TABLE OF CONTENTS It s easy to think of Internet Information Server (IIS) as a mechanism for hosting Web sites or Web applications. However, IIS provides several optional components that can either be used by themselves, or as a complement to an existing site. One such component is the File Transfer Publishing Service (FTP). FTP provides a mechanism for allowing users to upload and download files from your Web server.
Another optional component is the Simple Message Transfer Protocol (SMTP) service. You can use the SMTP service to turn your IIS server into an e-mail server, although the capabilities provided by the SMTP service are very crude when you compare them to those found in a full-blown mail server product, such as Microsoft Exchange. In this chapter, you will learn how to deploy, configure, and secure the FTP and the SMTP services.
File transfer services based on the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) have been around since 1971. As a protocol it has become a standard method for transferring files between remote systems running on various operating systems (see Figure 7.1). The protocol and surrounding services were designed to give the user a simple interface while handling the complexities of the differences among file systems under the covers. In addition to FTP you can use other protocols such as HTTP, WebDAV (based on HTTP), BITS, SMB/CIFS, and others. FTP delivers advantages when handling data exchange among remote systems and those with disparate system architectures.
