VSFTPD.CONF 5
- NAME
- vsftpd.conf, the config file for vsftpd
- DESCRIPTION
- vsftpd.conf may be used to control various aspects of vsftpd's behaviour. By
default, vsftpd looks for this file at the location
/etc/vsftpd.conf .
However, you may override this by specifying a command line argument to
vsftpd. The command line argument is the pathname of the configuration file
for vsftpd. This behaviour is useful because you may wish to use an advanced
inetd such as
xinetd
to launch vsftpd with different configuration files on a per virtual host
basis.
- FORMAT
- The format of vsftpd.conf is very simple. Each line is either a comment or
a directive. Comment lines start with a # and are ignored. A directive line
has the format:
option=value
It is important to note that it is an error to put any space between the
option, = and value.
Each setting has a compiled in default which may be modified in the
configuration file.
- BOOLEAN OPTIONS
- Below is a list of boolean options. The value for a boolean option may be set
to
YES
or
NO .
- anon_mkdir_write_enable
-
If set to YES, anonymous users will be permitted to create new directories
under certain conditions. For this to work, the option
write_enable
must be activated, and the anonymous ftp user must have write permission on
the parent directory.
Default: NO
- anon_other_write_enable
-
If set to YES, anonymous users will be permitted to perform write operations
other than upload and create directory, such as deletion and renaming. This
is generally not recommended but included for completeness.
Default: NO
- anon_upload_enable
-
If set to YES, anonymous users will be permitted to upload files under certain
conditions. For this to work, the option
write_enable
must be activated, and the anonymous ftp user must have write permission on
desired upload locations.
Default: NO
- anon_world_readable_only
-
When enabled, anonymous users will only be allowed to download files which
are world readable. This is recognising that the ftp user may own files,
especially in the presence of uploads.
Default: YES
- anonymous_enable
-
Controls whether anonymous logins are permitted or not. If enabled,
both the usernames
ftp
and
anonymous
are recognised as anonymous logins.
Default: YES
- ascii_download_enable
-
When enabled, ASCII mode data transfers will be honoured on downloads.
Default: NO
- ascii_upload_enable
-
When enabled, ASCII mode data transfers will be honoured on uploads.
Default: NO
- async_abor_enable
-
When enabled, a special FTP command known as "async ABOR" will be enabled.
Only ill advised FTP clients will use this feature. Addtionally, this feature
is awkward to handle, so it is disabled by default. Unfortunately, some FTP
clients will hang when cancelling a transfer unless this feature is available,
so you may wish to enable it.
Default: NO
- background
-
When enabled, and vsftpd is started in "listen" mode, vsftpd will background
the listener process. i.e. control will immediately be returned to the shell
which launched vsftpd.
Default: NO
- check_shell
-
Note! This option only has an effect for non-PAM builds of vsftpd. If disabled,
vsftpd will not check /etc/shells for a valid user shell for local logins.
Default: YES
- chmod_enable
-
When enables, allows use of the SITE CHMOD command. NOTE! This only applies
to local users. Anonymous users never get to use SITE CHMOD.
Default: YES
- chown_uploads
-
If enabled, all anonymously uploaded files will have the ownership changed
to the user specified in the setting
chown_username .
This is useful from an administrative, and perhaps security, standpoint.
Default: NO
- chroot_list_enable
-
If activated, you may provide a list of local users who are placed in a
chroot() jail in their home directory upon login. The meaning is slightly
different if chroot_local_user is set to YES. In this case, the list becomes
a list of users which are NOT to be placed in a chroot() jail.
By default, the file containing this list is
/etc/vsftpd.chroot_list, but you may override this with the
chroot_list_file
setting.
Default: NO
- chroot_local_user
-
If set to YES, local users will be placed in a chroot() jail in their home
directory after login.
Warning:
This option has security implications, especially if the users have upload
permission, or shell access. Only enable if you know what you are doing.
