anyone understand ftpd in retail

[yuriwho]

Has anyone figured out how ftpd starts up in OS X retail? It has changed dramatically from the PB. We now have the checkbox in the sharing preferences panel but it is wierd. If you check it, no ftpd starts up but if you establish an ftp session then ftpd shows up in ps. There is nothing in /etc/hostconfig or /System/Library/StartupItems for ftpd either. There must be some other deamon that launches it and some way to toggle it on and off.

What I want to do is activate ftpd on a remote OS X machine via ssh so I can transfer files rapidly to it and then shut it off after I finished for security reasons.

Does anyone know how to do this?

Cheers,

Yuri

 

[marmoset]

Originally posted by yuriwho
Has anyone figured out how ftpd starts up in OS X retail? It has changed dramatically from the PB. We now have the checkbox in the sharing preferences panel but it is wierd. If you check it, no ftpd starts up but if you establish an ftp session then ftpd shows up in ps. There is nothing in /etc/hostconfig or /System/Library/StartupItems for ftpd either. There must be some other deamon that launches it and some way to toggle it on and off.

It gets launched by the inetd "super-daemon".
inetd listens for incoming connections on the ports
specified in /etc/inetd.conf. When it gets an incoming
ftp connection, it launches (via tcpd, which can impose
useful restrictions by ip range, etc.) the ftp daemon
(if ftp is turned on). In OSX, though, I *think* (someone
else may be able to confim this), the services settings
in netinfo override inetd.conf.

Do a "man inetd" and a "man tcpd" to get a more technical
description of how this works.