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

[frodon]

There's some support for this guide in the hoary section
Some questions are already answered in the OLD THREAD ,if you need support you should read it before posting here.

I created this How to for people who want to share files with friends using FTP protocol, like FTPservU under windows. The way i give you is not the only one, I hope my How to is enough clear.
This FTP server will allow only users with the good password (persons to whom you gave the password and username). So you will be sure that only known persons will access your FTP server.

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 :

sudo apt-get install proftpd gproftpd

2-Play with the GUI and set up quickly your server.
Beware no support is offered here for this tool but it shouldn't be too hard to use.


B- The secure way


1- Install proftpd with synaptic or with this command :

sudo apt-get install proftpd

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

/bin/false

Create a /home/FTP-shared directory :

cd /home
sudo mkdir FTP-shared

Create a user named userftp which will be used only for ftp access. This user don't need a valid shell (more secure) therefore select /bin/false shell for userftp and /home/FTP-shared 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 :

sudo useradd userftp -p your_password -d /home/FTP-shared -s /bin/false
sudo passwd userftp

In FTP-shared directory create a download and an upload directory :

cd /home/FTP-shared/
sudo mkdir download
sudo mkdir upload

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

cd /home
sudo chmod 755 FTP-shared
cd FTP-shared
sudo chmod 755 download
sudo chmod 777 upload

3- OK, now go to the proftpd configuration file :

sudo gedit /etc/proftpd.conf

or for edgy eft (ubuntu 6.10) :

sudo gedit /etc/proftpd/proftpd.conf

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

# To really apply changes reload proftpd after modifications.
AllowOverwrite on
AuthAliasOnly on

# Choose here the user alias you want !!!!
UserAlias sauron userftp

ServerName			"ChezFrodon"
ServerType 			standalone
DeferWelcome			on

MultilineRFC2228 on
DefaultServer			on
ShowSymlinks			off

TimeoutNoTransfer 600
TimeoutStalled 100
TimeoutIdle 2200

DisplayFirstChdir               .message
ListOptions                	"-l"

RequireValidShell 		off

TimeoutLogin 20

RootLogin 			off

# It's better for debug to create log files ;-)
ExtendedLog 			/var/log/ftp.log
TransferLog 			/var/log/xferlog
SystemLog			/var/log/syslog.log

#DenyFilter			\*.*/

# I don't choose to use /etc/ftpusers file (set inside the users you want to ban, not useful for me)
UseFtpUsers off

# Allow to restart a download
AllowStoreRestart		on

# Port 21 is the standard FTP port, so you may prefer to use another port for security reasons (choose here the port you want)
Port				1980

# 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 8

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

# Umask 022 is a good standard umask to prevent new files and dirs
# (second parm) from being group and world writable.
Umask				022	022

PersistentPasswd		off

MaxClients 8
MaxClientsPerHost 8
MaxClientsPerUser 8
MaxHostsPerUser 8

# Display a message after a successful login
AccessGrantMsg "welcome !!!"
# This message is displayed for each access good or not
ServerIdent                  on       "you're at home"

# Set /home/FTP-shared directory as home directory
DefaultRoot /home/FTP-shared

# Lock all the users in home directory, ***** really important *****
DefaultRoot ~

MaxLoginAttempts    5

#VALID LOGINS
<Limit LOGIN>
AllowUser userftp
DenyALL
</Limit>

<Directory /home/FTP-shared>
Umask 022 022
AllowOverwrite off
	<Limit MKD STOR DELE XMKD RNRF RNTO RMD XRMD>
	DenyAll
	</Limit>
</Directory>

<Directory /home/FTP-shared/download/*>
Umask 022 022
AllowOverwrite off
	<Limit MKD STOR DELE XMKD RNEF RNTO RMD XRMD>
	DenyAll
	</Limit>
</Directory>

