Overview
The College of Arts & Sciences hosts an anonymous FTP server, in order to facilitate anonymous data transfer with collaborators who do not have OSU sponsored guest accounts.
This service is not the preferred means of data transfer — if possible, this should be done with tools like rsync, SFTP, or even Microsoft Teams. Please feel free to contact asctech@osu.edu if you have questions about data transfers.
The server's address is ftp.asc.ohio-state.edu.
NOTE: Anonymous FTP should not be used for any non-public data (meaning anything categorized above S1 data). If you need to facilitate data transfer of anything rated as Internal (S2) or above, please contact asctech@osu.edu.
Table of Contents
Setup
To request this service send an email to asctech@osu.edu.
Users get two directories on the anonymous FTP server: one for anonymous uploads of incoming files, and one to make files publicly available. On the server side, these directories are /srv/ftp/incoming/[name.#] and /srv/ftp/pub/[name.#].
Permissions for the two directories are straightforward:
- Anonymous users can write to and list folder contents in your '/incoming' directory, but cannot read the contents of any files there.
- Files in /incoming are deleted after 3 days, so please make sure to retrieve uploads promptly.
- In /pub, anonymous users can list directory contents and read files, but cannot write anywhere.
Anonymous Access Walkthrough
Any FTP client can be used to access the server. Exact usage varies from client to client, but you can find instructions easily with a quick Google search. In this demonstration, we will be using CyberDuck for macOS.
This is an example of the connection settings you should use — again, it will look different depending on what client you're using:
A few things to note on settings:
- Be sure that you've selected FTP (File Transfer Protocol) as opposed to SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol) for the connection type
- The server address is ftp.asc.ohio-state.edu
- Many historical addresses (e.g. ftp.astronomy.osu.edu) have been added as aliases to ensure old links still work
- Some clients, such as CyberDuck, have an option to specify that a connection is anonymous. This will populate the Username and Password field automatically
- If your client does not have this option, you can either use "ftp" or "anonymous" as the username. Please enter your complete email address as the password; this is logged on the server end and provides a convenient way of contacting you if there are issues with your directory.
- IMPORTANT: DO NOT try to connect with your OSU name.n and password! Anonymous FTP is insecure by nature, and entering your username and password may put your account at risk!
Once connected, you will see a similar layout to this:
You'll mostly be interested in the /incoming and /pub directories. Within them are the user-specific directories your collaborators can upload to/download from.
As shown above, you can create subdirectories in your /incoming folder to organize users' file uploads. Anyone can list these directories' contents, but cannot read any files in them:
Authenticated Access for File Retrieval/Cleanup
All users with /incoming and /pub directories should have SSH/SFTP access to the FTP server as well. SSH access, however, is not open to the world, so you will either need to connect from a computer on an ASC physical building network, ASC Jump Host, or the ASC VPN.
Once you've connected to the server via SSH/SFTP, you will cd to /srv/ftp/incoming/[your_name.n] or /srv/ftp/pub/[your_name.n] to get to your directories. As you can see, the directory structure pictured above is the same on the server:
From here you can retrieve files and clean up your directories. You should have global permissions on the directories assigned to you, though any permission changes will be overwritten by a scheduled task that ensures permissions are kept consistent. Note that you will not have access to other users' directories via SSH.