos here. FTP/FTPS/SFTP aren't even close to the same thing as a fully integrated cloud solution. Sure you can use both *things* to simply transfer files between several devices, but that's not why most people use a cloud solution. It is conceivable that there could be a cloud solution which might incorporate the use of SFTP/FTPS as an underlying protocol, but I think the go to is HTTPS for myriad reasons. NOTE: if you are regularly using one of the FTP-like tools to sync files as part of your regular workflow, you should look into `rsync` ---------------------------------------------------------------------- antoine849502 · 2023-11-27 18:15 I didn't know that I could not sync in the background, it makes sense. But why is http better than ftp to do that? http doesn't natively support that either, or am I wrong? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- antoine849502 · 2023-11-27 18:17 what reasons make HTTPS better? is were I'm confused, I have some answers but they seem a bit light ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CrustyBatchOfNature · 2023-11-27 18:22 I don't think you get what FTP is and isn't. FTP and the actually secure flavors of it are just the protocol used to move the files back and forth. Nextcloud, Google Cloud, DropBox, etc do a lot of other things on top of the protocol they use to move files. If you can find an FTP client that does all of the version control, conflict resolution, automation, etc that you get from Nextcloud and others then by all means use it if you want. But there is a reason that is almost non-existent while NextCloud and other programs actually do that stuff. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- antoine849502 · 2023-11-27 18:27 But do Nextcloud and the others use FTP? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- flaming_m0e · 2023-11-27 18:28 No ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DasKokosnuss · 2023-11-27 18:29 https://whydoesitsuck.com/why-does-ftp-suck/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- KN4MKB · 2023-11-27 18:36 People keep giving you valid reasons people are using Nextcloud over FTP/SFTP and you keep saying "well yeah, but besides that". I always get confused when people ask why x is used over y, and then they proceed to argue for y, and shrug the reasons off. What is your goal here? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CrustyBatchOfNature · 2023-11-27 18:36 No. It is not a great protocol really. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ephoras · 2023-11-27 18:42 This answer reads like you dont actually know how people use nextcloud. Most people don't rely on the web interface for accessing their files. The most common use is too install the app on your device and have a local for that always stays in sync. This is not done via http ---------------------------------------------------------------------- speculatrix · 2023-11-27 18:45 Dunno why you got voted down, it's a reaonable question. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- antoine849502 · 2023-11-27 18:45 Sorry to feel like I'm wasting your time, is a true question I have. Both are protocols, one it's for hyper text and the other is for files, people are abandoning ftps but I guess there is something I don't understand ---------------------------------------------------------------------- antoine849502 · 2023-11-27 18:46 thank you! I don't know either... I'm really trying my best to get to the bottom of it but people is getting angry at the question ---------------------------------------------------------------------- antoine849502 · 2023-11-27 18:47 what you don't like about it, I have 0 experience using it ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CatoDomine · 2023-11-27 18:58 I am not saying that HTTPS is "better" for simply transferring a file. In fact it isn't better for simple file transfer, developers have historically had to jump through a lot of hoops to get file management applications to work well in a browser. # BUT! I think what you are misunderstanding in this entire conversation is that personal cloud solutions are not just "`transfer file from host A to host B`" they are built to for collaboration using apps like, chat, forums, image tagging, setting permissions for multiple users to share files amongst a team or a family, edit files in your browser, etc. These are things you cannot do or cannot do easily with a simple file transfer protocol. FTP and it's progeny are not built to host applications like HTTP is, they do 1 thing and they do it well. Transfer files. If that's all you need to do, SFTP is one of the better choices, but the second your requirements exceed "`transfer file from host A to host B`" you must look elsewhere. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Na__th__an · 2023-11-27 19:09 This reminds me of a somewhat famous top comment on the [Hacker News announcement of Dropbox](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lakimens · 2023-11-27 19:10 Like 700 features which Nextcloud has. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Lostronzoditurno · 2023-11-27 19:12 Ok then. Just curl every webpage and browse the web like that. Don't use a browser. In the end it's just an interface difference no? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Private_Plan · 2023-11-27 19:13 Nextcloud does calendar, contacts, photo management, maps, phone tracker, music player, forms (like google forms), todo lists, news aggregator (RSS), integration with Jitsi for web conferencing. In the main page I can see the weather, Github notifications, reddit notifications, Mastodon notifications, Twitter notifications. I can share a single file with a link, permanently or with a expiry date for logged-in users or publicly. There is also hundreds more things nextcloud do but mine is configured this way. There is an app store inside it for gods sake! You can even install Solitaire... Wake me up when FTP does half of that. As for FTP, it's often blocked by ISPs, slow, and the best client for it looks like it came from the 90s. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Lostronzoditurno · 2023-11-27 19:14 Yeah except nextcloud is not a protocol. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CrustyBatchOfNature · 2023-11-27 19:23 FTP is insecure and should never be used. SFTP and FTPS are more secure. But even at that, you are still relying on the client/server to do everything it can't. FTP has no hash/checksum so you can't be sure what was sent was received properly. It has no resume capability. It has no compression of data. It is slower than many other protocols, especially when you talk about large files. It will not handle multiple replications happening on a single file at a time without crapping itself. Basically, FTP is one of the easiest to use and also one of the worst of the file movement protocols. I say this as someone who has developed custom automated FTP/SFTP/FTPS clients using Catalyst SocketTools in VS6 then .Net (actually used standard Microsoft .Net namespaces the last time and that was way more painful in some cases). There is nothing inherent in FTP or its descendants that would make it a good choice for file movement in something like a multi-endpoint replication process. It has a little too much overhead and too much reliance on the client/server to perform all error-checking, failover, etc. There are a lot of other protocols that work better for this type of thing, many proprietary. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lakimens · 2023-11-27 19:33 Dude, you ask the most basic of questions. Really, I don't want to be rude, but if you're going to self-host stuff, you'll need to Google a lot. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- deadlock_ie · 2023-11-27 19:33 For starters it’s a pain to get FTP working where either the client or server or both are behind a NAT device. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- speculatrix · 2023-11-27 19:37 The problem with ftp (and tftp) is you have two sockets, the control and, when needed,a data socket. This makes things really messy at the firewall, or NAT gateway. So even if the ISP didn't care that much about ftp, any carrier grade NAT could really screw things up when you're hosting an ftp service. scp, sftp and Http, by comparison, only need one socket. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- deadlock_ie · 2023-11-27 19:39 HTTP(S) is not for “hyper text” - it’s for files. Those files can be binary or text, and how they are treated - save to disk? render on- screen? - is determined by the client application. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- adamshand · 2023-11-27 20:04 In my opinion, they do different things. SFTP/SCP are great ways of transferring files between computers. I prefer rsync for most things because it can resume transfers and checksum results. I'd never use FTPS because SFTP/SCP comes with SSH, and why run a separate service? SSHFS is another way to use SSH to transfer files (it mounts a remote file system to your local computer so you can use all your normal file management tools). NextCloud (and similar) do a bunch of additional things: - Provides clients which sync files to your local computer - Provides a web interface for managing files - Provides ways to share files without creating accounts - Allows connecting external storage (eg. S3) - Provides encryption - And a lot more If SFTP does everything you need, that's awesome. Use it. :-) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- rglullis · 2023-11-27 20:14 > does calendar, contacts, photo management, maps, phone tracker, music player, forms (like google forms), todo lists, news aggregator (RSS), integration with Jitsi for web conferencing. And for all of those things, my desktop and my phone have specialized applications which work better than Nextcloud in every way and do not add a huge attack vector to my personal infrastructure. SFTP may not be the right tool for the job here, but with something like Syncthing it is infinitely easier to synchronize the data between the devices and the specialized apps work directly on the data, than forcing all different types of data through the same single type of application. There is no such thing as "dumb clients" anymore, why not leverage that? --- **This response is from an [original comment at selfhosted.forum](https://communick.news/comment/1142158) and bridged via [Fediverser](https://fediverser.network).** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- antoine849502 · 2023-11-27 20:30 it's called Hyper Text Transfer Protocol ---------------------------------------------------------------------- madroots2 · 2023-11-27 20:45 That should not even be a question. Apart from being insecure and old, its also slow because it reconnects and lists directory and cd back in after each file. You gotta look for enterprise solutions like nfs, truenas, s3 etc. Each for different purpose. I would honestly never run nextcloud, I hate that bloated crap. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- antoine849502 · 2023-11-27 20:56 thanks for your answer, I agree with your nextcloud statement, I just want to have access to mi files but nextcloud is too much and I thought thay maybe FTPS could do the job. But I think I got enogh down votes to understand that people don't like FTPS, I was looking at S3 with FUSE. