openssh anonymous sftp connection

[Peter Kielbasiewicz]

Hello,

I want to set up anonymous sftp connection but it seems that it is not possible with openssh.
Many people argue that anonymous ftp does not really make sense but I think most do not know about the sub-user account feature offered by anonymous ftp.
This feature works as follows:
If you set up an anonymous ftp server you get a chrooted environment into the ftp users home dir.
After successful anonymous login one can issue a "user" command which would ask for a user name check for that name in the file ~ftp/etc/passwd and prompts for the password.
The file ~ftp/etc/passwd is only for used for ftp logins and thus can use login names and password aging mechanisms which do not need to comply with any standard policies imposed on the regular /etc/passwd file.
Thus you have a safe ftp account and you do not change anything in the regular /etc/passwd file.
The whole process can of course be scripted. A drawback here is the plain text password within the script file but this can be tolerated if the script file is only owner readable.

It would be great if the feature was available with sftp because then the whole data transfer would be encrypted including the transfer of the sub-user login.

Does anybody know if there are plans to implement this mechanism with sftp or if there are workaround solutions offering the same functionality?

[Mark Grant]

I'm with you on the anonymous ftp thing. I often use this as a good and relatively safe ftp.

You are not the only person to want an anonymous sftp. Check out this link.

http://monkey.org/openbsd/archive/misc/0104/msg00178.html