Library for SFTP support in TC

Zenox · Post by *Zenox » 2007-03-24, 09:00 UTC

Been searching really hard how to solve the SFTP issue alot of people have, including me. Found an open source SFTP library using the LGPL license with support for SSH1/SSH2 and SFTP. Would it be possible to use this library to get SFTP functionality directly into TC?

Regards and thanks for this wonderful application from an longtime registered user.

/Stefan

Note: For users that want to comment about it - I already know about that buggy SFTP add-on and I'd rather use an extra client to avoid it. The preferred way would be to have SFTP support included by default.

Sir_SiLvA · Post by *Sir_SiLvA » 2007-03-24, 10:19 UTC

Sorry this will never happen as switzer exportlaw
forbids to enclude any encryption.

Zenox · Post by *Zenox » 2007-03-24, 11:55 UTC

Sir_SiLvA wrote:Sorry this will never happen as switzer exportlaw
forbids to enclude any encryption.

Oh that's bad. That means that Ghisler also is not allowed to create an "add-on" that you optionally could download and install?

In that case, maybe make the possibility to create add-ons that adds more protocols to the regular FTP function? That would enable coders like myself to create and release that functionality right inside of TC, but as an add-on that is.

Post by *Hacker » 2007-03-24, 12:20 UTC

Sir_SiLvA,

Sorry this will never happen as switzer exportlaw
forbids to enclude any encryption.

That's why FTPS uses an external library.

Roman

norfie² · Post by *norfie² » 2007-03-24, 12:25 UTC

Zenox wrote:That means that Ghisler also is not allowed to create an "add-on" that you optionally could download and install?

Unfortunately you're right.

Zenox wrote:In that case, maybe make the possibility to create add-ons that adds more protocols to the regular FTP function?

IIRC a new FTP plugin interface is planned. But I guess its realization will take some time (years). Nevertheless you can use the file system plugin interface (WFX) for such extensions.

Do you know about the integration of OpenSSL in TCmd? If not then take a look here:
Information on how to use the ssl/tls feature for secure ftp

Post by *ghisler(Author) » 2007-03-25, 17:46 UTC

That's actually a Unix library. What would be needed is a publicly available Windows DLL, as offered by openssl.org for ftp over ssl - but for sftp (ftp over ssh).

Zenox · Post by *Zenox » 2007-03-25, 20:10 UTC

Oh hmm, that's true. Saw that someone made a patch for compiling it using win32, but the download link is broken and it's just for library version v0.11. Hopefully someone takes up the challenge to port the newest version it to win32 too.

Would it be possible to use Putty somehow? It's not an DLL though, but I noticed that both WinSCP and FileZilla uses it to achive SFTP functionality (and those are win32 too). The projects are open source though so could watch how they integrate it into their applications and do it the same way in TC. Haven't checked the code, just asking if someone thought about doing it (probably) that way, if possible?

Sorry about asking much about it, I just really want this functionality bad and want to help finding an solution.

Zenox · Post by *Zenox » 2007-03-26, 19:30 UTC

Here is a libssh 0.11 publicly available as a Windows DLL with LGPL license. On this page there is an API, win32 DLL download link and samples on how to use it.
http://www.rkeene.org/projects/libssh-win32/v0.11/

Can that be of any use?

SPeller · Post by *SPeller » 2007-03-26, 23:43 UTC

It will be great if TC will support this (or any other) library for FTP over SSH.

flo · Post by *flo » 2007-03-27, 07:14 UTC

support ++

gerhard.weinberger · Post by *gerhard.weinberger » 2007-03-28, 18:54 UTC

Support

The WFX Plugin is not maintained anymore. A build in sftp support would be a great improvement!

flo · Post by *flo » 2007-06-30, 08:30 UTC

In the same way than ftps protocol was implemented with other library,is it posible use the library found by Zenox for an implementation of sftp?

I think than sftp protocol support is very important (more and more servers use this protocol today), and an implementation better than the implementation of sftp plugin is required.

I would really like this work were in the TO DO list of ghisler for next releases of total commander!!

Flint · Post by *Flint » 2007-06-30, 19:33 UTC

flo wrote:I would really like this work were in the TO DO list of ghisler for next releases of total commander!!

It is impossible, because Swiss laws don't allow to implement secure protocols in TC, and there are no free SFTP libraries TC could use, AFAIK (like it does with FTPS).

Post by *ghisler(Author) » 2007-07-01, 08:38 UTC

The linked SFTP library looks indeed very promising. What worries me, though, is the following text in the documentation: "Note that libssh is still an alpha product, and the API may vary from one version to another. The only guess I can make is that the API won't radically change."

Since I cannot include the DLL, for legal reasons, it would be very problematic if the interfaces suddenly changed...