FTP transfer across the web betwen two pc

[earlboy2]

My sister needs to get digital pics from my pc to her pc. We now live in different countries and sending pics via e-mail in my opinions is not a viable solution. She needs to download a lot of pics which has an average size of 1.2MB. So I'm deciding to set up a FTP Server here at home to the internet. So that she can download the pics. My network setup IMO is secure (Read the articles on www.grc.com on how to secure my internet connection).


Here is my network setup :

DLink DI-624+ connected to the internet via dsl

A pc running on WinXP Pro connected to the router via cable. Up and running from morning to till evening (pc for work). Ad-Aware, Zone-Alarm and AVG antivirus.

An old PII 350 running on SUSE 9.1 acting as a print and file server (SMB ) connected via cable. ( This were I plan to setup the FTP server). Up and running from morning till late in the evening

A pc runing on WinXP Pro/Suse Linux connected to the router via Wireless connection. Sometimes online during late nigth (Gaming Machine). Ad-Aware, Zone-Alarm and AVG antivirus.

A laptop pc running WinXP Home which is connected via Wireless as well. On line on occasion ( owned and used by my other sister ). Ad-Aware, Zone-Alarm and AVG antivirus.



My question is will there be security risk if I expose the FTP server? How will I secure it? I'm planing set up the FTP as a virtual server in my router to expose it to the internet.

Comments, advice greatly appreciated.

[Force Flow]

Make sure you forward only ports 20-21 to the IP of the machine running the FTP in the router. If you don't know how to do this, you can find a guide here: http://www.firewalling.com/dlink/di-624-firewall.htm

As for being a security risk, as long as you close off annonymous FTP access and set up a username and passworded account that has at least an 8 character letter/number combination, you should be fine. The only computer that would be exposed is the FTP, but you should be fine if you set up a passworded account and keep the firewalls up.

In addition if you should so choose, you can change the default FTP ports to almost any other port that you would like, as long as it is not in use (ie port 2404, 9031, or any other random port that you choose).

[earlboy2]

I been looking for quite some time for a site that discusses firewalling for my router. As of now my router has the default rules on it.
Thanks!!! This will help me a lot. I'll try out my plan for the FTP server and follow your advice.

[Statica]

If you are running an ftpd on a linux machine, why not just use sftp over ssh? Its inherently more secure than running an unencrypted ftp.