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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>11.3. FTP File Server</title><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="Common_Content/css/default.css" /><link rel="stylesheet" media="print" href="Common_Content/css/print.css" type="text/css" /><meta name="generator" content="publican 3.2.1" /><meta name="package" content="Debian-debian-handbook-7-en-US-1.0-1" /><meta name="keywords" content="Postfix, Apache, NFS, Samba, Squid, OpenLDAP" /><link rel="home" href="index.html" title="The Debian Administrator's Handbook" /><link rel="up" href="network-services.html" title="Chapter 11. Network Services: Postfix, Apache, NFS, Samba, Squid, LDAP" /><link rel="prev" href="sect.http-web-server.html" title="11.2. Web Server (HTTP)" /><link rel="next" href="sect.nfs-file-server.html" title="11.4. NFS File Server" /></head><body><p id="title"><a class="left" href="http://www.debian.org"><img alt="Product Site" src="Common_Content/images//image_left.png" /></a><a class="right" href="http://debian-handbook.info"><img alt="Documentation Site" src="Common_Content/images//image_right.png" /></a></p><ul class="docnav top"><li class="previous"><a accesskey="p" href="sect.http-web-server.html"><strong>Prev</strong></a></li><li class="home">The Debian Administrator's Handbook</li><li class="next"><a accesskey="n" href="sect.nfs-file-server.html"><strong>Next</strong></a></li></ul><div class="section"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title"><a xmlns="" id="sect.ftp-file-server"></a>11.3. FTP File Server</h2></div></div></div><a id="idm1223522260" class="indexterm"></a><div class="para">
FTP (<span class="emphasis"><em>File Transfer Protocol</em></span>) is one of the first protocols of the Internet (RFC 959 was issued in 1985!). It was used to distribute files before the Web was even born (the HTTP protocol was created in 1990, and formally defined in its 1.0 version by RFC 1945, issued in 1996).
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This protocol allows both file uploads and file downloads; for this reason, it is still widely used to deploy updates to a website hosted by one's Internet service provider (or any other entity hosting websites). In these cases, secure access is enforced with a user identifier and password; on successful authentication, the FTP server grants read-write access to that user's home directory.
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Other FTP servers are mainly used to distribute files for public downloading; Debian packages are a good example. The contents of these servers is fetched from other, geographically remote, servers; it is then made available to less distant users. This means that client authentication is not required; as a consequence, this operating mode is known as “anonymous FTP”. To be perfectly correct, the clients do authenticate with the <code class="literal">anonymous</code> username; the password is often, by convention, the user's email address, but the server ignores it.
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Many FTP servers are available in Debian (<span class="pkg pkg">ftpd</span>, <span class="pkg pkg">proftpd-basic</span>, <span class="pkg pkg">pyftpd</span> and so on). The Falcot Corp administrators picked <span class="pkg pkg">vsftpd</span> because they only use the FTP server to distribute a few files (including a Debian package repository); since they don't need advanced features, they chose to focus on the security aspects.
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Installing the package creates an <code class="literal">ftp</code> system user. This account is always used for anonymous FTP connections, and its home directory (<code class="filename">/srv/ftp/</code>) is the root of the tree made available to users connecting to this service. The default configuration (in <code class="filename">/etc/vsftpd.conf</code>) is very restrictive: it only allows read-only anonymous access (since the <code class="literal">write_enable</code> and <code class="literal">anon_upload_enable</code> options are disabled), and local users cannot connect with their usual username and password and access their own files (<code class="literal">local_enable</code> option). However, this default configuration is well-suited to the needs at Falcot Corp.
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