Setting Up a Secure FTP Server in IIS with SSL

Introduction

To create a secure FTP server using IIS, We will need to :

• A group in the Active Directory for FTP permissions
• A self-signed certificate
• The creation of the FTP in IIS
• Connecting to the FTP using FileZilla

Prerequisites

IIS Feature

• Add FTP server Rôle

AD Group

• I will use an existing group in my LAB: SupportN2
• I’m adding the authorized users to use the FTP to this group

Self-signed certificate

Creating a self-signed certificate using PowerShell

New-SelfSignedCertificate -FriendlyName "Certificat FTP" -DnsName "epmpxe.leblogosd.lan" -KeyAlgorithm RSA -KeyLength 2048 -CertStoreLocation "Cert:\LocalMachine\My" -NotAfter (get-date).AddYears(10)

IIS Configuration

• In IIS, create your FTP site

• Specify the folder path

• We will use port 990 (FTP SSL) with the certificate we created

• Only our AD group will have read/write connection rights.

Connecting with Filezilla

• Create a new site in Filezilla (required due to the configuration)
  • With Server Name
  • Protocol => Implicit FTP over TLS => The port will automatically be 990 (If we select Explicit Connection, the port will then be 21, which is not our case) 

• Force Active mode (only port 990 is open).

• We can force UTF8, but it’s not mandator

• During the first FTP connection, a message will indicate that it’s a self-signed certificate. Please confirm.

virtual directory not visible

Enable “Virtal directories” in FTP Directory Browsing option