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 onfiguration 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 follwing parameters

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

Also, add the follwing 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 follwing 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.