Ftp using certificate without username and password

Hello all,

I have a valid ftp certificate that will not expire for three years. THe problem is that my username and password change every 30 days. I need to write a program to upload a file via ftp that does not allow "anonymous" username and I want to use the certificate to authenticate without needing to ever enter the username and password. I have tried using Dart's SecureFtp Object, Microsoft's FtpWebResponse object, the SSL Stream Object, and the WebClient Object, all of which require a username and password to be entered in order to login to the ftp site.

I do not know much about the underlying FTP protocol. Is it even theoretically possible to perform ftp using only a certificate for authentication? How can it be done in any programming language?

Any help is appreciated.

OTM

Hi,
you could use Rebex Secure FTP for .NET - the sample below is taken from the http://www.rebex.net/secure-ftp.net/tutorial.aspx

(see "Authenticating the client using a certificate" section)

Ftp ftp = new Ftp();

// Create an instance of TlsParameters class and
// set the certificate request handler to
// CertificateRequestHandler.StoreSearch.
// You also have to specify the common name of
// the FTP server if you provide your own parameters.
TlsParameters par = new TlsParameters ();
par.CertificateRequestHandler = CertificateRequestHandler.StoreSearch;
par.CommonName = hostname;

// Connect securely using explicit SSL.
// The third argument refers to the parameters class.
ftp.Connect (hostname, 21, par, FtpSecurity.Explicit);

// Connection is protected now, we can log in safely.
// Some servers may not require login if the client
// successfully authenticated itself using a certificate
// known to the server.
ftp.Login (username, password);

The last line could be ommited. Make sure, that ftp server is configured to allow autneticating with client certificate only.

Martin