Knowledgebase

Installing vsftpd on Ubuntu or Debian

sudo apt-get install vsftpd

 

Installing vsftpd on CentOS / Fedora

yum install vsftpd

 

How to configure vsftpd

Now that you’ve installed vsftpd, follow this procedure to configure it. These steps applies for both the linux variants.

 

Before you get started, stop the vsftpd by typing

service vsftpd stop

 

Edit the vsftp.conf

1. In Ubuntu / Debian:

vi /etc/vsftpd.conf

 

2. In Red Hat / CentOS

vi /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf

 

Make the following changes:

We don’t want anonymous login:

 

anonymous_enable=NO

local_enable=YES

write_enable=YES

connect_from_port_20=NO

chroot_local_user=YES

local_umask=022

 

Now that basic configuration is complete, now let us begin with locking / securing a directory to user.

sudo useradd -d /var/www/path/to/your/dir -s /usr/sbin/nologin ftpuser

 

Setup a password for the user:

sudo passwd ftpuser

 

In order to enable the ftpuser read and write the data in your home dir, change the permission and take ownership:

sudo chown -R ftpuser /var/www/path/to/your/dir
sudo chmod 775 /var/www/path/to/your/dir

 

Create userlist file and add the user:

 

1. Ubuntu / Debian:
vi /etc/vsftpd.userlist

 

2. CentOS / Fedora

vi /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.userlist

 

Add the user:

ftpuser

 

Save the file and open the vsftp.conf file again:

vi /etc/vsftpd.conf

 

Add the following lines at the end of the file and save it:

# the list of users to give access
userlist_file=/etc/vsftpd.userlist

# this list is on
userlist_enable=YES

# It is not a list of users to deny ftp access
userlist_deny=NO

 

After completing all these procedures it is almost ready to use it, give it a try but you will get a 500 OOPS permission denied error. To fix it you need to add a nologin to the shell set.

vi /etc/shells

 

The file should look like this:

/bin/ksh
/usr/bin/rc
/usr/bin/tcsh
/bin/tcsh
/usr/bin/esh
/bin/dash
/bin/bash
/bin/rbash

 

Add this line at the end:

/usr/sbin/nologin

 

Now create a usergroup and add the ftpuser to it:

sudo addgroup ftpusers
sudo usermod -Gftpusers ftpuser

 

Now start the vsftpd:

service vsftpd start