How do I set up an FTP server?

Background Information

Setting up an FTP Server on a RightScale server or cloud instance can enable you to upload and download files to and from the instance.  This is not the preferred method of uploading files to your servers, but some may want to do it anyway (SSH/SCP via PKA/PKI is the recommended method).

Answer

RightScale OSS provides a ServerTemplate, vsftpd FTP Server which can be used to set up an FTP server as desired - insecure or with FTPS (SSL).

Alternatively, you can set up a legacy FTP server with xinetd. The following example sets up ftpd on EL/CentOS or Debian/Ubuntu systems (you may find that additional configuration is required depending on the distribution used).

#!/bin/bash -e

yum -y install xinetd || ( apt-get -y install xinetd ftpd )

useradd ftp

if [ -e /usr/share/doc/ftpd/examples/ftpd.xinetd ]; then
    cp -v /usr/share/doc/ftpd/examples/ftpd.xinetd /etc/xinetd.d/ftpd
    sed -i "s/flags		= IPv6/#flags		= IPv6/" /etc/xinetd.d/ftpd
    mkdir -p /home/ftp/ftp
    chown -R ftp:ftp /home/ftp
else
    cat > /etc/xinetd.d/gssftp << EOF
service ftp
{
        flags           = REUSE
        socket_type     = stream
        wait            = no
        user            = ftp
        server          = /usr/kerberos/sbin/ftpd
        server_args     = -l
        log_on_failure  += USERID
        disable         = no
}
EOF
fi

service xinetd restart

External Links

• FTP Must Die
• ftp(1) - Linux man page
• vsftpd
• FtpServer (Community Ubuntu Documentation)