ZFTPServer Suite

zFTPServer Suite is a Windows FTP server which can be used free of charge. It has a remote administration GUI which is scriptable and extensible.
zFTPServer Suite started as a hobby project of Nicklas Bergfeldt, and is now developed at Västgöta-Data AB; with Bergfeldt as lead developer.
The Suite is implemented in Embarcadero Delphi. It has strong encryption support, security certificates support and user and group administration.
History
In 2000 Bergfeldt searched for an FTP server for his home network, but he found that none of the existing servers had all the features he wanted. After realising this he soon started to code a FTP server of his own. First it was only meant to be used by himself, but he later let his friends use it as well. He begun coding the fundamental framework first, this includes the virtual file system and the user/group management.
In 2003 one of the major Swedish computer papers, DatorMagazin, announced a code contest. The first price winner received a rather pricy laptop. The contest required a Swedish translation, some kind of documentation and an installation program. Bergfeldt saw this as an opportunity to lift his program to the next level and make it ready for a broader audience. Bergfeldt was awarded the first place prize for zFTPServer Suite. During the time from the contest was announced to the time the prize was delivered, the laptop has dropped significantly in price. Bergfeldt successfully argued that he should receive a laptop that was as expensive as the original laptop was when the contest was announced.
Winning the contest resulted in that a lot of users tested zFTPServer Suite. And, as zFTPServer Suite web page ran on Bergfeldt's home web server over an ADSL-connection, things started to get a little bit slow. In addition to this the application downloaded auto-updates from his web server. As neither his Internet connection nor his server was designed for this load he effectively DDOSed himself.
As zFTPServer Suite grew more popular, it was no longer possible to serve it from his home server. At that time he asked the university for which he worked to host it, which they did for several years.
In 2007 Bergfeldt ended his employment in the university to form the IT consultant company Västgöta-Data. Bergfeldt now works as Technical Officer of Västgöta-Data, and is still the lead developer of zFTPServer Suite.
General features
*Client-Server architecture. The GUI connects to the administration port of the server daemon through a network connection. This makes it easy to administrate multiple servers from a single remote GUI.
*Virtual File System. The folder structure as presented to the ftp user does not necessarily correspond to the on-disk folder structure. Multiple windows folders can be added to a single ftp-folder. The ftp folder then contains the merged content of the windows folders. This also provides for space balancing on multiple disks.
* Scripted administration. The server accepts custom scripts and program to connect to the administration port. This can be utilized by the custom scripts to perform the same tasks as the administration GUI in an automatic way.
* IP restriction management.
* Reactive and proactive scripting and event handling (react to events after they have happened or when they are about to happen)
* Anti-hammering.
* FTPS (SSL/TLS) encryption.
* SFTP (SFTP version 3, 4, 5, and 6)
* FXP Site-to-site
Other information
* 600kLOC
* Implemented in Embarcadero Delphi
* First Changelog entry: 2002-09-30
* 2.000.000 downloads from 118 countries
* Translated to 17 languages
 
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