FTP on Centos 7

In this article, we will learn how to configure FTP server on CentOs 7 using vsftpd. vsftpd (Very Secure File Transport Protocol Daemon) is a secure and very fast FTP server on Linux systems.

Install vsftpd

All commands should be run with root user. Run the following command in terminal to install vsftpd package:

1	yum install vsftpd ftp -y

Configure vsftpd

We needed to edit the configuration file /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf for securing the FTP server since, by default it will allow anonymous users to login and use the server.

1 2	cp /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf{,.bak} vi /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf

We have to disallow anonymous, unidentified users to access files via FTP; change the anonymous_enable setting to NO:

1	anonymous_enable=NO

Allow local users to login by changing the local_enable setting to YES:

1	local_enable=YES

If you want to allow the local users to be able to write to a directory, then change the write_enable setting in the configuration file to YES:

1	write_enable=YES

Local users will be ‘chroot jailed’ and they will be denied access the local users to any other part of the server; change the chroot_local_user setting in the configuration file to YES:

1	chroot_local_user=YES

Below is the simple configuration file for your reference:

anonymous_enable=NO
local_enable=YES
write_enable=YES
local_umask=022
chroot_local_user=YES
dirmessage_enable=YES
xferlog_enable=YES
connect_from_port_20=YES
xferlog_std_format=YES
listen=YES
#listen_ipv6=YES
pam_service_name=vsftpd
userlist_enable=YES
tcp_wrappers=YES

Enable and restart the vsftpd service

We needed to restart the vsftpd services so that the configuration changes has applied.

1	systemctl restart vsftpd

We will set the vsftpd service to start at boot time, below is the command to enable the vsftpd to start.

1	systemctl enable vsftpd

Allowing the vsftpd Through the Firewall

Allow the ftp service and port 21 via firewall.

1 2	firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=21/tcp firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=ftp

Restart firewall:

1	firewall-cmd --reload

Create FTP users

By default, root user is not allowed to login to ftp server for security purpose. So, let us create a normal testing user called “ftpuser” with password “centos”.

1 2	useradd ftpuser passwd ftpuser

Connecting to FTP server

Now, try to connect to FTP server itself with user “ftpuser”:

1	ftp 192.168.3.157

Enter the ftp user name and password.
Note: change 192.168.3.157 with your own FTP server address.

Sample Output:

onnected to 192.168.3.157.
220 (vsFTPd 3.0.2)
Name (192.168.3.157:jarson): ftpuser
331 Please specify the password.
Password:
230 Login successful.
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files.
ftp>

Congratulations! you will be able to login to FTP server without any problems.

Reference

[1]: http://www.tutorialspoint.com/articles/how-to-install-and-configuration-ftp-server-in-centos-7
[2]: https://www.unixmen.com/install-configure-ftp-server-centos-7/