Setting UP VSFTPD on Ubuntu VPS And Machine

Setting up VSFTPD [ Very Secure FTP Daemon ] on Ubuntu based VPS and Machine. 

As FTP [ File Transfer Protocol ] used to transfer files is inherently insecure and vulnerable to a number of exploits . So, its preferable to use VSFTPD [ Very Secure FTP Daemon ] as alternative to FTP. It's more secure and have few enhanced features as comparedto FTP.

Setting UP VSFTPD on Ubuntu [ 12.0 ]

• Open up terminal of machine or Vps and run the following command as root to install vsftpd.

sudo apt-get install vsftpd

• vsftpd is already configured with default options. So, you can use it as it is and can play with settings to make is more secure.

Making vsftpd more Secure 

• Open the vsftpd config file and make the following changes.

sudo nano /etc/vsftpd.conf

• Or you can use 

sudo gedit /etc/vsftpd.conf

• First, set anonymous mode off to restrict unidentified users from accessing the ftp server.

anonymous_enable=NO

• Now uncomment local enable and and set it to Yes.

local_enable=YES

write_enable=YES

chroot_local_user=YES

• Now save and exit from the vsftpd.conf file.
• Create a separate directory to store ftp files and change the ownership of directory to root.

mkdir /home/username/files  [ To create directory ]

chown root:root /home/username [ To change ownership ]

• Now Your VSFTPD server is securely setup. Now, restart vsftpd to activate the changes made.

sudo service vsftpd restart

Accessing ftp Server

• Now, as we have installed and configured our vsftpd server. We , can use it to share files
• Open your browser and type the address [ ftp://IP of VPS ] eg : [ ftp://192.168.0.1 ]
• Or to access locally , you can use [ ftp 192.168.0.1 ] to access ftp service.