Xlight FTP Server

Xlight FTP Server

Xlight - Windows FTP and SFTP Server

Xlight is a Windows FTP and SFTP server to make file transfer secure and easy to use. It is a portable program with very low memory and CPU usage. The server is designed for high performance and can handle many FTP and SFTP connections.

Xlight FTP Server has many useful features and has an edition for personal use. The program is compatible with Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 10, 2003, 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2019.

Xlight FTP server has three editions: personal, standard, professional.

Personal edition is free for personal use only. During the 30-day evaluation period, the trial program works like the professional edition with exactly the same functions. After the evaluation period, unregistered program will automatically become the personal edition.

Standard edition is limited to 50 online users. It has secure SSL, Anti Leech Protection and UNC Path Impersonation support. But the standard edition doesn't support ODBC, LDAP, Active Directory, email Notification and Remote Administration function etc.

Professional edition has no online users limitation and supports all functions except the optional SFTP (SSH2) feature.

SFTP (SSH2) Add-On Module SFTP (SSH2) is a completely different protocol from FTP. SFTP (SSH2) is provided as an optional feature. If you only want to use FTP protocol, you won't need this module. The SFTP (SSH2) upgrade is only for users who have standard or professional edition of Xlight FTP Server.

Benefits of purchasing Xlight FTP Server:

• Removing the feature limit of personal edition.
• All future upgrades are FREE.
• One year free Email support.
• Supporting good quality software.

Note: For standard and professional editions, one license can be used on only one computer at any one time, unless multiple computers license has been purchased in which case the software may be used on any number of computers, up to the number of purchased licenses.

The following is the features comparison of Xlight FTP Server editions:

Xlight FTP Server features:

Xlight FTP Server is able to run in Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 10, 2003, 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2019.

The following are its main features:

External User Authentication

• Active Directory - Users can be authenticated against Active Directory. Settings of FTP users can be stored in Active Directory.
• LDAP - Users can be authenticated against the LDAP directory Server. Settings of FTP users can be stored in the LDAP directory server.
• Database - User settings and password can be stored in the external database and retrieved through ODBC connections.

IPv6 and encrypted file transfer

• IPv6 Support - IPv6 is seamlessly integrated in all server functions.
• Explicit and Implicit SSL - FTP sessions and file transfer can be protected by industry security standard. SSL client authentication is also supported.
• Support SFTP (SSH2) protocol - SFTP server and users can be created and managed the same way as FTP server.
• Support SSH public key authentication - User can login to SFTP server using Public key instead of password.

3rd party application integration

• Email Notification - Email can be sent after file uploading, downloading, user login and logout etc. Email recipients and content can be customized. Many email notification settings can be tweaked so that server can send email to different users based on different conditions.
• Database stored procedure - Database stored procedure is supported to facilitate the integration with other applications.
• Execute a program based on file upload, download or deletion - Scripts or other programs can be executed after file being uploaded or downloaded from server.
• Server Statistics and connected users information can be written to files - Application can read those files to get server statistics and connected users in real time.

Server administration

• System Service - Xlight FTP Server can run as Window system service.
• UNC Path Impersonation - FTP server can use the impersonation account to access password protected Network Shares in NAS or other Enterprise servers.
• Native FTP/SFTP User Isolation - Each user has separate virtual paths from other users, he cannot see virtual paths of others. No need to worry about locking user in his home path.
• Hierarchy Virtual Paths - FTP server has public and group paths, which make access control and permission management easier. Group path can be seen only by users of a group, public path can be seen by all users.
• Support multiple virtual servers - Xlight FTP Server can run multiple virtual servers on the same IP address.
• GUI based Remote Administration - Xlight FTP server can be securely administrated from anywhere.
• Easy Configuration Management - Configuration changes will take place in real-time, without the need to restart server.

Server log and audit

• FTP sessions and errors log - Detailed logs of ftp sessions and server errors.
• Store file transfer logs in the database - FTP/SFTP File transfer logs can be stored in the database. User file transfer history can be easily searched and retrieved.
• UNIX xferlog Support - Support writing FTP transfer log in UNIX FTP xferlog format.
• Send log to Syslog server - All server logs can be sent to Syslog server at the same time.

Firewall and NAT traversal

• WAN IP and passive mode - WAN IP and PASV port range can be configured to traverse corporate firewall.
• UPnP - Configuring FTP server behind the UPnP available home router becomes much easier.

Flexible user and server control

• Auto Block IPs - This can prevent server from hammers or malicious behaviors.
• Deny or Allow IPs - Server can deny or allow user's access by his IP address.
• File Access Control - Server can control user only downloading or uploading certain files.
• Advanced Bandwidth Control - Bandwidth can be fine-tuned by different virtual servers, groups and users level or scheduled by time range.
• Advanced Access Control - Server provides many methods to control user's access right.
• Login Time Control - Server can control login period by each user.

Miscellaneous features

• FXP - Support site-to-site file transfers.
• Detail Server Status - Server has detailed bandwidth usage and user connections information, download and upload status.
• Anti Leech Support - Support anti-leech function to prevent unauthorized people from leeching FTP links.
• MODE Z Support - Support real time data compression during the data transfer.
• UFT-8 Support - Support OPTS UTF8 command to turn on and off UTF-8 encoding.

