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Michael S. Mimoso, Editorial DirectorAlthough a server requires you to present a digital certificate before you use FTPS, you don't have to use a certificate issued by VeriSign. You can use a digital certificate issued by any of the well-known certificate authorities, or, one you have issued yourself, using Microsoft Certificate Server for example. You can have a trusted certificate authority, such as Verisign or Thawte, sign the certificates you create. There are plenty of FTP programs that can handle FTPS. One is GlobalSCAPE's Secure FTP Server, which includes a full digital certificate management system for creating, signing and importing digital certificates to a trusted list. It also supports client authentication to verify users' identities by forcing users to present a certificate. The server compares the client certificate to a list contained in its trusted certificates database, and then either accepts or rejects the connection based upon a match.
This was first published in December 2005