Open Source and the Magic LAMP

Back on the Prototype / Web Dev Scene

Ive been doing some Prototype work lately.  Keeping true to the FOSS tradition I am using, not Dreamweaver as a Web Design IDE, but KompoZer which I find to be the closest thing from a visual layout perspective.

Kompozer – the FOSS Web Design IDE

Although I prefer publishing files remotely from a Web Design tool via SFTP, KompoZer only supports FTP.  That being said it does support SSL enabled FTP.  I am very lucky to know some excellent Sys Admins.

FTP – Secure?

The consensus seems to be that vsftp is pretty darn secure if set up right.  One amazing Sys Admin, Kevin Korb, uses a home grown ftp server born and bred @ FutureQuest by Bruce Guenter which he says can’t be beat.  Its called twoftp and you can get here: http://untroubled.org/software.php.

vsftp setup on CentOS 5

Here’s how I got vsftp nice and secure with KompoZer publishing to my server. Please note my server distro is CentOS 5 32bit kernel v. 2.6.18-92.el5.

Creating a user

I created a user with:

• a primary group of apache (httpd group)
• a second group ftp
• starting shell /bin/bash
• password of xxxx
• home directory of /var/www/html – where my website files reside on the server
• a login name of jewelsjacobs

# useradd -gapache -Gftp -s/bin/shell -pxxxx -d/var/www/html jewelsjacobs

Installing vsftp

I installed vsftp server via yum:

# yum vsftpd

Configuring vsftp

I modified the /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf

# vi /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf

This is what mine looks like:


# Example config file /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf
#
# The default compiled in settings are fairly paranoid. This sample file
# loosens things up a bit, to make the ftp daemon more usable.
# Please see vsftpd.conf.5 for all compiled in defaults.
#
# READ THIS: This example file is NOT an exhaustive list of vsftpd options.
# Please read the vsftpd.conf.5 manual page to get a full idea of vsftpd's
# capabilities.
background=YES
#
# 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
#
# The target log file can be vsftpd_log_file or xferlog_file.
# This depends on setting xferlog_std_format parameter
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
#
# The name of log file when xferlog_enable=YES and xferlog_std_format=YES
# WARNING - changing this filename affects /etc/logrotate.d/vsftpd.log
#xferlog_file=/var/log/xferlog
#
# Switches between logging into vsftpd_log_file and xferlog_file files.
# NO writes to vsftpd_log_file, YES to xferlog_file
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 on some FTP servers, ASCII support allows a denial of service
# attack (DoS) via the command "SIZE /big/file" in ASCII mode. vsftpd
# predicted this attack and has always been safe, reporting the size of the
# raw file.
# ASCII mangling is a horrible feature of the protocol.
#ascii_upload_enable=YES
#ascii_download_enable=YES
#
# You may fully customise the login banner string:
ftpd_banner=Welcome to blah 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
#
# When "listen" directive is enabled, vsftpd runs in standalone mode and
# listens on IPv4 sockets. This directive cannot be used in conjunction
# with the listen_ipv6 directive.
listen=YES
#
# This directive enables listening on IPv6 sockets. To listen on IPv4 and IPv6
# sockets, you must run two copies of vsftpd whith two configuration files.
# Make sure, that one of the listen options is commented !!
#listen_ipv6=YES

pam_service_name=vsftpd
userlist_enable=YES
tcp_wrappers=YES
ftp_username=ftp
max_per_ip=4
force_dot_files=NO
listen_address=21
#hide_file=
#anon_max_rate=
#local_max_rate=
chroot_local_user=NO
anon_upload_enable=NO
anon_mkdir_write_enable=NO
anon_other_write_enable=NO

# Enable SSL
ssl_enable=YES
allow_anon_ssl=NO
force_local_data_ssl=NO
force_local_logins_ssl=YES

rsa_cert_file=/etc/pki/tls/certs/vsftpd.pem

Create the secure certificate

# cd /etc/pki/tls/certs
# make vsftpd.pem

FTP settings for KompoZer

Here are my settings in KompoZer: