[e2e] FTP data port

[David P. Reed]

Yes.  The original FTP protocol defined in the ARPANET by Abhay Bhushan of 
MIT made data connections independent from control connections in just that 
way.  The original idea was to be general: specifically, that one could use 
the control connection to establish a file transfer between machines 
unrelated to the client machine.

This also avoided the need for FTP to multiplex a single stream between 
data and control, so that the control connection could operate 
asynchronously from data flow, and encoding steps need not be undertaken to 
recover from bit errors that would prevent resync'ing at data/control 
boundaries.

More than you wanted to know, probably.

- David


At 01:42 PM 2/26/01 -0500, Oleg Vishnepolsky wrote:
>Why does FTP protocol has FTP server to connect out to a data port 
>specified to a client, as opposed to the client connecting to a
>port specified by the server ? Is there a historical reason for doing that ?
>
>Oleg Vishnepolsky
>-
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