Posts Tagged ‘vsftp’

Virtual users on vsftpd

Posted by Matteo Mattei / 4th February 2011

I’m usually to configure vsftp on web servers to allow FTP access based on domains. Few days ago my client asked me to create multiple FTP users for a single domain every one with a different root folder into that domain.

This is my usual configuration of my /etc/vsftpd.conf

listen=YES
anonymous_enable=NO
local_enable=YES
virtual_use_local_privs=YES
write_enable=YES
connect_from_port_20=YES
xferlog_enable=YES
pam_service_name=vsftpd
guest_enable=YES
guest_username=www-data
user_sub_token=$USER
local_root=/var/www/$USER
chroot_local_user=YES
hide_ids=YES
force_dot_files=YES
ftpd_banner=Welcome to my private FTP service.
local_umask=022

and this is my /etc/pam.d/vsftpd

auth required pam_pwdfile.so pwdfile /etc/ftpd.passwd
account required pam_permit.so

The first time I’ve created the file /etc/ftpd.passwd in this way:

htpasswd -c -d -b /etc/ftpd.passwd domain1.com <password>

For the future users simply avoid the ‘-c’ parameter:

htpasswd -d -b /etc/ftpd.passwd domain2.com <password>

With this simple configuration all users have these credentials:

  • host: domain1.com
  • username: domain1.com
  • password: password
  • port: 21
  • Root folder: /var/www/domain1/

Now the point is: how can we create multiple users for a single domain each one with a different root folder?
The answer is pretty simple, follow me!

Create the folder /var/www/users and add the following line at the end of /etc/vsftpd.conf

user_config_dir=/var/www/users

Into the folder /var/www/users create a file for each virtual user (for example the user user1.domain1.com) containing a line the root directory for that user:

echo "local_root=/var/www/domain1.com/pub/user1" > /var/www/users/user1.domain1.com

Now add the new user/password in /etc/ftpd.passwd as usual:

htpasswd -d -b /etc/ftpd.passwd user1.domain1.com <password>

Restart vsftpd server and test your new configuration!