VSFTPD hardening

Is it possible to activate (without jails) the regular FTP server that comes with Free BSD and VSFTPD at the same time? ... also as it stands now on my vsftpd testing server it allows regular ftp access amonth other encrypted methods as well. if i do take the path you duggested by having two servers then id like to make VSFTPD use ONLY encrypted standards. currently i use core FTP to connect to it when testing and it does sucessefully pass my open SSL certificate. but how can i deny regular FTP to VSFTPD/ thanks

You should be able to have both running at the same time, but you either need to be able to assign each one their own IP address or have them listen on a different command/control port (typically 21).

with vsftpd the command/control/listen directives are specified in vsftpd.conf however im not sure how i can create different user lists that are chrooted depending on what server they use.  can you explain. or perhaps better yet elaborate on how i can block straight old fassioned ftp access on VSFTPD and force users to authenticate with sftp or https, auth ssl etc...

You can review the options for the vsftpd.conf file, but to start with you can add/change:

ssl_enable=yes
force_local_data_ssl=yes
force_local_logins_ssl=yes

This will enable SSL and force all data transfers and logins to use SSL.   Now sftp (SSH FTP) is different from ftps (FTP SSL'ed)

ok so i have added this in the vsftpd.conf file yet with core ftp i can still log in via FTP (keep in mind i havent installed regular ftp yet as discussed above)

thanks.

sorry i think my last reply was vague,
i tried that and it still logs in as FTP. so before in install and configure anything other than my currently installed and running VSFTPD. i want to deny all non secure log ins.

thanks

Did you stop and restart the vsftpd daemon?

How can you tell that it logged in as 'ftp'?  The only difference between ftp and ftp ssl is that all information being passed is encrypted.

yes i restarted it. well the reason i know is with core FTP you can select what method to log in with. and when i select FTP is works. when i want the level of security as you said with the ssl encryption etc...

ok so the encryption works. it says 530:Non-anon sessions MUST use encryption. thanks. is SFTP set up similarily?

your a great help!

and finally back to the original question now that users need to use SSL is there a way to create a group or shell users that CAN log in via regular FTP (via vsftpd) this would just save alot of configuration of another FTP server/service or jailing etc...

excellent response. thanks. This is kind of what i was assuming might need to be done. now my final question is if i create another .conf file do i need to specify somewhere else to look for the seconf .conf file?

When you start the vsftpd instances you specify what configuration file to use.  Examples:

     vsftpd /etc/vsftpd/SSLvsftpd.conf
     vsftpd /etc/vsftpd/NONvsftpd.conf

This is my vsftpdNON.conf file is this looking about the correct way:


