Linux MINT DE :: Virtual FTP Access

gareth.cheyne Linux Mint DB April 22, 2018 | 0

Install the following apps
```
apt-get install vsftpd libpam-pwdfile
```
Edit /etc/vsftpd.conf
```
nano /etc/vsftpd.conf
```

Then past the following
Edit to your exact needs the most important bit for virtual users is everything after the virtual user settings comment.

listen=YES
anonymous_enable=NO
local_enable=YES
write_enable=YES
local_umask=022 local_root=/var/www
chroot_local_user=YES
allow_writeable_chroot=YES
hide_ids=YES

#virutal user settings
user_config_dir=/etc/vsftpd_user_conf
guest_enable=YES
virtual_use_local_privs=YES
pam_service_name=vsftpd
nopriv_user=vsftpd
guest_username=vsftpd

Creating User
You can either use a database or htpasswd, I found htpasswd faster and easier to use.
1. Make a directory to store your users
```
mkdir /etc/vsftpd
htpasswd -cd /etc/vsftpd/ftpd.passwd user1
```
  NB. when adding additional users just omit the -c
```
htpasswd -d /etc/vsftpd/ftpd.passwd user2
```
Set and encrypt password
I’ve only managed to get it to work using CRYPT which limits to 8 chars to use more than 8 chars use openssl to generate a compatible hash and pipe directly into htpasswd
```
htpasswd -c -p -b /etc/vsftpd/ftpd.passwd user1 $(openssl passwd -1 -noverify password)
```

Change the PAM file
Once your users are created you can now change your PAM config file

nano /etc/pam.d/vsftpd

and remove everything inside this file and replace with the following

<code>auth required pam_pwdfile.so pwdfile /etc/vsftpd/ftpd.passwd</code>

auth required pam_pwdfile.so pwdfile /etc/vsftpd/ftpd.passwd

account required pam_permit.so

This will enable login for your virtual users defined in /etc/vsftpd/ftpd.passwd and will disable local users

Next we need to add a user for these virtual users to use. These users will not have access to the shell and will be called vsftpd

useradd --home /home/vsftpd --gid nogroup -m --shell /bin/false vsftpd

the user must match guest_username=vsftpd in the vsftpd conf file

Defining Directory Access

The important line here is the following

user_config_dir=/etc/vsftpd_user_conf

this means that when user1 logs in it will look for the following file

/etc/vsftpd_user_conf/user1

this file the same as the vsftpd.conf so you can define a new local_root

going back to the question we want user1 to only have access to var/www/website_name1/sub_folder1, so we need to create the vsftpd_user_conf folder:

mkdir /etc/vsftpd_user_conf

Now create the user file:

nano /etc/vsftpd_user_conf/user1

and enter the following line

local_root=/var/www/website_name1/sub_folder1

Now restart vsftp

service vsftpd restart

you should now be able to login as user1 who will only be able to see var/www/website_name1/sub_folder1 and any folder and file inside it.

That’s it you can now add as many users as you want and limit their access to whatever folder you wish.

important to remember if you do not create a user conf file it will default to the var/www folder as root (in the example above)

If the subfolder is intended to be modifiable by the user, it might be necesary to change the owner of the shared subfolder:

chown vsftpd:nogroup /var/www/website_name1/sub_folder1

Linux MINT DE :: Virtual FTP Access