FTp downloading and installation
How To Download And Install VSFTPD
Most RedHat and Fedora Linux software products are available in the RPM format. Downloading and installing RPMs isn’t hard. If you need a refresher, on RPMs, covers how to do this in detail. It is best to use the latest version of VSFTPD.
When searching for the file, remember that the VSFTPD RPM’s filename usually starts with the word vsftpd followed by a version number, as in: vsftpd-1.2.1-5.i386.rpm.
How To Get VSFTPD Started(very sercure file transfer protocal)
You can start, stop, or restart VSFTPD
[root@t]# service vsftpd start
[root@]# service vsftpd stop
[root@]# service vsftpd restart
To configure VSFTPD to start at boot you can use the chkconfig command.
[root@]# chkconfig vsftpd on
You can check whether the VSFTPD process is running by using the netstat -a command which lists all the TCP and UDP ports on which the server is listening for trafficyour out put should be .
[root@]# netstat -a | grep ftp
tcp 0 0 *:ftp *:* LISTEN
[root@]#
If VSFTPD is not running, there would be no output at all.
VSFTPD only reads the contents of its vsftpd.conf configuration file only when it starts, so you’ll have to restart VSFTPD each time you edit the file in order for the changes to take effect.
This file uses a number of default settings you need to know about.
VSFTPD runs as an anonymous FTP server. Unless you want any remote user to log into to your default FTP directory using a username of anonymous and a password that’s the same as their email address, we would suggest turning this off. The configuration file’s anonymous_enable directive can be set to no to disable this feature. You’ll also need to simultaneously enable local users to be able to log in by removing the comment symbol (#) before the local_enable instruction.
VSFTPD allows only anonymous FTP downloads to remote users, not uploads from them. This can be changed by modifying the anon_upload_enable directive shown later.
VSFTPD doesn’t allow anonymous users to create directories on your FTP server. You can change this by modifying the anon_mkdir_write_enable directive.
VSFTPD logs FTP access to the /var/log/vsftpd.log log file. You can change this by modifying the xferlog_file directive.
By default VSFTPD expects files for anonymous FTP to be placed in the /var/ftp directory. You can change this by modifying the anon_root directive. There is always the risk with anonymous FTP that users will discover a way to write files to your anonymous FTP directory. You run the risk of filling up your /var partition if you use the default setting. It is best to make the anonymous FTP directory reside in its own dedicated partition.
File should be .
# Allow anonymous FTP?
anonymous_enable=YES
…
# Uncomment this to allow local users to log in.
local_enable=YES
…
# Uncomment this to enable any form of FTP write command.
# (Needed even if you want local users to be able to upload files)
write_enable=YES
…
# Uncomment to allow the anonymous FTP user to upload files. This only
# has an effect if global write enable is activated. Also, you will
# obviously need to create a directory writable by the FTP user.
#anon_upload_enable=YES
…
# Uncomment this if you want the anonymous FTP user to be able to create
# new directories.
#anon_mkdir_write_enable=YES
…
# Activate logging of uploads/downloads.
xferlog_enable=YES
…
# You may override where the log file goes if you like.
# The default is shown# below.
#xferlog_file=/var/log/vsftpd.log
…
# The directory which vsftpd will try to change
# into after an anonymous login. (Default = /var/ftp)
#anon_root=/data/directory
To activate or deactivate a feature, remove or add the # at the beginning of the appropriate line.
There are many other options you can add to this file:
Limiting the maximum number of client connections (max_clients)
Limiting the number of connections by source IP address (max_per_ip)
The maximum rate of data transfer per anonymous login. (anon_max_rate)
The maximum rate of data transfer per non-anonymous login. (local_max_rate)
Descriptions on this and more can be found in the vsftpd.conf man pages.
FTP has a number of security drawbacks, but you can overcome them in some cases. You can restrict an individual Linux user’s access to non-anonymous FTP, and you can change the configuration to not display the FTP server’s software version information, but unfortunately, though very convenient, FTP logins and data transfers are not encrypted.
The /etc/vsftpd.ftpusers File
For added security, we can restrict FTP access to certain users by adding them to the list of users in the /etc/vsftpd.ftpusers file. The VSFTPD package creates this file with a number of entries for privileged users that normally shouldn’t have FTP access. As FTP doesn’t encrypt passwords, thereby increasing the risk of data or passwords being compromised, these entries remain and add new entries for additional security.
If you want remote users to write data to your FTP server, then you should create a write-only directory within /var/ftp/pub. This will allow your users to upload but not access other files uploaded by other users. The commands you need are:
[root@]# mkdir /var/ftp/pub/upload
[root@]# chmod 722 /var/ftp/pub/upload
FTP Greeting Banner
Change the default greeting banner in the vsftpd.conf file to make it harder for malicious users to determine the type of system you have. The directive in this file is.
ftpd_banner= New Banner Here
Using SCP As Secure Alternative To FTP
One of the disadvantages of FTP is that it does not encrypt your username and password. This could make your user account vulnerable to an unauthorized attack from a person eavesdropping on the network connection. Secure Copy (SCP) and Secure FTP (SFTP) provide encryption and could be considered as an alternative to FTP for trusted users. SCP does not support anonymous services, however, a feature that FTP does support.
You should always test your FTP installation by attempting to use an FTP client to log in to your FTP server to transfer sample files.
The most common sources of day-to-day failures are incorrect usernames and passwords.
Initial setup failures could be caused by firewalls along the path between the client and server blocking some or all types of FTP traffic. Typical symptoms of this are either connection timeouts or the ability to use the ls command to view the contents of a directory without the ability to either upload or download files. Follow the firewall rule guidelines to help overcome this problem..”