<Directory /home/FTP-shared/upload/>
Umask 022 022
AllowOverwrite on
	<Limit READ RMD DELE>
      	DenyAll
    	</Limit>

    	<Limit STOR CWD MKD>
      	AllowAll
    	</Limit>
</Directory>

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

4- To start/stop/restart your server :

sudo /etc/init.d/proftpd start
sudo /etc/init.d/proftpd stop
sudo /etc/init.d/proftpd restart

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

sudo proftpd -td5

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.
other informations here


C- Advanced tricks

1- Enable TLS/SSL encryption (FTPS)
** Inportant note : proftpd versions before 1.3.2-rc2 may not work with latest filezilla versions using TLS encryption. See raymond.szebin's post for details.

The FTP file sharing protocol is an old protocol which was created when internet was still a secure place, therefore the default FTP protocol is not that secure.
For example the password and username for login are transmitted in plain text which obviously isn't secure.
That why, to fit the needs of our generation, encryption solutions were developed and one of them is TLS/SSH encryption.
This will encrypt the username and password and all the data you send, obviously to use it the FTP client must support SFTP protocol.

here are the steps to enable TLS/SSH encryption (FTPS):

Paste these commands in a terminal :

sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo apt-get install libssl-dev
cd /etc
sudo mkdir ftpcert
cd ftpcert/
sudo openssl genrsa -des3 -out server.key 1024
sudo openssl req -new -key server.key -out server.csr
sudo openssl genrsa -des3 -out ca.key 1024
sudo openssl req -new -x509 -days 365 -key ca.key -out ca.crt 
sudo wget http://frodubuntu.free.fr/ubuntu/sign.sh
sudo chmod +x sign.sh
sudo ./sign.sh server.csr

Then add this section to yout proftpd.conf file :

<IfModule mod_tls.c>
    TLSEngine on
    TLSLog /var/ftpd/tls.log
    TLSProtocol TLSv1

    # Are clients required to use FTP over TLS when talking to this server?
    TLSRequired off

    # Server's certificate
    TLSRSACertificateFile /etc/ftpcert/server.crt
    TLSRSACertificateKeyFile /etc/ftpcert/server.key

    # CA the server trusts
    TLSCACertificateFile /etc/ftpcert/ca.crt

    # Authenticate clients that want to use FTP over TLS?
    TLSVerifyClient off
</IfModule>

If you use edgy or proftpd 1.3 in general add this line at the beginning of your proftpd.conf file, it will load all the extra modules like mod_tls.c :

Include /etc/proftpd/modules.conf

Note - Use TLSRequired ON to force the use of TLS. OFF means that the use of TLS is optional.

Optional step:
You will notice that you will be asked for the password you set for the server.key file each time you start/stop/restart the server, it is because the RSA private key is encrypted in the server.key file.
The solution is to remove the encryption of the RSA private key but it makes the key readable in the server.key file which is obviously less secure, anyway if you do that make sure that the server.key is readable only by root.
Once you know that it's less secure here are the command lines to remove the encryption of the RSA private key :

cd /etc/ftpcert
cp server.key server.key.org
openssl rsa -in server.key.org -out server.key

Here are some links to read in case of problems or just to get more informations :
http://www.modssl.org/docs/2.7/ssl_faq.html#cert-ownca
http://www.castaglia.org/proftpd/doc...HOWTO-TLS.html

To use your TLS encrypted FTP server you will need a FTP client which support it like the latest versions of filezilla (the one present in the feisty repository has the TLS support).
In filezilla the option to use is called FTPES.

Thanks to nix4me for the help he provided and for the instructions.

