vsftpd is an FTP daemon available in Ubuntu. It is easy to install, set up, and maintain. To install vsftpd you can run the following command:

sudo apt-get install vsftpd

By default vsftpd is configured to only allow anonymous download. During installation a ftp user is created with a home directory of /home/ftp. This is the default FTP directory.

If you wish to change this location, to /srv/ftp for example, simply create a directory in another location and change the ftp user's home directory:

sudo mkdir /srv/ftp
sudo usermod -d /srv/ftp ftp 

After making the change restart vsftpd:

sudo /etc/init.d/vsftpd restart

Finally, copy any files and directories you would like to make available through anonymous FTP to /srv/ftp.

To configure vsftpd to authenticate system users and allow them to upload files edit /etc/vsftpd.conf:

local_enable=YES
write_enable=YES

Now restart vsftpd:

sudo /etc/init.d/vsftpd restart

Now when system users login to FTP they will start in their home directories where they can download, upload, create directories, etc.

Similarly, by default, the anonymous users are not allowed to upload files to FTP server. To change this setting, you should uncomment the following line, and restart vsftpd:

anon_upload_enable=YES

The configuration file consists of many configuration parameters. The information about each parameter is available in the configuration file. Alternatively, you can refer to the man page, man 5 vsftpd.conf for details of each parameter.

There are options in /etc/vsftpd.conf to help make vsftpd more secure. For example users can be limited to their home directories by uncommenting:

chroot_local_user=YES

You can also limit a specific list of users to just their home directories:

chroot_list_enable=YES
chroot_list_file=/etc/vsftpd.chroot_list

After uncommenting the above options, create a /etc/vsftpd.chroot_list containing a list of users one per line. Then restart vsftpd:

sudo /etc/init.d/vsftpd restart

Also, the /etc/ftpusers file is a list of users that are disallowed FTP access. The default list includes root, daemon, nobody, etc. To disable FTP access for additional users simply add them to the list.

FTP can also be encrypted using FTPS. Different from SFTP, FTPS is FTP over Secure Socket Layer (SSL). SFTP is a FTP like session over an encrypted SSH connection. A major difference is that users of SFTP need to have a shell account on the system, instead of a nologin shell. Providing all users with a shell may not be ideal for some environments, such as a shared web host.

To configure FTPS, edit /etc/vsftpd.conf and at the bottom add:

ssl_enable=Yes

Also, notice the certificate and key related options:

rsa_cert_file=/etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem
rsa_private_key_file=/etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key

By default these options are set the certificate and key provided by the ssl-cert package. In a production environment these should be replaced with a certificate and key generated for the specific host. For more information on certificates see the section called “Certificates”.

Now restart vsftpd, and non-anonymous users will be forced to use FTPS:

sudo /etc/init.d/vsftpd restart

To allow users with a shell of /usr/sbin/nologin access to FTP, but have no shell access, edit /etc/shells adding the nologin shell:

# /etc/shells: valid login shells
/bin/csh
/bin/sh
/usr/bin/es
/usr/bin/ksh
/bin/ksh
/usr/bin/rc
/usr/bin/tcsh
/bin/tcsh
/usr/bin/esh
/bin/dash
/bin/bash
/bin/rbash
/usr/bin/screen
/usr/sbin/nologin

This is necessary because, by default vsftpd uses PAM for authentication, and the /etc/pam.d/vsftpd configuration file contains:

auth    required        pam_shells.so

The shells PAM module restricts access to shells listed in the /etc/shells file.

Most popular FTP clients can be configured connect using FTPS. The lftp command line FTP client has the ability to use FTPS as well.