Tag Archives: proftpd

HOWTO: Create a FTP server with user access (proftpd)

A. The GUI way (for beginners only)

For those who are new to linux and don’t want to use a FTP server without GUI, or just for those who don’t use often their FTP server and wish to set it
quickly without a high level of security, there is a GTK GUI for proftpd.
Be careful, it’s less secure than configuring yourself your server.

1. Install proftpd and gproftpd with synaptic or with this command:
Code:

2. Play with the GUI and set up quickly your server.

Feel free to post here if you have some problems with gproftpd but it shouldn’t be too hard to use (it took me 2 minutes to set up a small FTP server ).

B. The secure way

1. Install proftpd with synaptic or with this command:
Code:

2. Add this line in /etc/shells file (sudo gedit /etc/shells to open the file):
Code:

Create a /home/ftp directory:
Code:

Create a user named ftp_user which will be used only for ftp access. This user don’t need a valid shell (more secure) therefore select /bin/false shell
for ftp_user and /home/ftp as home directory (property button in user and group window).
To make this section clearer, i give you the equivalent command line to create the user, but it would be better to use the GUI (System -> Administration -> User -> Group) to create the user since users here often got problems with the user creation and the password (530 error) with the command line, so i really advice to use the GUI :
Code:

In ftp directory create a download and an upload directory:
Code:

Now we have to set the good permissions for these directories:
Code:

3. OK, now go to the proftpd configuration file:
Code:

and edit your proftpd.conf file like that if it fit to your need:

Code:

Ok you have done proftpd configuration. Your server is on port 1980 (in this exemple) and the access parameters are
user: ftp_user
password: the one you’ve set for ftp_user

4. To start/stop/restart your server:
Code:

To perform a syntax check of your proftpd.conf file:
Code:

To know who is connected on your server in realtime use “ftptop” command (use “t” caracter to swich to rate display), you can also use the “ftpwho”
command.