Hi everyone.
My name is Nick Russo,
and welcome to Pluralsight's Deep Dive course on FTP and Its Variants.
This first module introduces the original flavor of the
protocol known as FTP active mode.
This course assumes that viewers have little-to-no FTP experience,
so we'll start at the beginning.
We will follow a company named Globomantics as they
seek to harden their IT systems.
I'll provide some context around the network and my specific test methods.
I won't bore you by explaining the importance of file transfer,
but will instead detail how FTP active mode operates at a packet level.
This course is packed full of live demonstrations and packet captures,
all of which are made available in the course files.
Every time I introduce a new technology,
I describe the impact on network security.
I'll rerun the demo through a stateless firewall,
and if you don't know what that is, don't worry.
I will also cover how stateless firewalls work.
Let's add some business context.
You and I work as network engineers at Globomantics,
an international service provider.
Globomantics has a worldwide presence and a massively distributed network.
To mitigate the security threats posed by current-day hackers,
they need to update their IT systems throughout the network.
This requires some method to transfer configuration updates,
security patches, machine images, and more.
All the blue objects are devices in our existing network.
These are routers running Cisco IOS.
The FTP client and server are the main points of focus in this
course and are used for file transfer operations.
I'm using Ubuntu Linux here.
I've added simple device names to all devices shown.
Because this is a course on file transfer protocols and not a course on
specific operating systems or their command lines,
I only briefly cover how to configure FTP services.
That just simplifies the demonstrations and keeps the focus on protocol mastery where it belongs.