Best Linux OS 'NOW' for FTP server

The best Linux distribution - one that the administrator knows best.

pilson66: Thanks but I'm more expecting a suggestion then stated a obvious.

So say CentOS to start with, which FTP client do you recommend?

any recommended guide to setup both of them?

You can give Debian a go, it is very stable easy to install things. Just apt-get install program-name

Here is the link I followed to setup my FTP-SERVER on Debian/Ubuntu.

http://www.howtoforge.com/perfect-server-debian-lenny-ispconfig3

CentOS is every thing very easy as well.

To install anything,

yum install <package>

For FTP, you just have to select FTP at install time and it would be installed along with the OS.  It is VSFTP --very secure FTP.

You can download CentOS that comes with all packages, FTP, Apache and a lot more

http://www.centos.org/

Seems like CentOS vs Debian is the common thing?

I'm thinking about installing Webmin to support me as it seems to have good GUI support for Linux?

Does anyone have any experience on it?

You can get webmin at

http://www.webmin.com/download.html

or simply issue the command

rpm -ivh http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/webadmin/webmin-1.540-1.noarch.rpm

Hi Arnold,

Thank you for the deep answer.

I'm basically after simple FTP server to build at the moment when I could simply use it to allow 3rd party download or upload to/from this server.

Just like any other company we are looking for cheap and easy solution. Hence the quesiton became very broad.

At the moment I have VM created with CentOS with Webmin installed and trying to work out out to setup vsftpd

I may look at using the Debian if it's going to take little longer.

Once you get your arms around the steps/process, any subsequent will be simpler without regard to which OS you choose.  Hardware wise you can use any workstation you have lying around and install linux on it for use as the FTP server, the only issue deals with whether you have enough storage capacity on the system for your purpose. CPU/memory would often not be an issue i.e. you could run a PII 500 with 128 MB memory as an FTP server which could support 10-15 simultaneous users.

Ok base on the fact that my previous used CentOS on other area of the business I've decided to use CentOS.

Now I've installed vsftpd with basic configuration... but how do I make it so that when I create the folder allow certain user accounts to login??

In  your /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf file if userlist_deny=NO

Then users in the file
/etc/vsftpd.user_list
will only be allowed.

If however,  userlist_deny=YES (default), it would not allow users in this file

but say I have made folder

A

B

under /var/ftp

and if I created users

a1

b1

how would I allow a1 to just access A and b1 to just access B ???

Those folder should be owned by a1 and b1 respectively.  Only they should have permission for these folders.

chown a1: /var/ftp/A1
chown b1: /var/ftp/B1
chmod 700 /var/ftp/A1 /var/ftp/B1
 

Hmm it's still not working when I try to open the FTP address.

I've attached my vsftpd.conf file as below

# Example config file /etc/vsftpd/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=YES
#
# 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
#
# The target log file can be vsftpd_log_file or xferlog_file.
# This depends on setting xferlog_std_format parameter
xferlog_enable=YES
#
# Make sure PORT transfer connections originate from port 20 (ftp-data).
connect_from_port_20=YES
#
# 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
#
# The name of log file when xferlog_enable=YES and xferlog_std_format=YES
# WARNING - changing this filename affects /etc/logrotate.d/vsftpd.log
#xferlog_file=/var/log/xferlog
#
# Switches between logging into vsftpd_log_file and xferlog_file files.
# NO writes to vsftpd_log_file, YES to xferlog_file
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 PTSHK FTP service.
#
# 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
# (default follows)
#chroot_list_file=/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

pam_service_name=vsftpd
userlist_enable=NO
tcp_wrappers=YES

Select allOpen in new window