Xlight FTP Server Frequently Asked Questions

Cannot access virtual path linked to Mapped drive from Xlight service?

Mapped Network Drive will be available only after user logs into Windows Computer. However Windows service applications are started before user logs into Windows Computer. That is the reason that you cannot access virtual path linked to Mapped Network Drive when running Xlight FTP Server as system service.

To use Network Drive in system service, you need to use UNC path format "\\host-name\share-name\file_path", where host-name can be IP address or network name.

How to upgrade Xlight FTP Server?

Before upgrade, you must stop the running FTP Server. If FTP Server is running as system service, you need to go to "Control Panel->Manage Tools->Service", find and select "Xlight FTP Server" in service window, click mouse right button, select "Stop" from Popup Menu and then close the service window. Then you can choose either one of the following method:

Method 1: Uninstall old version of Xlight, old configuration files are still kept. Reinstall new version to the old installation path.

Method 2: Download 32-bit xlight.zip or 64-bit xlight-x64.zip, unzip the file and use it to overwrite the old Xlight FTP server executable, which by default is under "c:\program files\xlight".

How to backup Xlight configuration file?

Under Xlight FTP server installation folder ("c:\program files\xlight"), there are 5 files: "ftpd.hosts","ftpd.option","ftpd.password", "ftpd.rules"."ftpd.users". These are configuration files of Xlight FTP server. For server configuration, you only need to backup these 5 files. If you use quotas function in Xlight ftp server, you may also need to back up the file ".quota" in the same directory.

From the Xlight FTP Server version 3.2 and above, there is a new option to automatically backup configuration files. The option is at [Global Option]->[General]->[Backup After Configuration Change]. You need to select a destination directory for storing configuration backup.

How to move Xlight FTP to new server?

You need to do the following 3 steps:

Step 1. Download and install Xlight FTP in new server.

Step 2. Under old server's Xlight FTP installation folder ("c:\program files\xlight"), there are 5 files: "ftpd.hosts","ftpd.option","ftpd.password", "ftpd.rules"."ftpd.users". You need to copy these 5 files to the folder where Xlight FTP is installed in new server. If you use quotas function in Xlight ftp server, you may also need to copy the file ".quota" to new server.

Step 3. The Xlight FTP license in older server is stored in registry at either one of the following two locations:

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Xlight FTP"

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Xlight FTP"

You will need to copy the license to new server in the same location of registry.

Outside user cannot see directory in FTP Server, how to make it work?

FTP protocol needs two ports to work. The common port 21 is for FTP commands. The data port is for transfer file and directory list. If you cannot see directory list from outside, but server can work internally (you can test the server using loopback IP 127.0.0.1, with a client in the same machine), then the FTP data port might be blocked by firewall. Windows has software firewall, you would better add Xlight program into its exception list. If your company has hardware firewall and user has the problem is outside the firewall. You would better follow the link to setup firewall port forwarding.

How can I increase Upload and Download speed?

The default TCP buffer sizes for Xlight is set as 32KB optimized for thousands of online users. If you don't have that much users, you can adjust TCP buffer size to increase network performance for user. TCP buffer size can be adjusted in virtual server at [Virtual Server Configuration] - [Advanced] - [Socket Buffer Size] or for individual user at [User Configuration] - [Option] - [Socket Buffer Size]. The base unit for this option is KB. So if you want t set a 64KB buffer, you can put value 64 in it. You can check Xlight help document for detail of this option.

When I create a virtual server, what is Dynamic IP (0.0.0.0)?

If your server has multiple NIC cards, the Dynamic IP (0.0.0.0) will bind to all NIC cards available. That means that your virtual server will listen on all NIC cards. If you select a specific IP associated with a NIC card, then virtual server will listen only in this NIC card. If you moved your server later and IP has changed, you won't need to worry when using Dynamic IP, because it doesn't associated with a specific IP. But if you bind virtual server to a specific IP, you need to adjust accordingly, otherwise virtual server with incorrect IP will not be able to start.

A lot of unknown IP trying to login to my server, how to block them?

Go to [Virtual Server Configuration] - [Security] - [IP Address Auto Blocking], Enable this option.

Set IP auto blocking last for to a value such as 600 seconds. Set Number of "failed logins" or "Hammer connections" to a value such as 5 and "in seconds" to 60.

This will auto block the IP for 600 seconds if it makes 5 connections or failed logins within 60 seconds. Set checking period for failed logins is only available from Xlight FTP version 3.9.3.

To check auto blocked IPs or unblock one of them, from Xlight FTP main Windows, go to "Connection Detail", click the top left small icon.

The external authentication doesn't work, how can I debug it?

From [Virtual Server Configuration] - [General] - [external user authentication], click the setup button. You can see the option "Show debug trace information in Error Log". Enable this option will allow you to see debug information for external authentication in Xlight FTP Server error log.

AD authentication through Xlight doesn't work in domain controller?

Microsoft has special security police, normal domain users cannot logon to Active Directory domain controller. So when Xlight FTP Server is run in domain controller, normal domain users cannot logon to FTP Server through Active Directory authentication. You would better run Xlight FTP Server in a different domain machine.

In case you must run FTP Server in domain controller, you have to grant the Allowed logon locally system right to that user account in the domain. You can follow the step "Grant a Member the Right to Logon Locally" from Microsoft. You must reboot your machine for the change to take effect.