# Example config file /usr/local/etc/vsftpd.conf
#
# The default compiled in settings are fairly paranoid. This sample file
# loosens things up a bit, to make the ftp daemon more usable.
# Please see vsftpd.conf.5 for all compiled in defaults.
#
# READ THIS: This example file is NOT an exhaustive list of vsftpd options.
# Please read the vsftpd.conf.5 manual page to get a full idea of vsftpd's
# capabilities.
#
# Allow anonymous FTP? (Beware - allowed by default if you comment this out).
anonymous_enable=NO
#
# Uncomment this to allow local users to log in.
local_enable=YES
#
# Uncomment this to enable any form of FTP write command.
write_enable=YES
#
# Default umask for local users is 077. You may wish to change this to 022,
# if your users expect that (022 is used by most other ftpd's)
local_umask=022
#
# Uncomment this to allow the anonymous FTP user to upload files. This only
# has an effect if the above global write enable is activated. Also, you will
# obviously need to create a directory writable by the FTP user.
#anon_upload_enable=YES
#
# Uncomment this if you want the anonymous FTP user to be able to create
# new directories.
#anon_mkdir_write_enable=YES
#
# Activate directory messages - messages given to remote users when they
# go into a certain directory.
dirmessage_enable=YES
#listen_port=22
#
# Activate logging of uploads/downloads.
xferlog_enable=YES
#
# Make sure PORT transfer connections originate from port 20 (ftp-data).
connect_from_port_20=NO
#
# If you want, you can arrange for uploaded anonymous files to be owned by
# a different user. Note! Using "root" for uploaded files is not
# recommended!
#chown_uploads=YES
#chown_username=whoever
#
# You may override where the log file goes if you like. The default is shown
# below.
#xferlog_file=/var/log/vsftpd.log
#
# If you want, you can have your log file in standard ftpd xferlog format.
# Note that the default log file location is /var/log/xferlog in this case.
#xferlog_std_format=YES
#
# You may change the default value for timing out an idle session.
#idle_session_timeout=600
#
# You may change the default value for timing out a data connection.
#data_connection_timeout=120
#
# It is recommended that you define on your system a unique user which the
# ftp server can use as a totally isolated and unprivileged user.
#nopriv_user=ftpsecure
#
# Enable this and the server will recognise asynchronous ABOR requests. Not
# recommended for security (the code is non-trivial). Not enabling it,
# however, may confuse older FTP clients.
#async_abor_enable=YES
#
# By default the server will pretend to allow ASCII mode but in fact ignore
# the request. Turn on the below options to have the server actually do ASCII
# mangling on files when in ASCII mode.
# Beware that on some FTP servers, ASCII support allows a denial of service
# attack (DoS) via the command "SIZE /big/file" in ASCII mode. vsftpd
# predicted this attack and has always been safe, reporting the size of the
# raw file.
# ASCII mangling is a horrible feature of the protocol.
#ascii_upload_enable=YES
#ascii_download_enable=YES
#
#You may fully customise the login banner string:
ftpd_banner=Welcome to Foobar FTP.
#
# You may specify a file of disallowed anonymous e-mail addresses. Apparently
# useful for combatting certain DoS attacks.
#deny_email_enable=YES
# (default follows)
#banned_email_file=/etc/vsftpd.banned_emails
#
# You may specify an explicit list of local users to chroot() to their home
# directory. If chroot_local_user is YES, then this list becomes a list of
# users to NOT chroot().
chroot_list_enable=YES
chroot_local_user=YES
#(default follows)
chroot_list_file=/usr/local/etc/vsftpd.chroot_list
#
# You may activate the "-R" option to the builtin ls. This is disabled by
# default to avoid remote users being able to cause excessive I/O on large
# sites. However, some broken FTP clients such as "ncftp" and "mirror" assume
# the presence of the "-R" option, so there is a strong case for enabling it.
#ls_recurse_enable=YES
#
# When "listen" directive is enabled, vsftpd runs in standalone mode and
# listens on IPv4 sockets. This directive cannot be used in conjunction
# with the listen_ipv6 directive.
listen=YES
#
# This directive enables listening on IPv6 sockets. To listen on IPv4 and IPv6
# sockets, you must run two copies of vsftpd whith two configuration files.
# Make sure, that one of the listen options is commented !!
#listen_ipv6=YES
secure_chroot_dir=/usr/local/share/vsftpd/empty
#If using vsftpd in standalone mode, uncomment the next two lines:
#listen=NO
#background=YES
chroot_local_user=YES
userlist_enable=YES
userlist_deny=NO
#user_file=/usr/local/etc/vsftpd.user_list
ssl_enable=NO
allow_anon_ssl=NO
#force_local_data_ssl=NO
#force_local_logins_ssl=NO
#ssl_tlsv1=NO
#ssl_sslv2=NO
#ssl_sslv3=NO
#rsa_cert_file=/etc/vsftpd/privkey.pem
#require_ssl_reuse=NO
#force_local_data_ssl=yes
#force_local_logins_ssl=yes

That looks good.

excellent. so i guess all i need to do is configure different ports for each vsftpd install?  id assume there has to be some  kind of identification port based that allows the instances to identify which session is for which configuration. or i could use a virtual host?...

Either different ports or each ftp service instances (daemon) needs to have its own IP address.

I personally like using unqiue IP addresses.  That way if I need to move a server function to another host, I don't need to update NAT tables or inform users, I just move the IP address that service was using to the new host.

That makes sense. only thing is is if i use the IP address method would there be a way to create the server on the otside withonly 1IP address? because even with 1-1NAT id need to reserve another routable IP for the clients of each server. i guess the only work around is a FTP Proxy correct? ... wow that gets complicated fast. haha

Expert was a true expert and provided feedback to all questions in a thorough manner.

Thanks

If you only have a single public IP address, then you need to get into port forwarding, which means the customers/users need to know to ftp in "clear text" they need to use port "x" when logging on to the ftp server and the ftp ssl customers would need to know to use port "y" when logging on.