Ahh yes, I’m really starting to love Linux. My Ubuntu server is shaping up nicely and with the addition of an FTP service it’s doing just about everything my Windows server did, but for free. I chose proftpd over vsftpd because I read Webmin supports proftpd out of the box. I haven’t installed Webmin yet, but it’s on the list! Maybe I’ll even have time to get to it today, since installing proftpd was so easy.
Installing & Configuring PROFTPD FTP Service on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx
# Install proftpd
sudo apt-get install proftpd
# During installation you can choose to install as an inetd service,
# or a standalone server. I read and followed the advice of installing
# as an inetd service since I won't have many users.
# Backup the configuration file incase you mess something up!
sudo cp /etc/proftpd/proftpd.conf /etc/proftpd/proftpd.conf.original
# Open the config for edit
sudo nano /etc/proftpd/proftpd.conf
# Change your server name to whatever you like
ServerName "whatever.mydomain.com"
# Uncomment the line to restrict users to their home directory
DefaultRoot ~
# Uncomment the large block of commented code at the end of the
# config to enable anonymous user access
<Anonymous ~ftp>
...
</Anonymous>
# Save your changes and then restart the service
sudo service proftpd restart
# You can modify your welcome message at
sudo nano /home/ftp/welcome.msg
# And you can put a custom message in any folder to have it
# displayed when accessed
sudo nano /home/johndoe/.message
# That's it! Connect from any FTP client. Be careful of your file permissions
# if you decide to create custom FTP users and change there home directories
# to a fileshare or something.