WHY YOU WOULD NOT IMPLEMENT FTP AND HTTP SERVICE ON A INTERNET SERVER?

Hi rodferna,

I answered your question regarding why you WOULD implement these
services, and here is why you might opt out on implementing them.

The main reason is security. As you might know, each computer on the
Internet has a unique IP address in the form of ###.###.###.###.  For
example Google.com's IP address is 216.239.35.100. But that's not all.
An IP address is like a street address of a huge building with no
apartment number. So how does a computer know where the information
goes or comes from?  We can't just dump it all on the front door, and
leave it there.

The information on each server and computer finds it's way through
PORTS. There are tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of
PORTS.  Each PORT carries a certain type of data. ICQ, Internet
Explorer, Netscape, they all access certain ports on a certain IP
address.

When FTP or HTTP is enabled, this means that another port has to be
OPEN and VISIBLE. Now the address is "not unlisted". If no HTTP or FTP
is enabled, these ports are closed and hidden. Anything trying to
access them will get a forbidden access reply (or if security is set
correctly) will simply NOT get a reply at all. Anyone who tries to
hack into a certain address (IP ADDRESS) on the port used by HTTP (80
if I am not mistaken) will get no reply. So now they figure, well
there is nothing there to break into, and they move on.

Bandwidth is another issue.  Maybe security is not much of an issue,
but bandwidth is. Leaving the ports open allows people to come in and
get information.  Now you system is transferring information back and
forth, meaning that the hard drive is running and the network cards
are busy processing this information.

Bandwidth and security are your answers.
Hope this helps, if not, please ask for a clarification. :)

Regards,
slawek-ga

in actual fact there are 65536 available ports on a standard desktop
computer, as to why u would implement or open the ftp(21 for memory)
and http(port 80) ports the answer is so 1. (http) people can access
web pages from your computer and 2. (ftp) so people can download files
(by the way ftp stands for file tranfer protocol). on each port there
is a program waiting/listening for people to connect.

hope this helps

;-)

um.. I only have two on mine.. one parallel and one serial :) What you
probably mean is that the TCP/IP implementation used in most operating
systems support a maximum of 65,536 ports (am I even right, though ?)