Note that these security implications are not vsftpd specific. They apply to
all FTP daemons which offer to put local users in chroot() jails.
Default: NO
- connect_from_port_20
-
This controls whether PORT style data connections use port 20 (ftp-data) on
the server machine. For security reasons, some clients may insist that this
is the case. Conversely, disabling this option enables vsftpd to run with
slightly less privilege.
Default: NO (but the sample config file enables it)
- deny_email_enable
-
If activated, you may provide a list of anonymous password e-mail responses
which cause login to be denied. By default, the file containing this list is
/etc/vsftpd.banned_emails, but you may override this with the
banned_email_file
setting.
Default: NO
- dirlist_enable
-
If set to NO, all directory list commands will give permission denied.
Default: YES
- dirmessage_enable
-
If enabled, users of the FTP server can be shown messages when they first
enter a new directory. By default, a directory is scanned for the
file .message, but that may be overridden with the configuration setting
message_file .
Default: NO (but the sample config file enables it)
- download_enable
-
If set to NO, all download requests will give permission denied.
Default: YES
- dual_log_enable
-
If enabled, two log files are generated in parallel, going by default to
/var/log/xferlog
and
/var/log/vsftpd.log .
The former is a wu-ftpd style transfer log, parseable by standard tools. The
latter is vsftpd's own style log.
Default: NO
- force_dot_files
-
If activated, files and directories starting with . will be shown in directory
listings even if the "a" flag was not used by the client. This override
exludes the "." and ".." entries.
Default: NO
- guest_enable
-
If enabled, all non-anonymous logins are classed as "guest" logins. A guest
login is remapped to the user specified in the
guest_username
setting.
Default: NO
- hide_ids
-
If enabled, all user and group information in directory listings will be
displayed as "ftp".
Default: NO
- listen
-
If enabled, vsftpd will run in standalone mode. This means that vsftpd must
not be run from an inetd of some kind. Instead, the vsftpd executable is
run once directly. vsftpd itself will then take care of listening for and
handling incoming connections.
Default: NO
- listen_ipv6
-
Like the listen parameter, except vsftpd will listen on an IPv6 socket instead
of an IPv4 one. This parameter and the listen parameter are mutually
exlusive.
Default: NO
- local_enable
-
Controls whether local logins are permitted or not. If enabled, normal
user accounts in /etc/passwd may be used to log in.
Default: NO
- log_ftp_protocol
-
When enabled, all FTP requests and responses are logged, providing the option
xferlog_std_format is not enabled. Useful for debugging.
Default: NO
- ls_recurse_enable
-
When enabled, this setting will allow the use of "ls -R". This is a minor
security risk, because a ls -R at the top level of a large site may consume
a lot of resources.
Default: NO
- no_anon_password
-
When enabled, this prevents vsftpd from asking for an anonymous password -
the anonymous user will log straight in.
Default: NO
- one_process_model
-
If you have a Linux 2.4 kernel, it is possible to use a different security
model which only uses one process per connection. It is a less pure security
model, but gains you performance. You really don't want to enable this unless
you know what you are doing, and your site supports huge numbers of
simultaneously connected users.
Default: NO
- passwd_chroot_enable
-
If enabled, along with
chroot_local_user
, then a chroot() jail location may be specified on a per-user basis. Each
user's jail is derived from their home directory string in /etc/passwd. The
occurence of /./ in the home directory string denotes that the jail is at that
particular location in the path.
Default: NO
- pasv_enable
-
Set to NO if you want to disallow the PASV method of obtaining a data
connection.
Default: YES
- pasv_promiscuous
-
Set to YES if you want to disable the PASV security check that ensures the
data connection originates from the same IP address as the control connection.
Only enable if you know what you are doing! The only legitimate use for this
is in some form of secure tunnelling scheme.
Default: NO
- port_enable
-
Set to NO if you want to disallow the PORT method of obtaining a data
connection.
