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Thread: uploading files to LAMP on UBUNTU Desktop

  1. #1
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    uploading files to LAMP on UBUNTU Desktop

    My apologies if this would best belong somewhere else but I decided to dive in.

    I have an older computer that I thought that I would try to put to work as a developmental server. I have no experience with LINUX but had the notion that I would get my feet wet by downloading and installing UBUNTU 12.04 (Desktop) on it. That worked flawlessly. I then installed LAMP with a few hurdles of my own making, but eventually got it working and parked a few PHP files in the var/www directory and was able to access them there. I hardwired the machine to my Linksys Wireless router and can view the files from other Windows machines on the network.

    My next objective was to attempt to sort out how I would be able to upload files to the Apache server on UBUNTU using something like Filezilla or preferably directly from Dreamweaver on a Windows 7 laptop.

    I was optimistic when I saw the line “Connection established, waiting for welcome message...’ in the Filezilla log, but I have hit a dead end.

    Status: Connecting to 192.168.1.105:80...
    Status: Connection established, waiting for welcome message...
    Error: Connection timed out
    Error: Could not connect to server

    I have tried the sudo user name as well as “root” for a user name.

    I installed webmin thinking that this might bring me closer to discovering the solution. I am clearly out of my league here. Does anyone have any advice for me as to what I need to install or how I need to configure what I have to achieve the desired results?

    Thanks for your help.

  2. #2
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    Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin

    Re: uploading files to LAMP on UBUNTU Desktop

    Status: Connecting to 192.168.1.105:80...
    Why 80? That indicates that you're trying to connect to apache.

    Do you have a FTP server (daemon) running? You use a ftp client to connect to a ftp server (daemon), not to a web server (daemon).

    If you haven't done so, install e.g. vsftpd
    If you don't make backups of your important data, your data is obviously not important to you.

  3. #3
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    Re: uploading files to LAMP on UBUNTU Desktop

    Thanks for the quick response. I confess that I am completely clueless when it comes to this stuff. But you have to start somewhere. I came to the erroneous conclusion that I would want to connect to Apache.

    I will install vsftpd

    What port should I be using then?

  4. #4
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    Re: uploading files to LAMP on UBUNTU Desktop

    Thanks again. Somewhere I read that it is Port 21 and it worked. Now it is a matter of learning how to edit some files, change permissions, etc. so that I can upload files and create directories.

  5. #5
    Join Date
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    Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin

    Re: uploading files to LAMP on UBUNTU Desktop

    Great, please mark your thread as solved using the thread tools just above the first post on this page.

    I never use /var/www; my web directories are in the user's home directory. This is an approach from long ago where I did not want to fight with permissions. Just a matter of changing the 'document root' in the apache configuration Only disadvantage is that apache can't write there but not everybody has a need for that and it can be solved by having a dedicated subdirectory where apache can write.
    If you don't make backups of your important data, your data is obviously not important to you.

  6. #6
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    Re: uploading files to LAMP on UBUNTU Desktop

    I appreciate your comment about fighting with permissions.

    I bumbled around for a couple of hours last evening trying to get it set up so that I could create a directory and upload files to var/www. No success yet. Downloading files behaves.

    I changed the vsftpd.conf file to allow creating directories but no combination of permissions that I tried would yield the results. It was set up for anonymous and I even tired changing that with no luck. And in my case it amounts to luck as I clearly don’t know what I’m doing. I have changed so many settings now that I will probably uninstall the whole thing to get back to equilibrium and start over.

    I decided to walk away from it for a while and perhaps I will get an inspiration.

    I would be the exclusive user of this developmental server and it is living on my home wireless router so I am thinking that security is not a major concern here.

    Thanks again.

  7. #7
    Join Date
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    Re: uploading files to LAMP on UBUNTU Desktop

    I thought that I would leave this open until I had a chance to try to play with the ownership and permissions to determine if I could sort this out by myself.

    So far no success. Luck might be a better word as I clearly am clearly bumbling around in an attempt to have a solution revealed to me.

    While using Filezilla I am able to see the files that are parked in /var/www but I still can’t create a directory, rename or upload a file to it.

