In the past, I have used a software suite called Hummingbird (specifically: Hummingbird InetD). It was lightweight and had a very nice, yet simple, control panel for configuring, starting, and stopping services such as FTP, telnet, etc. Very useful for Windows machines that don’t have these kinds of services by default. For example:
This is great when using a one or two machines to do the job because the license fee is $99 per machine. However, in my current situation, I have roughly ten machines that need telnet and FTP services and will most likely grow that number in the future. So I have opted to go with the following:
The beautiful thing is that both are free to use and easy to configure. Here are a few more details:
- KpyM Telnet Server
- Uses the native Windows user and groups for security.
- Command line driven using very simple commands for installing, starting, restarting, and stopping the server.
- Customization is done by editing the kts.ini file.
- The shareware version has a slight six second pause before accepting a user login and password. This is slightly annoying but since it’s free and easy enough to workaround, I can’t complain.
- FileZilla FTP Server
- Manages its own user and group list.
- You can configure a home directory for each user and group.
- You can control read, write, execute access for both user and group level.
- Customization is done via a handy server interface GUI.
- All settings are stored by an XML file just like the client version.
- Read LifeHacker for additional details.