How to install and configure VSFTPD in linux ubuntu 16.04

VSFTPD - VSFTPD is Very secure file transfer protocol daemon, is an FTP server for Unix-like systems, including Linux. It is licensed under the GNU General Public License. It supports IPv6 and SSL.

Lab Setup- We need one working Linux Box, In my scenario, I am using Ubuntu 16.04 box.

HostName:-       Web01

IP Address:-      192.168.138.132

Requirement -   One Ubuntu Box having sudoers privileges

INSTALLATION:-

 Use command apt install vsftpd 

Step 1-

root@web01:~# apt install vsftpd

Reading package lists... Done

Building dependency tree

Reading state information... Done

The following additional packages will be installed:

  ssl-cert

Suggested packages:

  openssl-blacklist

The following NEW packages will be installed:

  ssl-cert vsftpd

0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 44 not upgraded.

Need to get 132 kB of archives.

After this operation, 398 kB of additional disk space will be used.

Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y

Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 ssl-cert all 1.0.37 [16.9 kB]

Get:2 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 vsftpd amd64 3.0.3-3ubuntu2 [115 kB]

Fetched 132 kB in 3s (40.0 kB/s)

Preconfiguring packages ...

Selecting previously unselected package ssl-cert.

(Reading database ... 26307 files and directories currently installed.)

Preparing to unpack .../ssl-cert_1.0.37_all.deb ...

Unpacking ssl-cert (1.0.37) ...

Selecting previously unselected package vsftpd.

Preparing to unpack .../vsftpd_3.0.3-3ubuntu2_amd64.deb ...

Unpacking vsftpd (3.0.3-3ubuntu2) ...

Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.5-1) ...

Processing triggers for systemd (229-4ubuntu6) ...

Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-19) ...

Setting up ssl-cert (1.0.37) ...

hostname: Name or service not known

make-ssl-cert: Could not get FQDN, using "web01".

make-ssl-cert: You may want to fix your /etc/hosts and/or DNS setup and run

make-ssl-cert: make-ssl-cert generate-default-snakeoil --force-overwrite

make-ssl-cert: again.

Setting up vsftpd (3.0.3-3ubuntu2) ...

Processing triggers for systemd (229-4ubuntu6) ...

Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-19) ...

root@web01:~#

Now Check vsftpd server status to verify it is running.

Step 2:-

root@web01:~# systemctl status vsftpd

● vsftpd.service - vsftpd FTP server

   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/vsftpd.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)

   Active: active (running) since Sun 2016-07-24 10:16:21 IST; 2min 17s ago

 Main PID: 1150 (vsftpd)

    Tasks: 1

   Memory: 516.0K

      CPU: 13ms

   CGroup: /system.slice/vsftpd.service

           └─1150 /usr/sbin/vsftpd /etc/vsftpd.conf

Jul 24 10:16:21 web01 systemd[1]: Starting vsftpd FTP server...

Jul 24 10:16:21 web01 systemd[1]: Started vsftpd FTP server.

root@web01:~#

Step 3:-

Check Ubuntu firewall status allow port 21 if firewall running.

root@web01:~# ufw status

Status: inactive

In my case firewall not running, not need to open any port

Step 4 :-

Make required changes in vsftpd.conf file

root@web01:~# vi /etc/vsftpd.conf

# 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=NO
#
# This directive enables listening on IPv6 sockets. By default, listening
# on the IPv6 "any" address (::) will accept connections from both IPv6
# and IPv4 clients. It is not necessary to listen on *both* IPv4 and IPv6
# sockets. If you want that (perhaps because you want to listen on specific
# addresses) then you must run two copies of vsftpd with two configuration
# files.
listen_ipv6=YES
#
# Allow anonymous FTP? (Disabled by default).
anonymous_enable=NO
#
# 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.

#

# 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/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem

rsa_private_key_file=/etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key

ssl_enable=NO

#

# Uncomment this to indicate that vsftpd use a utf8 filesystem.

#utf8_filesystem=YES

Save and Exit from file

Now restart VSFTPD Server

root@web01:~# systemctl restart vsftpd


Test FTP with any FTP client

That's All

Cheeers !!!!