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Category: Web Hosting

Mystery FTP files

In my anonftp/incoming directory I keep getting strange files appearing. Currently I have:

----rw---- 1 ftp domainname 104154 May 8 19:51 141.402
----rw---- 1 ftp domainname 104154 Jul 5 13:58 49.588

The files are always identical in size and contents, deleting them doesn't seem to affect anything, but I'm curious as to what they are and how they got there.

(They've been appearing for a long time, I just thought to ask about them now).

Generally files like these are from people looking for places to store their pirated software for other people to get access to. Files are uploaded to test what can and cannot be done with the anonymous ftp server. If you see files in there, definately delete them as they are counting against your disk space.

OK, thanks.

They are always the same size and the same contents... (which is apparently junk).

This is good to know. I checked my sites with WestHost and they too had these files.

I was wondering if anyone would have any ideas on a way that could alert an owner via e-mail that someone had uploaded to this file so that it could be monitored. Maybe I could be added to the new system... After the new system gets up and going and all the bugs are worked out. :-)

Question for you all who have experience with these files, which directory are they uploading them to?

The direct way for you as the site owner to access them, assuming Anonymous FTP has been enabled for your account, is to log in (through ftp or SSH) and go to /home/username/anonftp.

Question for you all who have experience with these files, which directory are they uploading them to?

They are uploading to /home/username/anonftp/incoming

I was wondering if anyone would have any ideas on a way that could alert an owner via e-mail that someone had uploaded to this file so that it could be monitored.

You could always just write a shell script to do it, and then set up cron to run that script once a day (or so). Of course you'll have to contact westhost about using cron.

poor man's monitoring :)