Would you like to try cleartext SFTP, to compare performance? This can be done with inetd/socket activation. server# cat /etc/systemd/system/ctsftp.socket

Would you like to try cleartext SFTP, to compare performance? This can be done with inetd/socket activation. server# cat /etc/systemd/system/ctsftp.socket [Unit] Description=cleartext sftp [Socket] ListenStream=7777 Accept=yes [Install] WantedBy=sockets.target server# cat /etc/systemd/system/ctsftp@.service [Unit] Description=cleartext sftp [Service] ExecStart=-/usr/libexec/openssh/sftp-server StandardInput=socket User=nobody Group=nobody server# systemctl start ctsftp.socket Then, on the client, set up a netcat. client$ cat ncssh #!/bin/sh exec nc fileserver.myco.com 7777 client$ chmod 755 ncssh Feel free to move around the cabin. client$ sftp -S ./ncssh bogus Connected to bogus. sftp> put ncssh Uploading ncssh to /ncssh remote open("/ncssh"): Permission denied sftp> cd tmp sftp> put ncssh Uploading ncssh to /tmp/ncssh ncssh 100% 56 128.6KB/s 00:00 sftp> quit I've also jacked this into stunnel. I haven't really benchmarked it, though. You could probably chroot() this, if there was a desire to use it for something important. For those who truly miss anonymous FTP, it was hiding inside of SSH the whole time. Shoehorning it back into the browsers is left as an exercise for the reader.