    Here is the way that vsftpd.conf is set up:

    # Example config file /etc/vsftpd.conf
    #
    # The default compiled in settings are fairly paranoid. This sample file
    # loosens things up a bit, to make the ftp daemon more usable.
    # Please see vsftpd.conf.5 for all compiled in defaults.
    #
    # READ THIS: This example file is NOT an exhaustive list of vsftpd options.
    # Please read the vsftpd.conf.5 manual page to get a full idea of vsftpd's
    # capabilities.
    #
    #
    # Run standalone? vsftpd can run either from an inetd or as a standalone
    # daemon started from an initscript.
    listen=YES
    #
    # Run standalone with IPv6?
    # Like the listen parameter, except vsftpd will listen on an IPv6 socket
    # instead of an IPv4 one. This parameter and the listen parameter are mutually
    # exclusive.
    #listen_ipv6=YES
    #
    # Allow anonymous FTP? (Beware - allowed by default if you comment this out).
    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.
    write_enable=YES
    #
    # Default umask for local users is 077. You may wish to change this to 022,
    # if your users expect that (022 is used by most other ftpd's)
    #local_umask=022
    #
    # Uncomment this to allow the anonymous FTP user to upload files. This only
    # has an effect if the above 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 directory messages - messages given to remote users when they
    # go into a certain directory.
    dirmessage_enable=YES
    #
    # If enabled, vsftpd will display directory listings with the time
    # in your local time zone. The default is to display GMT. The
    # times returned by the MDTM FTP command are also affected by this
    # option.
    use_localtime=YES
    #
    # Activate logging of uploads/downloads.
    xferlog_enable=YES
    #
    # Make sure PORT transfer connections originate from port 20 (ftp-data).
    connect_from_port_20=YES
    #
    # If you want, you can arrange for uploaded anonymous files to be owned by
    # a different user. Note! Using "root" for uploaded files is not
    # recommended!
    #chown_uploads=YES
    #chown_username=whoever
    #
    # You may override where the log file goes if you like. The default is shown
    # below.
    #xferlog_file=/var/log/vsftpd.log
    #
    # If you want, you can have your log file in standard ftpd xferlog format.
    # Note that the default log file location is /var/log/xferlog in this case.
    #xferlog_std_format=YES
    #
    # You may change the default value for timing out an idle session.
    #idle_session_timeout=600
    #
    # You may change the default value for timing out a data connection.
    #data_connection_timeout=120
    #
    # It is recommended that you define on your system a unique user which the
    # ftp server can use as a totally isolated and unprivileged user.
    #nopriv_user=ftpsecure
    #
    # Enable this and the server will recognise asynchronous ABOR requests. Not
    # recommended for security (the code is non-trivial). Not enabling it,
    # however, may confuse older FTP clients.
    #async_abor_enable=YES
    #
    # By default the server will pretend to allow ASCII mode but in fact ignore
    # the request. Turn on the below options to have the server actually do ASCII
    # mangling on files when in ASCII mode.
    # Beware that on some FTP servers, ASCII support allows a denial of service
    # attack (DoS) via the command "SIZE /big/file" in ASCII mode. vsftpd
    # predicted this attack and has always been safe, reporting the size of the
    # raw file.
    # ASCII mangling is a horrible feature of the protocol.
    #ascii_upload_enable=YES
    #ascii_download_enable=YES
    #
    # You may fully customise the login banner string:
    #ftpd_banner=Welcome to blah FTP service.
    #
    # You may specify a file of disallowed anonymous e-mail addresses. Apparently
    # useful for combatting certain DoS attacks.
    #deny_email_enable=YES
    # (default follows)
    #banned_email_file=/etc/vsftpd.banned_emails
    #
    # You may restrict local users to their home directories. See the FAQ for
    # the possible risks in this before using chroot_local_user or
    # chroot_list_enable below.
    #chroot_local_user=YES
    #
    # You may specify an explicit list of local users to chroot() to their home
    # directory. If chroot_local_user is YES, then this list becomes a list of
    # users to NOT chroot().
    # (Warning! chroot'ing can be very dangerous. If using chroot, make sure that
    # the user does not have write access to the top level directory within the
    # chroot)
    #chroot_local_user=YES
    #chroot_list_enable=YES
    # (default follows)
    #chroot_list_file=/etc/vsftpd.chroot_list
    #
    # You may activate the "-R" option to the builtin ls. This is disabled by
    # default to avoid remote users being able to cause excessive I/O on large
    # sites. However, some broken FTP clients such as "ncftp" and "mirror" assume
    # the presence of the "-R" option, so there is a strong case for enabling it.
    #ls_recurse_enable=YES
    #
    # Customization
    #
    # Some of vsftpd's settings don't fit the filesystem layout by
    # default.
    #
    # This option should be the name of a directory which is empty. Also, the
    # directory should not be writable by the ftp user. This directory is used
    # as a secure chroot() jail at times vsftpd does not require filesystem
    # access.
    secure_chroot_dir=/var/run/vsftpd/empty
    #
    # This string is the name of the PAM service vsftpd will use.
    pam_service_name=vsftpd
    #
    # This option specifies the location of the RSA certificate to use for SSL
    # encrypted connections.
    rsa_cert_file=/etc/ssl/private/vsftpd.pem