2- Restrict access for some users
Some of you wish, for different reasons, to create more than one user and give a different access depending on the user.
For example if i create 2 users, one called user1 and the second called user2 and then want to deny access to the download directory for user2, You can do it as following :

First create the 2 users like userftp in the guide and give them alias names if you use aliases. Then allow your 2 users in the general LIMIT LOGIN section :

#VALID LOGINS
<Limit LOGIN>
AllowUser user1
AllowUser user2
DenyALL
</Limit>

Once done here is how to modify the directory sections to chose who is able to use which directory :

<Directory /home/FTP-shared/download/*>
Umask 022 022
AllowOverwrite off

        <Limit ALL>
		Order Allow,Deny
		AllowUser user1
		Deny ALL
	</Limit>

	<Limit MKD STOR DELE XMKD RNEF RNTO RMD XRMD>
	DenyAll
	</Limit>
</Directory>

<Directory> /home/FTP-shared/upload/>
Umask 022 022
AllowOverwrite on

       <Limit ALL>
		Order Allow,Deny
		AllowUser user1
                AllowUser user2
		Deny ALL
	</Limit>

	<Limit READ RMD DELE>
      	DenyAll
    	</Limit>

    	<Limit STOR CWD MKD>
      	AllowAll
    	</Limit>
</Directory>

Note - user2 will see the download directory but will not be able to enter the directory.

That's all


Misc
Best Common Practices - Everyone should read this
http://www.castaglia.org/proftpd/doc...HOWTO-BCP.html

ProftpTools 1.0.1
ProftpTools is a script I wrote thanks to swoop's feedback. This script allow you to start/stop proftpd, mount/unmount auto/manually directories, show your IP, ... and all of that with a GUI in order to use proftpd in a really easy way !
To install ProftpTools, download ProftpTools-v1.0.2.tar.gz (at the bottom of the page) if the wget command don't work and untar it where you want and then move the ProftpTools file in /usr/bin :

wget http://frodubuntu.free.fr/ubuntu/ProftpTools-v1.0.2.tar.gz
tar -xzvf ProftpTools-v1.0.2.tar.gz
cd ProftpTools-v1.0.2/
sudo mv ProftpTools /usr/bin/

Then add these lines in your .bashrc (it's in your home directory : gedit /home/username/.bashrc) file in order to specify what is the ProftpTools directory path, YOU MUST REMOVE THE "/" CHARACTER at the end of the path. I give you an exemple if your ProftpTools directory is in your home directory :

ProftpTools_dir=/home/username/ProftpTools-v1.0.2
export ProftpTools_dir

Now all you have to do is to type ProftpTools in a terminal and .... enjoy
You need zenity installed to use this script.

Don't hesitate to post in this thread or send me PM to report bugs, ask new features, correct my english, suggest improvement and thank you to give me feedback about this tool.

useful trick :
This trick is integrated in ProftpTools.
If you don't want (like me ) to use space in your /home directory, and use space on another hard drive, or if you just want to share a directory from another partition ... you can mount the directory you want in your download or upload directory without changing anything in proftpd.conf file, use these commands :

sudo mount -o bind the_directory_you_want_to_share /home/FTP-shared/download
or
sudo mount -o bind the_directory_you_want_to_use_for_upload /home/FTP-shared/upload

This command will not overwrite the directory, the idea is just to mount a directory in another one without overwritng anything, so when someone will log in your server he will see and use the mounted directory if you have mounted one. To unmout a directory (download directory for exemple):

sudo umount /home/FTP-shared/download

Permanent mount :
If you don't want to re-mount your directories after a reboot you can add a line in fstab file like that (sudo gedit /etc/fstab to open the file) :

the_directory_to_mount /home/FTP-shared/download vfat bind 0 0

thanks reet

If you want to create other directories in FTP-shared, think to add it in proftpd.conf file.
Don't hesitate to test yourself your server using gFTP for exemple, it's really helpful to debug your server.

Other stuff
If you have a router you should read that, it describe the 2 commands to add in proftpd.conf and why.
If you have a dynamic DNS have a look here, you can also use ddclient(maybe easier for newbies).
Most of informations you're looking for are here
To get more debug informations : http://www.proftpd.org/localsite/Use...ked/x1058.html
You can specify a specific passive port range using PassivePorts command, it's very useful when you use a firewall in order to know which ports to allow.

