Using ProFTPD or any other FTP server in Linux

[MulletRobZ]

Greetings.

Recently, I ended up in a semi-bad situation. My Windows 2000 partition has been acting up lately by first not wanting to stop rebooting and now, I can't even access it, LOL! Good thing I know how to use Linux, but I don't know how I should set up an FTP server in Linux. I am comfortable with Serv-U and BulletProof FTP Server in Windows, but the only Linux FTP server that I know of is ProFTPD and I am confused by ths aspect. If anyone here knows of an FTP server that's more like Serv-U/BulletProof or how to use ProFTPD, I could use this info so I can host pictures for the high school yearbook and if I need to transfer large files to some people without instant messaging clients.

[kemical]

the default config that comes with proftpd should work quite well, just make sure you have your ftp port open considering you have a firewall..

also depending on your distro youll need to add it to your startup script , etc etc...

[MG-Cloud]

  kemical said:

the default config that comes with proftpd should work quite well

:yes:

If you need more advanced configuration than just a single ftp server bound to all your ips with users accessing their home directories ... and you like GUI configuration, you may want to try GProFTPD. Also, PureFTPd has a third-party KDE GUI frontend, if KDE is your thing ;)

http://proftpd.org/ has more info on manual configuration of ProFTPd :D

EDIT: hey cool, the nodding smiley almost moves to the same beat as your bouncy anime chick :D

Edited December 30, 2003 by MG-Cloud

[kemical]

  MG-Cloud said:

:yes:

If you need more advanced configuration than just a single ftp server bound to all your ips with users accessing their home directories ... and you like GUI configuration, you may want to try GProFTPD. Also, PureFTPd has a third-party KDE GUI frontend, if KDE is your thing ;)

http://proftpd.org/ has more info on manual configuration of ProFTPd :D

EDIT: hey cool, the nodding smiley almost moves to the same beat as your bouncy anime chick :D

lol

[MulletRobZ]

PureFTPD generates an error saying that it cannot start a standalone server with the address already being in use. Might need some help on this one.

[MulletRobZ]

OK. I try KCM-PureFTPD and when it comes to adding users, the console says that a password file is required. What up with that? The documentation is not of any use for me so maybe somebody can explain this a bit more clearly and I should be able to take it on from there.

[kemical]

so did you get the server started or not?

[MulletRobZ]

  kemical said:

so did you get the server started or not?

Unfortunately, not.

[kemical]

how did you start the server, ive read over their documentation a little bit going to see if i can help

[MulletRobZ]

/usr/local/bin/pure-pw for the KCM-PureFTPD and /usr/local/sbin/pure-ftpd for PureFTPD. Trying these commands would not allow me to run the server at all.

[kemical]

are you behind a router? if you read the documentation on the website it shows you how to start the ftp server

[MulletRobZ]

Documentation's useless. And no, I'm not behind a router.

[MG-Cloud]

How is the documentation useless? It seems pretty thorough to me :)

Anyways, this link seems to deal with the creation of virtual users (that *is* what you're currently trying to accomplish, is it not?), and also mentions a password file (/etc/proftpd.passwd). It might be of some assistance.

If not, what exactly is it that you're trying to do, what errors do you get if any, and what have you tried to do (eg... config directives?)

[MulletRobZ]

Ah. I think I have a general idea about these files, but the passwd file in /etc needs a bit of explaining.

root:x:0:0::/root:/bin/bash

Take the above line as an example. Tell me what the fields I left question marks for are:

root -> represents the user, pretty straight forward.

x -> represents the password

The next two numbers -> ?

The blank between the two colons -> ?

/root -> represents the location of the FTP

/bin/bash -> ?

[MG-Cloud]

Hi :)

If I'm reading this correctly, you're talking about the /etc/passwd file right? If so, you can find out everything you need in `man 5 passwd' :) Basically though, the two numbers represent the UID and GID (user id and group id), the blank is usually just a blank - read the man page for a bit more info on this, and /bin/bash is the shell they will use when they log in.

From a quick glance at that virtual users file, it seems that pureftpd (when dealing with virtual users at least) uses /etc/pureftpd.passwd ... there are a few utilities that abstract the read/writing from that file - KCM-PureFTPd should be one of them. Maybe it doesn't have permissions to access the passwd file - are you running it as root? Also, you may want ot make sure that that file exists.

Sorry, I can't help with the GUI because I run GNOME and not KDE :)

Finally, I did a bit of looking around on that KCM-PureFTPd site and found a link to this which might work well for you.

