VSFTP Setup by Eds

This is an old post from SLS originally posted by Eds, but I always found it useful and thought I'd save it from the dusty old archives of the merged forum.  Original post can still be found at http://forums.opensuse.org/archives/sls-archives/archives-linux-tweaks/archives-tips-tricks-tweaks/376488-vsftp-setup.html  for now.

VSFTP setup seems to come up on the forum time and again, so maybe this will help.

First of all install vsftp of course.
It should be in the repo for 10.0 and 10.1 but I seem to recall having to hunt for it previously.

Enable the service

YaST -> Network Services -> Network Services (xinetd)
- highlight the FTP service with the server /usr/sbin/vsftpd (you may have more than one listed such as /usr/sbin/pure-ftpd - so make sure you get the correct one)
Toggle the status to 'ON' and click 'Finish'.

At this point the server should be running - check it by looking at ftp://localhost in a browser.

So far so good, now to configure it.

Anonymous read only.

Set the permissions on /srv/ftp to
Owner: root __ Read/Write
Group : ftp ___ Read
Others: _____ Read

The configuration file - /etc/vsftpd.conf by default is anonymous/read only so you can ignore it.
In fact the service default isanonymous/read only so the server will function quite happily with no vsftpd.conf file at all.

Anonymous read/write.

Read/write means anonymous users can upload files but not delete, modify or rename files already on the server or create new directories.

Set the permissions on /srv/ftp to
Owner: root __ Read/Write
Group : ftp ___ Read/Write
Others: _____ Read

Modify /etc/vsftpd.conf and uncomment the following lines only - or if you're feeling particularly lazy just copy the following block of text and save it as /etc/vsftpd.conf but you might want to rename the commented original first to vsftpd.old

write_enable=YES
dirmessage_enable=YES
ftpd_banner=My FTP welcome message.
anonymous_enable=YES
anon_upload_enable=YES
anon_umask=022
idle_session_timeout=600
data_connection_timeout=120

Anonymous read/write/delete/create_directories

I STRONGLY suggest you don't use this option if your server is open to the Internet, but for local networks it can be a useful way to move files around without some of the drawbacks of samba shares.

Set the permissions on /srv/ftp to
Owner: root __ Read/Write
Group : ftp ___ Read/Write
Others: _____ Read

For those of you who are awake, you'll see the only difference between this and the read/write config is the addition of one line in /etc/vsftpd.conf as follows.

write_enable=YES
dirmessage_enable=YES
ftpd_banner=My FTP welcome message.
anonymous_enable=YES
anon_upload_enable=YES
anon_other_write_enable=YES
anon_umask=022
idle_session_timeout=600
data_connection_timeout=120

To enable internet access through a router.

Port forward TCP ports 20 & 21 to your server.

In all cases.

Make sure any firewall on the server is set to accept TCP ports 20 & 21