Default: YES
- port_promiscuous
-
Set to YES if you want to disable the PORT security check that ensures that
outgoing data connections can only connect to the client. Only enable if
you know what you are doing!
Default: NO
- session_support
-
This controls whether vsftpd attempts to maintain sessions for logins. If
vsftpd is maintaining sessions, it will try and update utmp and wtmp. It
will also open a pam_session if using PAM to authenticate, and only close
this upon logout. You may wish to disable this if you do not need session
logging, and you wish to give vsftpd more opportunity to run with less
processes and / or less privilege. NOTE - utmp and wtmp support is only
provided with PAM enabled builds.
Default: YES
- setproctitle_enable
-
If enabled, vsftpd will try and show session status information in the system
process listing. In other words, the reported name of the process will change
to reflect what a vsftpd session is doing (idle, downloading etc). You
probably want to leave this off for security purposes.
Default: NO
- syslog_enable
-
If enabled, then any log output which would have gone to /var/log/vsftpd.log
goes to the system log instead. Logging is done under the FTPD facility.
Default: NO
- tcp_wrappers
-
If enabled, and vsftpd was compiled with tcp_wrappers support, incoming
connections will be fed through tcp_wrappers access control. Furthermore,
there is a mechanism for per-IP based configuration. If tcp_wrappers sets
the VSFTPD_LOAD_CONF environment variable, then the vsftpd session will try
and load the vsftpd configuration file specified in this variable.
Default: NO
- text_userdb_names
-
By default, numeric IDs are shown in the user and group fields of directory
listings. You can get textual names by enabling this parameter. It is off
by default for performance reasons.
Default: NO
- use_localtime
-
If enabled, vsftpd will display directory listings with the the time in your
local time zone. The default is to display GMT. The times returned by the
MDTM FTP command are also affected by this option.
Default: NO
- use_sendfile
-
An internal setting used for testing the relative benefit of using the
sendfile() system call on your platform.
Default: YES
- userlist_deny
-
This option is examined if
userlist_enable
is activated. If you set this setting to NO, then users will be denied login
unless they are explicitly listed in the file specified by
userlist_file .
When login is denied, the denial is issued before the user is asked for a
password.
Default: YES
- userlist_enable
-
If enabled, vsftpd will load a list of usernames, from the filename given by
userlist_file .
If a user tries to log in using a name in this file, they will be denied
before they are asked for a password. This may be useful in preventing
cleartext passwords being transmitted. See also
userlist_deny .
Default: NO
- virtual_use_local_privs
-
If enabled, virtual users will use the same privileges as local users. By
default, virtual users will use the same privileges as anonymous users, which
tends to be more restrictive (especially in terms of write access).
Default: NO
- write_enable
-
This controls whether any FTP commands which change the filesystem are allowed
or not. These commands are: STOR, DELE, RNFR, RNTO, MKD, RMD, APPE and SITE.
Default: NO
- xferlog_enable
-
If enabled, a log file will be maintained detailling uploads and downloads.
By default, this file will be placed at /var/log/vsftpd.log, but this location
may be overridden using the configuration setting
vsftpd_log_file .
Default: NO (but the sample config file enables it)
- xferlog_std_format
-
If enabled, the transfer log file will be written in standard xferlog format,
as used by wu-ftpd. This is useful because you can reuse existing transfer
statistics generators. The default format is more readable, however. The
default location for this style of log file is /var/log/xferlog, but you may
change it with the setting
xferlog_file .
Default: NO
- NUMERIC OPTIONS
- Below is a list of numeric options. A numeric option must be set to a non
negative integer. Octal numbers are supported, for convenience of the umask
options. To specify an octal number, use 0 as the first digit of the number.
- accept_timeout
-
The timeout, in seconds, for a remote client to establish connection with
a PASV style data connection.
Default: 60
- anon_max_rate
-
The maximum data transfer rate permitted, in bytes per second, for anonymous
clients.
