Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 10:35:52 -0700 From: "Crist Clark" <crist.clark@globalstar.com> To: Peter Brezny <pab@sysadmin-inc.com> Cc: freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FW: FTP almost gone now? (was: Re: IPFW almost works now.) Message-ID: <3B27A478.85A21D3F@globalstar.com> References: <MFEFLELMIJGKDKPCJHAFEEGACDAA.pab@sysadmin-inc.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Peter Brezny wrote: > > >>Balderdash! HTTP and TCP both send files over identical TCP > >>connections, which makes them equally efficient. There really is no > >>reason for FTP to continue to exist (but yet it does). > > I was under the impression that the http protocol is a much 'chattier' > protocol than ftp, and that regardless of them running on identical tcp > connections, FTP is much more efficient by nature of the Protocol. > > Someone clear this up for me. HTTP is stateless. FTP has state. /All/ of the information required to do the transaction must go out with each individual HTTP request. For this reason, if you were to download a lot of little files, FTP would be better. You would establish one control connection and then can issue a lot of very "short" (few bytes over the wire) commands to grab each file. In HTTP, you would send a big HTTP request for each file and get a pretty good sized HTTP response header back along with the file. However, there are situations where HTTP is less chatty. In the above example, say you were going to download a lot of little files, but you were going to make a fresh FTP control connection for each one (say each one was being grabbed an hour apart, control connections would tend to time out and keep-alives consume resources too). Typically, establishing a control connection is going to be more bytes over the wire than an HTTP request. Not only that, but an FTP download requires at least two TCP connections which consumes twice the kernel resources on both host and server. In this case, HTTP is _less_ "chatty." And this is one of the reasons HTTP on average is a better choice for something like web browsing. So, to summarize, there is no clear-cut answer as to which is less "chatty." It depends on how you are using them. -- Crist J. Clark Network Security Engineer crist.clark@globalstar.com Globalstar, L.P. (408) 933-4387 FAX: (408) 933-4926 The information contained in this e-mail message is confidential, intended only for the use of the individual or entity named above. If the reader of this e-mail is not the intended recipient, or the employee or agent responsible to deliver it to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any review, dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please contact postmaster@globalstar.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-security" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?3B27A478.85A21D3F>