Lights Camera Action

Videos of some previous presentations done at Chicago GLUG meetings have been posted here on our website. The current videos are for the following presentations: Dirvish by John Quigley, VSFTPD Virtual Users by myself and Objective-C by Yacin Nadji. Look for more videos of our presentations and events in the future.

[UPDATE]
The videos are licensed under the GFDL, so the videos are free to distribute in accordance with that license.

FTP User Individuality

Ok, so I fixed the next issue with my ftp, which is upload access. This is an easy issue if you just want to give everybody and their mother upload access. However, I don't want to do this so I had to setup per-user configuration in vsftpd. Since this is built-in it is a lot easier than it sounds.

1. Add the following line to /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf:
   
   user_config_dir=/etc/vsftpd/vsftpd_user_conf
anon_world_readable_only=NO
   
   
2. Create that directory:
   
   mkdir /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd_user_conf
   
   
3. Next create the users configuration:
   
   echo "write_enable=YES" >> /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd_user_conf/fred
echo "anon_upload_enable=YES" >> /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd_user_conf/fred
echo "anon_mkdir_write_enable=YES" >> /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd_user_conf/fred


I created a couple simple bash scripts that can be used add users and add upload access to users. Both scripts must be ran as root.

Script to add users to your ftp.

#!/bin/bash
# Name: addFtpUser.sh
# Description: Adds users to /etc/vsftpd/logins.txt and resets the database
# MUST BE RAN AS ROOT
# Arguments: $1=Username $2=Password
# Author: Kevin Harriss
# special.kevin@gmail.com
# Version: 0.01
if [ $# -ne 2 ]
then
echo "Username and Password needed!!!"
else
echo $1 >> /etc/vsftpd/logins.txt
echo $2 >> /etc/vsftpd/logins.txt
db_load -T -t hash -f /etc/vsftpd/logins.txt /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd_login.db
fi

Here is the bash script to add upload access to a user.

#!/bin/bash
# Name: grantFtpUpload.sh
# Description: Gives user upload access to ftp.
# MUST BE RAN AS ROOT
# Arguments: $1=Username
# Author: Kevin Harriss
# special.kevin@gmail.com
# Version: 0.01
if [ $# -ne 1 ]
then
echo "Username needed!!!"
exit
else
echo "write_enable=YES" >> /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd_user_conf/$1
echo "anon_upload_enable=YES" >> /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd_user_conf/$1
echo "anon_mkdir_write_enable=YES" >> /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd_user_conf/$1
fi

Sharing is Caring

I am so excited right now, I finally got my ftp back up and running. I run vsftpd with virtual users and this will be a guide to setting it up.

1. Install vsftpd. On foresight just run:
   
   sudo conary update vsftpd
   
   
2. Create the file with username and password (/etc/vsftpd/logins.txt). The file is an alternating list of username and passwords:
   
   tom
foo

   
3. Add the database file (This requires Berkeley DB program installed):
   
   db_load -T -t hash -f /etc/vsftpd/logins.txt /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd_login.db
   
   
4. Fix database permissions:
   
   chmod 600 /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd_login.db
   
   
5. Setup pam, Change /etc/pam.d/ftp to only contain the following lines:
   
   auth required /lib/security/pam_userdb.so db=/etc/vsftpd/vsftpd_login crypt=hash

account required /lib/security/pam_userdb.so db=/etc/vsftpd/vsftpd_login crypt=hash
   
   
6. Create virtual user:
   
   useradd -d /home/ftp virtual
   
   
7. Create /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf containing the following lines:
   
   anonymous_enable=NO
local_enable=YES
write_enable=NO
anon_upload_enable=NO
anon_mkdir_write_enable=NO
anon_other_write_enable=NO
chroot_local_user=YES
guest_enable=YES
guest_username=virtual
listen=YES
listen_port=21

   
8. Restart vsftpd:
   
   sudo /etc/init.d/vsftpd restart
   

Anytime you add a user to /etc/vsftpd/logins.txt you have to add the database again by running:
db_load -T -t hash -f /etc/vsftpd/logins.txt /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd_login.db

If you would like an account just let me know.