How to Install and Configure FTP Server in Ubuntu

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Installing FTP

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To enable FTP on your VPS, you will first need to install the VSFTPD package with the following command, before running the command update the sever to till date.

 apt-get update

 apt-get install vsftpd

Output:

 root@vps:~# apt-get install vsftpd
 Reading package lists... Done
 Building dependency tree
 Reading state information... Done
 The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  amd64-microcode intel-microcode iucode-tool
 Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them.
 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 98 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://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu> bionic/main amd64 ssl-cert all 1.0.39       [17.0 kB]

Once the installation is complete, We start the vsftpd service and enable it to start automatically at system boot.

 systemctl start vsftpd

 systemctl enable vsftpd

 systemctl status vsftpd

Output:

 root@vps:~# systemctl start vsftpd
 root@vps:~# systemctl enable vsftpd
 Synchronizing state of vsftpd.service with SysV service script with /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install.
 Executing: /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install enable vsftpd
 root@vps:~# systemctl status vsftpd
 ● vsftpd.service - vsftpd FTP server
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/vsftpd.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled
   Active: active (running) since Mon 2020-08-31 06:26:38 PDT; 2min 4s ago
  Main PID: 13561 (vsftpd)
   Tasks: 1 (limit: 2318)
   CGroup: /system.slice/vsftpd.service
       └─13561 /usr/sbin/vsftpd /etc/vsftpd.conf

Next, We open the FTP port on the system firewall to allow access to the FTP service from external systems.

 ufw allow 20/tcp

 ufw allow 21/tcp

 ufw status

Output:

 root@vps:~# ufw allow 20/tcp
 Rule added
 Rule added (v6)
 root@vps:~# ufw allow 21/tcp
 Rule added
 Rule added (v6)
 root@vps:~# ufw status
 Status: active
 To                         Action      From
 --                         ------      ----
 20/tcp                     ALLOW       Anywhere
 21/tcp                     ALLOW       Anywhere
 20/tcp (v6)                ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)
 21/tcp (v6)                ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)
 root@vps:~#

Configuring and Securing FTP Server

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Before start the configuration of FTP server, first we will create a backup of the original config file /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf

 cp /etc/vsftpd.conf /etc/vsftpd.conf.orig

Now,open the configuration file to configure the FTP

 vi /etc/vsftpd.conf

Once enter the configuration file enable (uncomment)/modify the following parameters

 Listen=yes
 write_enable=YES
 xferlog_std_format=YES
 chroot_local_user=YES
 listen_ipv4=no

Also, add the following parameters to the configuration file

 allow_writeable_chroot=YES
 userlist_file=/etc/vsftpd.userlist

Once configured the FTP restart thr vsftpd service

 systemctl restart vsftpd

Testing FTP Server

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Creating an FTP user and create a password for that user.

First, We add the user,

 useradd -m -c "user1, Contributor" -s /bin/bash user1

Next, we setup a password for the user,

 passwd user1

Output:

 root@vps:~# useradd -m -c "user1, Contributor" -s /bin/bash user1
 root@vps:~# passwd user1
 Enter new UNIX password:
 Retype new UNIX password:
 passwd: password updated successfully
 root@vps:~#

Then, we have to add the created user to the file /etc/vsftpd.userlist by following command

 echo "user1" | sudo tee -a /etc/vsftpd.userlist

 cat /etc/vsftpd.userlist

Output:

 root@vps:~# echo "user1" | sudo tee -a /etc/vsftpd.userlist
 user1
 root@vps:~# cat /etc/vsftpd.userlist
 user1
 root@vps:~#

Now we will test the FTP server is working or not

 ftp <ftp server IP>

Output:

 user1@vps:/root$ ftp <FTP server IP>
 Connected to 104.200.67.173.
 220 (vsFTPd 3.0.3)
 Name (104.200.67.173:root): user1
 331 Please specify the password.
 Password:
 230 Login successful.
 Remote system type is UNIX.
 Using binary mode to transfer files.
 ftp> ls -al
 200 PORT command successful. Consider using PASV.
 150 Here comes the directory listing.
 drwxr-xr-x    2 1000     1000           78 Aug 31 07:33 .
 drwxr-xr-x    2 1000     1000           78 Aug 31 07:33 ..
 -rw-------    1 1000     1000           53 Aug 31 09:05 .bash_history
 -rw-r--r--    1 1000     1000          220 Apr 04  2018 .bash_logout
 -rw-r--r--    1 1000     1000         3771 Apr 04  2018 .bashrc
 -rw-r--r--    1 1000     1000          807 Apr 04  2018 .profile
 226 Directory send OK.