    Here is the current permissions and ownership for the /var/www directory.

    ray@ray-desktop:/var$ ls -la
    total 56

    drwxr-xr-x 2 ray root 4096 Oct 15 22:45 www

    And the permissions and ownership for the /etc/apache2 directory.

    ray@ray-desktop:/etc$ ls -la
    total 1164

    drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 4096 Oct 15 21:33 apache2


    I have done a restrart on both the vsftpd and Apacche2.

    I didn’t have a lot of ideas in the first place and now I have none. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

  8. #8
    Join Date
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    Location
    South Africa
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    2,098
    Distro
    Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin

    Re: uploading files to LAMP on UBUNTU Desktop

    That's exactly why I use a different approach

    You can make yourself a member of the www group. I think that that would solve the permission issue.

    There is another problem with your setup. Using ftp, you can access your full file system which is dangerous. I know that you're only 'playing', but you should get in the habit of securing it from the start. The change that should be made in the vsftpd.conf is to remove the '#' at the beginning of the line in red.

    Code:
    #chroot_local_user=YES
    #chroot_list_enable=YES
    # (default follows)
    #chroot_list_file=/etc/vsftpd.chroot_list
    This will jail users to their home directory so they can't snoop around and mess up. The implication is that you can't get to /var/www; maybe a symlink in your home directory to /var/www will work (other can advise).
    Last edited by Wim Sturkenboom; October 19th, 2012 at 06:57 AM.
    If you don't make backups of your important data, your data is obviously not important to you.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Oct 2012
    Beans
    16

    Re: uploading files to LAMP on UBUNTU Desktop

    I have read a number of items on the Internet relating to ownership and permissions. Most of it makes sense but there are obviously lots that is eluding me.

    The vsftpd utility is currently set up for anonymous user. I tried logging through Filezilla using my UBUNTU user name and password it is successful in getting me to a file system that isn’t helpful. Empty directories. So I am no further ahead.

    This may be the dumbest question ever, but when you suggest that I should make myself a member of the /var/www group does that mean I should set up an “anonymous” user in UBUNTU?

    Sorry to be so dense about this and thanks for your patience. I don’t even know what questions to ask!

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    South Africa
    Beans
    2,098
    Distro
    Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin

    Re: uploading files to LAMP on UBUNTU Desktop

    I did misread your post #7; you've made yourself the owner of /var/www. So forget my comment about making yourself a member of the group www (which should actually be www-data).
    Code:
    ray@ray-desktop:/var$ ls -la
    total 56
    
    drwxr-xr-x 2 ray root 4096 Oct 15 22:45 www
    That's not really the intention but should do the trick mostly. Below my approach (with sufficient detail, I hope).

    Regarding vsftpd, anonymous login will not get you anywhere with regards to /var/www. Below is my vsftpd.conf that disables anonymous login and enables normal login. The version of vsftpd that comes with 12.04 gave me a hard time but this is tested and working; if you're using an older version of Ubuntu, you might not need the stuff at the end. When you ftp to the server and login with your ubuntu username and password (on the server), you will be taken to your home directory. Note that you need root privileges (so prepend commands with sudo (terminal) or gksudo graphical environment).