[ISSWHU]

vsftp is better

[MulletRobZ]

Oh God! This data is so confusing! I tried adding a user on the ftpusers file and I changed the port to 10, but still no luck! What I need is a step by step guide to setting up ProFTPD or PureFTPD! Sorry if I've been frustrating ya.

[Lighthater]

  ISSWHU said:

vsftp is better

I agree. :yes:

[Lighthater]

http://www.linuxhelp.net/guides/proftpd/

http://linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/2000032000404NWHL

I googled ProFTPD. Looks like a few setup guides out there. Maybe those will have what you need.

[MulletRobZ]

Ok. Here's my progress.

I can host the server in anonymous mode.

I can view the log in /var/log/proftpd.log.

Now if I were to force a user login, what would I need to do to create virtual users and how do I generate UID and GID? I gave that a try and I'm not having a lot of luck. I don't want to create new permanent accounts, just two virtual users. Once that's done, I'm good to go.

[+BudMan MVC]

  Webgraph said:

Documentation's useless.? And no, I'm not behind a router.

If looking to configure proftpd, and since it seems the the very detailed documentation is too much for you to handle? Which lends me to believe you have NOT read the documentation - since it very detailed! FAQs, Examples, RFCs, a userguide that seems to hold your hand through the whole process - from compile to running.

What documentation are you reading?? http://proftpd.linux.co.uk/ would be the place to read about proftpd - it has everything you would ever want to know about setting up and running it.

Since the documentation contains everything you could need to get it up and running - I have nothing to suggest besides installing webmin, which has a very nice "easy to use" module for configuring proftpd.

Webmin is a great FREE tool for doing many things on a linux box, adding users, NFS exports, Apache config, Samba, DNS, MySQL, sendmail, etc.. etc... etc... very simple to install (install script) or rpm --> I suggest you check it out http://www.webmin.com

[MulletRobZ]

I read the f***ing documentation like five times already and I don't understand the process of creating virtual users. I even tried the anonrequirepassword option and I can't even log in! Did that by trying to create AuthUserFile and I even tried to copy some script on how to use the anonrequirepassword option. Perhaps you may be able to show me some more reliable instructions than this documentation?

[MulletRobZ]

Can't anybody post some of their proper config files (AuthUserFile, proftpd.conf, ftpusers, passwd) so I may be able to understand how to force use logins? :D

[mr_daemon]

Oh good lord, come on, looking in the source tarball and magically discovering a bunch of example config files is not that hard...

# Angeldust ProftpD configuration
# Normal, user based login
# (Anonymous available as well, but commented out by default)

ServerName                      "Project Angeldust v5.0 FTP Server"
ServerType                      standalone
DefaultServer                   on

# Port 21 is the standard FTP port.
Port                            21
# Umask 022 is a good standard umask to prevent new dirs and files
# from being group and world writable.
Umask                           022

# To prevent DoS attacks, set the maximum number of child processes
# to 30.  If you need to allow more than 30 concurrent connections
# at once, simply increase this value.  Note that this ONLY works
# in standalone mode, in inetd mode you should use an inetd server
# that allows you to limit maximum number of processes per service
# (such as xinetd)
MaxInstances                    30

# Set the user and group that the server normally runs at.
User                            nobody
Group                           nogroup

# Normally, we want files to be overwriteable.
<Directory /*>
  AllowOverwrite                on
</Directory>

# A basic anonymous configuration, no upload directories.
#Anonymous ~ftp>
#  User                         ftp
#  Group                                ftp
#  # We want clients to be able to login with "anonymous" as well as "ftp"
#  UserAlias                    anonymous ftp
#
#  # Limit the maximum number of anonymous logins
#  MaxClients                   10
#
#  # We want 'welcome.msg' displayed at login, and '.message' displayed
#  # in each newly chdired directory.
#  DisplayLogin                 welcome.msg
#  DisplayFirstChdir            .message
#
 # # Limit WRITE everywhere in the anonymous chroot
#  <Limit WRITE>
#    DenyAll
#  </Limit>

#</Anonymous>

Mine, no anonymous (it's commented out.) just users...

Did you REALLY read the documentation...? I know you state you have read it like, five times, but come on, if you can't understand the line that says

  Quote

ProFTPD uses a single configuration file.  A few examples are included in

the sample-configurations subdirectory of the source distribution.

in the README file, or bother to look into the sample-configurations folder inside the main source tree...

[MulletRobZ]

Well thanks for that info. It finally worked with the user logins, so I don't have to hassle you all about this question anymore.