[K12OSN] Help, please: can't get VSFTP to work

[Petre Scheie]

Not to change the subject, but rather than fooling around with an FTP daemon, use ssh 
instead.  It included the sftp daemon, and if you can ssh into the box, sftp should work 
with no further configuration.  On the client side, assuming people are coming from 
Windows, have them use WinSCP or FileZilla (although FileZilla has a bug that prevents 
the DOS-to-Unix conversion of ASCII mode from working).  Plain FTP passes IDs and PWs in 
clear text which is frowned upon for security reasons.

Petre

john wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I haven't been able to get vsftp to run under FC4 and I was wondering
> if anyone had any clues for me or had had similar issues.
> 
> I am trying to get it to run under xinet.d so that I can use
> tcpwrappers in order that VSFTP honor my hosts.allow hosts.deny files.
> The default rpm package for FC4 uses pam for authentication and I
> haven't made any alterations to /etc/pam/vsftpd.
> 
> I assume that support for tcp_wrappers was built into the rpm package
> but I don't know how to check this, the binary has been stripped of
> comments.
> 
> I don't have any way to start and stop xinetd as a service since its
> not linked from /etc/init.d/  can anyone set me straight here?
> 
> When I do /etc/init.d/vsftpd start i get a message saying ok
> then when I do /etc/init.d/vsftpd status I get:
> 
> /etc/init.d/vsftpd status
> vsftpd dead but subsys locked
> 
> Your help is greatly appreciated.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --------
> 
> 
> Here's my /etc/xinetd.d/vsftpd file
> 
> default: on
> # description: The vsftpd FTP server serves FTP connections. It uses \
> # normal, unencrypted usernames and passwords for authentication.
> service ftp
> {
> disable = no
> socket_type = stream
> wait = no
> user = root
> server = /usr/sbin/vsftpd
> nice = 10
> }
> 
> and here's my vsftpd.conf file
> 
> 
> # 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
> #
> # Activate logging of uploads/downloads.
> 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
> #
> # 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
> 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 turning on ascii_download_enable enables malicious remote parties
> # to consume your I/O resources, by issuing the command "SIZE /big/file" in
> # ASCII mode.
> # These ASCII options are split into upload and download because you may wish
> # to enable ASCII uploads (to prevent uploaded scripts etc. from breaking),
> # without the DoS risk of SIZE and ASCII downloads. ASCII mangling should be
> # on the client anyway..
> #ascii_upload_enable=YES
> #ascii_download_enable=YES
> #
> # You may fully customise the login banner string:
> ftpd_banner=Welcome to VISD 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
> 
> pam_service_name=vsftpd
> userlist_enable=YES
> #enable for standalone mode
> #listen=YES
> tcp_wrappers=YES
> 
> 
> Here's my /etc/pam.d/vsftpd file
> 
> [root at localhost ~]# cat /etc/pam.d/vsftpd
> #%PAM-1.0
> auth       required     pam_listfile.so item=user sense=deny
> file=/etc/vsftpd/ftpusers onerr=succeed
> auth       required     pam_stack.so service=system-auth
> auth       required     pam_shells.so
> account    required     pam_stack.so service=system-auth
> session    required     pam_stack.so service=system-auth
> 
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