All ITS FTP services, including UNIX systems managed by ITS, provide for secure-only access and file transfers. This means that those who use ITS computing services at Penn State cannot use popular file transfer clients such as WS_FTP (Windows) to transfer files to their respective Penn State Access Account. A variety of secure file transfer methods are available to the Penn State community.

The Penn State Access Account Storage Space (PASS) Gateway

The PASS Gateway provides a means by which users can access PASS without having to install and use software "native" to a specific platform and operating system. Information and instructions are found at (https://www.work.psu.edu/pass/).

Secure FTP Clients

The secure FTP clients identified are Fugu and Fetch for Macintosh and SSH.com's client for Windows. Up-to-date clients are available at: https://downloads.its.psu.edu/.

The PASS Explorer via the Penn State Portal

A new and improved version of the Penn State Portal's PASS Explorer tool lets users transfer files securely, quickly, and easily between their PASS and a local directory/folder on their machine. Information is found via the PASS channel in the Penn State Portal at: https://portal.psu.edu/.

The Secure Shell Protocol (SSH)

The Secure Shell Protocol (SSH) allows users to connect to a remote server or machine from another machine or personal computer via an encrypted connection. Using this protocol, the Access Account userids and passwords are transmitted through an encrypted connection to prevent network snooping or "sniffing" of passwords via traditional, non-secure network connections. A secure copy program, known as "scp," accompanies SSH and allows for a file to be copied securely from a remote machine to a local machine (or vice versa). More information is found at: http://helpdesk.psu.edu/.

This page is part of Your Guide to Information Technology @ Penn State.