File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a TCP protocol for uploading and downloading files between computers. FTP works on a client/server model. The server component is called an FTP daemon . It continuously listens for FTP requests from remote clients. When a request is received, it manages the login and sets up the connection. For the duration of the session it executes any of commands sent by the FTP client.
Access to an FTP server can be managed in two ways:
-
Anonymous
-
Authenticated
In the Anonymous mode, remote clients can access the FTP server by using the default user account called "anonymous" or "ftp" and sending an email address as the password. In the Authenticated mode a user must have an account and a password. User access to the FTP server directories and files is dependent on the permissions defined for the account used at login. As a general rule, the FTP daemon will hide the root directory of the FTP server and change it to the FTP Home directory. This hides the rest of the file system from remote sessions.
vsftpd is an FTP daemon available in Ubuntu. It is easy to install, set up, and maintain. To install vsftpd you can run the following command:
sudo apt-get install vsftpd
By default
vsftpd
is configured to only allow anonymous download. During installation a
ftp
user is created with a home directory of
/home/ftp
. This is the default FTP directory.
If you wish to change this location, to
/srv/ftp
for example, simply create a directory in another location and change the
ftp
user's home directory:
sudo mkdir /srv/ftp sudo usermod -d /srv/ftp ftp
After making the change restart vsftpd :
sudo /etc/init.d/vsftpd restart
Finally, copy any files and directories you would like to make available through anonymous FTP to
/srv/ftp
.
To configure
vsftpd
to authenticate system users and allow them to upload files edit
/etc/vsftpd.conf
:
local_enable=YES write_enable=YES
Now restart vsftpd :
sudo /etc/init.d/vsftpd restart
Now when system users login to FTP they will start in their home directories where they can download, upload, create directories, etc.
Similarly, by default, the anonymous users are not allowed to upload files to FTP server. To change this setting, you should uncomment the following line, and restart vsftpd :
anon_upload_enable=YES
Enabling anonymous FTP upload can be an extreme security risk. It is best to not enable anonymous upload on servers accessed directly from the Internet. |
The configuration file consists of many configuration parameters. The information about each parameter is available in the configuration file. Alternatively, you can refer to the man page, man 5 vsftpd.conf for details of each parameter.
There are options in
/etc/vsftpd.conf
to help make
vsftpd
more secure. For example users can be limited to their home directories by uncommenting:
chroot_local_user=YES
You can also limit a specific list of users to just their home directories:
chroot_list_enable=YES chroot_list_file=/etc/vsftpd.chroot_list
After uncommenting the above options, create a
/etc/vsftpd.chroot_list
containing a list of users one per line. Then restart
vsftpd
:
sudo /etc/init.d/vsftpd restart
Also, the
/etc/ftpusers
file is a list of users that are
disallowed
FTP access. The default list includes root, daemon, nobody, etc. To disable FTP access for additional users simply add them to the list.
FTP can also be encrypted using FTPS . Different from SFTP , FTPS is FTP over Secure Socket Layer (SSL). SFTP is a FTP like session over an encrypted SSH connection. A major difference is that users of SFTP need to have a shell account on the system, instead of a nologin shell. Providing all users with a shell may not be ideal for some environments, such as a shared web host.
To configure
FTPS
, edit
/etc/vsftpd.conf
and at the bottom add:
ssl_enable=Yes
Also, notice the certificate and key related options:
rsa_cert_file=/etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem rsa_private_key_file=/etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key
By default these options are set the certificate and key provided by the ssl-cert package. In a production environment these should be replaced with a certificate and key generated for the specific host. For more information on certificates see the section called “Certificates” .
Now restart vsftpd , and non-anonymous users will be forced to use FTPS :
sudo /etc/init.d/vsftpd restart
To allow users with a shell of
/usr/sbin/nologin
access to FTP, but have no shell access, edit
/etc/shells
adding the
nologin
shell:
# /etc/shells: valid login shells /bin/csh /bin/sh /usr/bin/es /usr/bin/ksh /bin/ksh /usr/bin/rc /usr/bin/tcsh /bin/tcsh /usr/bin/esh /bin/dash /bin/bash /bin/rbash /usr/bin/screen /usr/sbin/nologin
This is necessary because, by default
vsftpd
uses PAM for authentication, and the
/etc/pam.d/vsftpd
configuration file contains:
auth required pam_shells.so
The
shells
PAM module restricts access to shells listed in the
/etc/shells
file.
Most popular FTP clients can be configured connect using FTPS. The lftp command line FTP client has the ability to use FTPS as well.
use root to login ftp
vi /etc/ftpusers
then remove root from the file