Authentication Types

Top Previous Next

There are 4 possible Authentication Types that can be set for a given user from the "User Settings" dialog:

•	Robo-FTP Server Authentication uses basic authentication with stored ssh keys and/or password sha1 hashes

•	Windows Authentication uses Windows system authentication for a specific selected local or domain user.

•	Windows Group Authentication uses Windows system authentication for any user in a selected local or domain group/role. This is an Enterprise feature.

•	Anonymous Authentication does not require a password.

Robo-FTP Server Authentication

Robo-FTP Server Authentication provides password-based account verification for all connection types and optional SSH public key authentication for SFTP connections. When using a password, enter the same value into both the Password and Verify Password fields on the Basic Settings tab of the Add / Edit User dialog. When using an SSH public key, import the key that the user will present during authentication. If a user account with Robo-FTP Server Authentication is configured with both a password and a key, the user will be able to authenticate using either method.

Windows Authentication

In this type of authentication, access is granted if the user name and password are verified by the Windows operating system. Click the Browse button to choose a Windows user name to use for authentication. If you select a local account then the computer name will appear in the Domain field. Some additional steps are needed when logging in with only an SSH key and no password. See SSH Public Keys for more information about this.

Windows Group Authentication

This is an Enterprise feature. For this type of authentication, access is granted if the user name and password are verified by the Windows operating system for the domain specified here and the user is found to be a member of the selected group. The home directory defaults to the the user name as a sub-directory of the server root. This is shown as the macro $USERNAME. Click the Browse button to choose a Windows group to use for authentication. If you select a local group then the computer name will appear in the Domain field. You can optionally assign SSH keys to the group and require the key and the particular user's password for 2 factor authentication with SFTP.

Anonymous User Account

If this type of authentication is selected, the user name defaults to "anonymous" and any password is accepted. When connecting over HTTP(S), anonymous accounts can be accessed by placing their user name into the URL, e.g. "http://hostname.com/anonymous/".

Note: Two-factor authentication for the SFTP protocol can be set up for any account-type (other than Anonymous) by configuring an SSH Public Key for each user.