Installing ProFTPd

What is ProFTPd?

Proftpd is arguably the best FTP server on Linux. It is included in many Linux distros.

Linux is strict on file ownership and access rights. More often than not, problems arise when change of ownership is not done probably. This kind of errors is common when a user given access to the directory of another user. Since we only need a place for Athena users to download files, we will use the default anonymous user directory, accessible only by root and preferably from localhost, to host downloads. System home users, i.e. those with a home, can download and upload files to and from their homes. So we will not venture into configuration. Anyway, you should be quite well-versed with Webmin by now to do that on your own.

Installation

If for some reason, you do not have GUI package manager on your system, search the installation media for ProFTPd:

$ cd /mnt/cdrom $ grep -iR "proftpd" *

After you have found it, take note of the package name and:

where proftpd-x.y.z.rpm is the full package name.

$ su root password: ********* # rpm -ivh proftpd-x.y.z.rpm

The default anonymous user (also called public) directory is /var/ftp. Let us take a look:

Note: Create pub manually If the installation process did not do that.

$ ls /var/ftp pub/

There is no beer in there. Take a look:

$ ls /var/ftp/pub

Testing

Let us put something there:

Note that you have to be root to put files into that directory

# cp /usr/local/apache2/htdocs/index.html /var/ftp/pub

Testing file transfer:

$ cd /home/user $ ftp localhost Name: anonymous Password: <Enter> ftp> cd pub ftp> get index.html ftp> bye

Go to your home and you will see index.html in there.

Other popular FTP client commands:

ftp> ls (list directory) ftp> send (upload)

Further configuration

wbm-221: ProFTPd configuration file (part)

wbm-231: ProFTPd configuration file (part 2)

You may continue configuration from Webmin. Do not remove root from the default list of users banned from logging in to ProFTPd. In fact, do not remove any of those from the banned list.

Q&A

Should I install FTP server?

It depends on your operating conditions. If you are hosting files on a web server such as Apache and have a fast internet connection, you can do away with FTP server. However, you might want to consider using ProFTPd as your network file server. FTP is probably the most convenient way to transfer files in a network of computers with different operating systems. Most, if not all, operating systems come with a text-based FTP client.

What is the advantage of FTP server?

If you have a slow or busy internet connection or are hosting large files, a FTP server will let you manage bandwidth more efficiently than a HTTP server. The resume feature will let users continue where previous connection broke and thus reduces traffics. FTP is also the preferred method of uploading files to a web directory.

I do not have ProFTPd!

Calm down. You can always use the FTP server which comes with your distro. Usually that will be WuFTP or VsFTP server. If you must have ProFTPd, log on to the official site of ProFTPd.org and get a copy.