    Code:
    # Example config file /etc/vsftpd.conf
    #
    # The default compiled in settings are fairly paranoid. This sample file
    # loosens things up a bit, to make the ftp daemon more usable.
    # Please see vsftpd.conf.5 for all compiled in defaults.
    #
    # READ THIS: This example file is NOT an exhaustive list of vsftpd options.
    # Please read the vsftpd.conf.5 manual page to get a full idea of vsftpd's
    # capabilities.
    #
    #
    # Run standalone?  vsftpd can run either from an inetd or as a standalone
    # daemon started from an initscript.
    listen=YES
    #
    # Run standalone with IPv6?
    # Like the listen parameter, except vsftpd will listen on an IPv6 socket
    # instead of an IPv4 one. This parameter and the listen parameter are mutually
    # exclusive.
    #listen_ipv6=YES
    #
    # Allow anonymous FTP? (Beware - allowed by default if you comment this out).
    #WimS
    #anonymous_enable=YES
    anonymous_enable=NO
    #
    # Uncomment this to allow local users to log in.
    #WimS
    local_enable=YES
    #
    # Uncomment this to enable any form of FTP write command.
    #WimS
    write_enable=YES
    #
    # Default umask for local users is 077. You may wish to change this to 022,
    # if your users expect that (022 is used by most other ftpd's)
    #local_umask=022
    #
    # Uncomment this to allow the anonymous FTP user to upload files. This only
    # has an effect if the above 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 directory messages - messages given to remote users when they
    # go into a certain directory.
    dirmessage_enable=YES
    #
    # If enabled, vsftpd will display directory listings with the time
    # in  your  local  time  zone.  The default is to display GMT. The
    # times returned by the MDTM FTP command are also affected by this
    # option.
    use_localtime=YES
    #
    # Activate logging of uploads/downloads.
    xferlog_enable=YES
    #
    # Make sure PORT transfer connections originate from port 20 (ftp-data).
    connect_from_port_20=YES
    #
    # If you want, you can arrange for uploaded anonymous files to be owned by
    # a different user. Note! Using "root" for uploaded files is not
    # recommended!
    #chown_uploads=YES
    #chown_username=whoever
    #
    # You may override where the log file goes if you like. The default is shown
    # below.
    #xferlog_file=/var/log/vsftpd.log
    #
    # If you want, you can have your log file in standard ftpd xferlog format.
    # Note that the default log file location is /var/log/xferlog in this case.
    #xferlog_std_format=YES
    #
    # You may change the default value for timing out an idle session.
    #idle_session_timeout=600
    #
    # You may change the default value for timing out a data connection.
    #data_connection_timeout=120
    #
    # It is recommended that you define on your system a unique user which the
    # ftp server can use as a totally isolated and unprivileged user.
    #nopriv_user=ftpsecure
    #
    # Enable this and the server will recognise asynchronous ABOR requests. Not
    # recommended for security (the code is non-trivial). Not enabling it,
    # however, may confuse older FTP clients.
    #async_abor_enable=YES
    #
    # By default the server will pretend to allow ASCII mode but in fact ignore
    # the request. Turn on the below options to have the server actually do ASCII
    # mangling on files when in ASCII mode.
    # Beware that on some FTP servers, ASCII support allows a denial of service
    # attack (DoS) via the command "SIZE /big/file" in ASCII mode. vsftpd
    # predicted this attack and has always been safe, reporting the size of the
    # raw file.
    # ASCII mangling is a horrible feature of the protocol.
    #ascii_upload_enable=YES
    #ascii_download_enable=YES
    #
    # You may fully customise the login banner string:
    #ftpd_banner=Welcome to blah FTP service.
    #
    # You may specify a file of disallowed anonymous e-mail addresses. Apparently
    # useful for combatting certain DoS attacks.
    #deny_email_enable=YES
    # (default follows)
    #banned_email_file=/etc/vsftpd.banned_emails
    #
    # You may restrict local users to their home directories.  See the FAQ for
    # the possible risks in this before using chroot_local_user or
    # chroot_list_enable below.
    chroot_local_user=YES
    #
    # You may specify an explicit list of local users to chroot() to their home
    # directory. If chroot_local_user is YES, then this list becomes a list of
    # users to NOT chroot().
    # (Warning! chroot'ing can be very dangerous. If using chroot, make sure that
    # the user does not have write access to the top level directory within the
    # chroot)
    #chroot_local_user=YES
    #chroot_list_enable=YES
    # (default follows)
    #chroot_list_file=/etc/vsftpd.chroot_list
    #
    # You may activate the "-R" option to the builtin ls. This is disabled by
    # default to avoid remote users being able to cause excessive I/O on large
    # sites. However, some broken FTP clients such as "ncftp" and "mirror" assume
    # the presence of the "-R" option, so there is a strong case for enabling it.
    #ls_recurse_enable=YES
    #
    # Customization
    #
    # Some of vsftpd's settings don't fit the filesystem layout by
    # default.
    #
    # This option should be the name of a directory which is empty.  Also, the
    # directory should not be writable by the ftp user. This directory is used
    # as a secure chroot() jail at times vsftpd does not require filesystem
    # access.
    secure_chroot_dir=/var/run/vsftpd/empty
    #
    # This string is the name of the PAM service vsftpd will use.
    pam_service_name=vsftpd
    #
    # This option specifies the location of the RSA certificate to use for SSL
    # encrypted connections.
    rsa_cert_file=/etc/ssl/private/vsftpd.pem
    
