Amongst the many shortened terms that you might come across concerning your website and its security, there is File Transfer Protocol, which is shortened to FTP. FTP is the process by which files can be transferred between users and to specific locations, such as a website.
One simple example might be a pdf file, whereby the person who has created it might wish to send it to an associate via FTP, or they could upload it to their website to make it a free download. As such they would FTP the pdf file from their computer to a folder that exists on their website’s hosting server and once it is there a download link would automatically be created which people can click to download the pdf to their computer or device.
You should be aware that FTP can be implemented using different modes, depending on the security protocols that are being used. To help you better understand what these FTP modes are, here are some of the details.
Active And Passive FTP
For FTP to occur, a user will usually log in to a server, although there are some exceptions referred to as anonymous FTP where the server does not require a login. For those servers that do require it, once a user is logged in they can upload files, download files, delete files, rename files, move files, or copy files.
Regardless of what the user is using FTP for, the connection they have made to the server will have been created using one of the two different data transfer modes with which FTP operates. The modes are called passive and active, and they have peculiarities specific to each of them.