Virtual Connect FTP Port discussion

[chuckk281]

Peter was asking about FTP port security during firmware updates:

**************

In addition to recent posts about the FTP port on VC for FW updates, a customer asks me

-       Which ports are used for this communication (for FW updates these ports has to be opened in the firewalls)?

-       Will the ftp user added automatically and deleted manually or has this to be done manually after the FW update?

-       Can the FTP server be disabled ?

*************

Reply from Fred:

Beginning with VC 4.10 and VCSU 1.9.0, the FTP service on VC-Enet modules is disabled by default. The VCSU software temporarily enables and disables the FTP service during firmware upgrades of older VC firmware for VC-FC modules as needed.

With VC4.10, VCSU 1.9.0 and later, SFTP is used in place of FTP.

The FTP service cannot be disabled on older versions of VC firmware. The FTP service on VC modules prohibits write operations, all operations are logged, anonymous logins are disabled. The ftp user is handled programmatically between VCSU and VCM.

Also info from Mark:

Before, the FC would pull their image from the Ethernet using Plain-text FTP.

Now, VCSU 1.9.0 pushes the FC images directly to the FC modules using SFTP.

Before an now VCSU still pushes the Ethernet image to the Ethernet modules using SFTP.

BUT… you have to be running VC 4.10 to take advantage of this.

So updating from VC 4.01 > VC 4.10, because VC 4.01 is running, the FTP service is enabled and the transfer to FC modules from Ethernet is plain text FTP.

The first time VCSU 1.9.0 will take advantage of this is from VC 4.10 > whatever comes next.

**************

Comments or questions?