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- madroots2 · 2023-11-27 21:06 Haha yeah ftp of any kind is just not enough these days but I do recommend s3. I use wasabi and with rclone, backups are easy and reliable. I honestly use it for storage, backups, database dumps anything really even photos and all that. And the best thing is, you never know what you might need, but chances are, its going to support s3. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- speculatrix · 2023-11-27 21:49 Sadly, I see a lot of negativity on this subreddit. I've given answers or comments taken directly from my own real and working experience, where I know definitively it works, and put a decent effort into explaining things, and been voted down. I've been in the verge of unsubscribing for some time. There's not many members, which to be frank, doesn't surprise me. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- miteshps · 2023-11-27 22:36 https://nextcloud.com/features/ If you are able to achieve all of the above using FTP or any of its secure flavours, please go ahead and use FTP ---------------------------------------------------------------------- miteshps · 2023-11-27 22:37 https://nextcloud.com/features/ If you are able to achieve all of the above using FTP or any of its secure flavours, please go ahead and use FTP ---------------------------------------------------------------------- chaplin2 · 2023-11-27 22:43 The reason for downvotes is comparing apple and oranges, and also throwing FTP in the mix! Let’s consider SFTP and nextcloud. SFTP is a secure respected protocol for file transfer. If you use key authentication and disable the password authentication, it approaches to be bulletproof security wise. SSH has rarely had a vulnerability that would allow attackers in. It’s even have post quantum cryptography. It’s rather easy to set up. But it doesn’t do more than file transfer. It also doesn’t have a lot of GUI apps. Nextcloud is like Dropbox. You can find A LOT of things in it (though frankly the quality of most of them may be low). File transfer is just one of the things that it does. It uses https, why? Because the web technologies and developers have focused on this versatile protocol in the past decades. You access internet through port 443 not 22! If I want to backup data or transfer files, I use SFTP. Over the internet, I trust SFTP not nextcloud. For other things, I use other tools such as Synchting, nextcloud etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- antoine849502 · 2023-11-27 22:59 thanks for your answer 🙏 its exactly what I wanted to know ---------------------------------------------------------------------- string-user-equals · 2023-11-27 23:04 I mean it all depends on what you are using it for. Would I use it to transfer file from point A to point B? No, that’s what SFTP is for. Would I use it to keep files in sync regardless of if I updated it on Point A or Point B? Heck yea! Could you do that via FTP? Maybe but it’d be manual and easy to screw up. Would I use next cloud to share a directory with a friend? Yep! Couldn’t do it with SFTP? Probably but setting up a user and permissions is kind of a pain. And if I’m going to be sharing out single files all the time with tons of randoms, SFTP just isn’t going to cut it. Would I use next could for versioning? Probably as long as it’s not code (I’d use git for code). Could you do that with FTP? Not really, not unless you did v1, etc in your files names etc. And at that point, you just must really hate nextcloud. That’s just a few examples. Theres a ton more based on use cases. And in most of them you could probably find a solution using just SFTP. But it’ll probably be a lot more work than just using a more appropriate tool. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- antoine849502 · 2023-11-27 23:08 very good read, but note that the author states that SFTP is actually cool at the end of the article ---------------------------------------------------------------------- antoine849502 · 2023-11-27 23:13 Thanks for your answer, answers my question perfectly! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FierceDeity_ · 2023-11-28 02:26 A lot of workplaces, public wifis and such seem to block everything except https traffic, so this is also another thing that something https accessible does better. not only nextcloud, mind you ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JoeB- · 2023-11-28 03:56 I'm not sure what Nextcloud uses for uploading/downloading files through a browser. It may be SFTP. I installed Nextcloud only briefly years ago. It was far too heavy for personal use. As I stated above, it is a collaboration platform intended for groups ie. families, businesses, schools, etc. File sharing is just one component. If you are looking for a simple self-hosted solution for accessing files through a browser, then look though... [Awesome-Selfhosted - File Transfer - Web-based File Managers](https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome- selfhosted#file-transfer---web-based-file-managers) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- KN4MKB · 2023-11-28 05:00 Might be an advanced troll. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cannotseme · 2023-11-28 09:48 Document editing, photo storage, sorting, and ai tagging, sharing, chat functions, maps, email, music, document sharing, etc. They aren’t even near to the same thing. It’s like asking “why do you have that smartphone when you can use your Motorola brick phone? They both take mobile phone calls, one just has an interface from the 90s” ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LastTreestar · 2023-11-28 23:21 The "throw away your thumbdrive" part??