    #WimS
    # to prevent the problem of "500 OOPS: vsftpd: refusing to run with writable root inside chroot()" after login as normal user
    #http://www.benscobie.com/fixing-500-oops-vsftpd-refusing-to-run-with-writable-root-inside-chroot/
    # allow_writeable_root=YES does not work !!
    # this makes the root directory /home instead of /home/user
    #local_root=/home
    # don't forget to change the user's homedir in /etc/password to e.g.
    #  /home/./wim
    passwd_chroot_enable=YES
    You need to make a modification to your /etc/password for every user that needs ftp access (not something that I prefer to do, but there is no other way). I've created a testuser; you need to find your user in that file. The first line below shows the original one, the second line the modified one. Again, root privileges are required to modify the file.
    Code:
    testuser:x:1001:1001:testuser,,,:/home/testuser:/bin/bash
    testuser:x:1001:1001:testuser,,,:/home/./testuser:/bin/bash
    Any user that you forget will see the follwoing after ftp login
    Code:
    500 OOPS: vsftpd: refusing to run with writable root inside chroot()
    Next create a directory for your website in your home directory; no root privileges required.
    Code:
    testuser@VirtualBox:~$ mkdir website1
    testuser@VirtualBox:~$ mkdir website1/www
    testuser@VirtualBox:~$ ls -l website1/
    total 4
    drwxrwxr-x 2 wim wim 4096 Oct 21 10:43 www
    testuser@VirtualBox:~$
    Last step is to let apache use this directory instead of /var/www. For this you need to modify /etc/apache/sites-available/ /etc/apache/sites-available/default and replace any reference to /var/www by /home/yourusername/website1/www. Again root privileges required.

    This is the contents of the file on my (fresh system). In red the changes; I commented out the original line by putting a '#' in front of it and added the new line.

    Code:
    <VirtualHost *:80>
    	ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
    
    	DocumentRoot /home/testuser/website1/www
    #	DocumentRoot /var/www
    	<Directory />
    		Options FollowSymLinks
    		AllowOverride None
    	</Directory>
    	<Directory /home/testuser/website1/www>
    #	<Directory /var/www/>
    		Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
    		AllowOverride None
    		Order allow,deny
    		allow from all
    	</Directory>
    
    	ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
    	<Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin">
    		AllowOverride None
    		Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
    		Order allow,deny
    		Allow from all
    	</Directory>
    
    	ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    
    	# Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
    	# alert, emerg.
    	LogLevel warn
    
    	CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
    
        Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/"
        <Directory "/usr/share/doc/">
            Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
            AllowOverride None
            Order deny,allow
            Deny from all
            Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128
        </Directory>
    
    </VirtualHost>
    Next you can restart apache
    Code:
    wim@VirtualBox:~/website1/www$ sudo service apache2 restart
     * Restarting web server apache2                                                apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 127.0.1.1 for ServerName
     ... waiting apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 127.0.1.1 for ServerName
                                                                             [ OK ]
    wim@VirtualBox:~/website1/www$
    You can ignore the warnings and test the changes by navigating to your server using a webbrowser. As there's currently nothing in the new documentroot, you will get an empty directory listing. If you now copy /var/www/index.html to /home/yourusername/website1/www and after refreshing the page in the browser, you should see the 'it works' page.

    //EDIT
    make backups of any files that you modify !!
    Last edited by Wim Sturkenboom; October 22nd, 2012 at 05:56 PM. Reason: correction for /etc/apache/sites-available/default
    If you don't make backups of your important data, your data is obviously not important to you.

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