For those who have a firewall/router i advice to read this excelent post from mssm

Thanks for feedback, and sorry if my english is sometimes really bad

Don't hesitate to post questions about proftpd in this thread.

[anatole]

hi,
thanks for the howto, however, i have a problem.
i have a router and the proftpd site is not really informative... well at least not for a noob like me so... on the link, it says "First configure your ProFTPD install so that it works right from inside the NAT. There are example configuration files included with the source." now i downloaded the source and had a look on the config files, but i couldn't find anything relevant. any help on this?
also, i'm not sure if i entered the value of 'MasqueradeAddress' correctly. I entered my dyndns domain, so what i get is

attila@nanaki:/home/FTP-shared$ sudo /etc/init.d/proftpd restart
Password:
Restarting ProFTPD ftp daemon.proftpd.
..localhost.localdomain - 127.0.0.1:1980 masquerading as 84.0.161.247
proftpd.
 done.

is thít what should happen? i'm just asking because i'm not sure

i did everything else as the guide said, and my problem is that i get a connection timeout. any help would be appreciated, thanks

[frodon]

I'm not a NAT expert because i have only a software firewall but i think this link could help you, also in the original thread some users have used these commands with success, try to follow their example or send us a PM, your problem will be quickly solved.

[anatole]

strange, i get the 530 error when i try to log in... i've read the otheer forum but all my setting should match...

attila@nanaki:/home$ la
total 8.0K
drwxr-xr-x  55 attila  attila 4.0K 2005-10-22 17:46 attila
drwxr-xr-x   4 userftp root   4.0K 2005-10-22 10:45 FTP-shared
attila@nanaki:/home$ la FTP-shared 
total 8.0K
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4.0K 2005-10-22 10:45 download
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root 4.0K 2005-10-22 10:45 upload

sorry i'm almost sure i'm being lame but i cannot help it so here is my proftpd.conf as well, anyone could help?

[frodon]

You should comment the 2 last lines of your file because you have 3 active MasqueradeAddress lines in your file, and also try to change the password of the user, i already met persons who've got problems with the user password.
Your settings looks good, did you test the server with your own computer or with a friend ?

[anatole]

Originally Posted by frodon You should comment the 2 last lines of your file because you have 3 active MasqueradeAddress lines in your file, and also try to change the password of the user, i already met persons who've got problems with the user password. Your settings looks good, did you test the server with your own computer or with a friend ?

changed the password, commented out the last two lines, still error 530. tested on my comp, and on a friend's one. :/

[frodon]

Hmm, have you tested to comment the MasqueradeAddress and PassivePorts lines to see if the problem come from these lines ? Because for me your configuration is ok, are you sure to put the good parameters in gFTP when you attempt to connect yourself to the server ?
Just in case give me the gFTP log and what you enter in the fields but i guess it's ok.
Also if you still have a 530 error it could be interesting to collect more debug infos.

[kapetanski]

Thanx for the howto, it works great! But I think it's strange that the xferlog has been empty two times now since I started to use my ftp server, is it cleared by default? Are there other logfiles aswell that proftpd use? I'am also thinking of using ssh(or some sort of crypto) on the proftpd server, anyone tried this?

[frodon]

What you're looking for is in the mod_tls module of proftpd, you should already have it (use the proftpd -l command to verify it).
There is a reference exemple here and i think it's a good start to read this exemple.
If you get SSL/TLS working, send me a PM or post here and i will add this in the GUIDE.

Why do you want to use secure ftp protocol ? i'm just curious

[frodon]

Originally Posted by anatole changed the password, commented out the last two lines, still error 530. tested on my comp, and on a friend's one. :/

You could try this command line :

sudo passwd userftp

and then retype your password, it solve the problem for tspec who give me his feedback.