Default: 0 (unlimited)
- anon_umask
-
The value that the umask for file creation is set to for anonymous users. NOTE! If you want to specify octal values, remember the "0" prefix otherwise the
value will be treated as a base 10 integer!
Default: 077
- connect_timeout
-
The timeout, in seconds, for a remote client to respond to our PORT style
data connection.
Default: 60
- data_connection_timeout
-
The timeout, in seconds, which is roughly the maximum time we permit data
transfers to stall for with no progress. If the timeout triggers, the remote
client is kicked off.
Default: 300
- file_open_mode
-
The permissions with which uploaded files are created. Umasks are applied
on top of this value. You may wish to change to 0777 if you want uploaded
files to be executable.
Default: 0666
- ftp_data_port
-
The port from which PORT style connections originate (as long as the poorly
named
connect_from_port_20
is enabled).
Default: 20
- idle_session_timeout
-
The timeout, in seconds, which is the maximum time a remote client may spend
between FTP commands. If the timeout triggers, the remote client is kicked
off.
Default: 300
- listen_port
-
If vsftpd is in standalone mode, this is the port it will listen on for
incoming FTP connections.
Default: 21
- local_max_rate
-
The maximum data transfer rate permitted, in bytes per second, for local
authenticated users.
Default: 0 (unlimited)
- local_umask
-
The value that the umask for file creation is set to for local users. NOTE! If
you want to specify octal values, remember the "0" prefix otherwise the value
will be treated as a base 10 integer!
Default: 077
- max_clients
-
If vsftpd is in standalone mode, this is the maximum number of clients which
may be connected. Any additional clients connecting will get an error message.
Default: 0 (unlimited)
- max_per_ip
-
If vsftpd is in standalone mode, this is the maximum number of clients which
may be connected from the same source internet address. A client will get an
error message if they go over this limit.
Default: 0 (unlimited)
- pasv_max_port
-
The maximum port to allocate for PASV style data connections. Can be used to
specify a narrow port range to assist firewalling.
Default: 0 (use any port)
- pasv_min_port
-
The minimum port to allocate for PASV style data connections. Can be used to
specify a narrow port range to assist firewalling.
Default: 0 (use any port)
- trans_chunk_size
-
You probably don't want to change this, but try setting it to something like
8192 for a much smoother bandwidth limiter.
Default: 0 (let vsftpd pick a sensible setting)
- STRING OPTIONS
- Below is a list of string options.
- anon_root
-
This option represents a directory which vsftpd will try to change into
after an anonymous login. Failure is silently ignored.
Default: (none)
- banned_email_file
-
This option is the name of a file containing a list of anonymous e-mail
passwords which are not permitted. This file is consulted if the option
deny_email_enable
is enabled.
Default: /etc/vsftpd.banned_emails
- banner_file
-
This option is the name of a file containing text to display when someone
connects to the server. If set, it overrides the banner string provided by
the
ftpd_banner
option.
Default: (none)
- chown_username
-
This is the name of the user who is given ownership of anonymously uploaded
files. This option is only relevant if another option,
chown_uploads ,
is set.
Default: root
- chroot_list_file
-
The option is the name of a file containing a list of local users which
will be placed in a chroot() jail in their home directory. This option is
only relevant if the option
chroot_list_enable
is enabled, and the option
chroot_local_user
is disabled.
Default: /etc/vsftpd.chroot_list
- cmds_allowed
-
This options specifies a comma separated list of allowed FTP commands (post
login. USER, PASS and QUIT are always allowed pre-login). Other
commands are rejected. This is a powerful method of really locking down an
FTP server. Example: cmds_allowed=PASV,RETR,QUIT
Default: (none)
- guest_username
-
See the boolean setting
guest_enable
for a description of what constitutes a guest login. This setting is the
real username which guest users are mapped to.
Default: ftp
- ftp_username
-
This is the name of the user we use for handling anonymous FTP. The home
directory of this user is the root of the anonymous FTP area.
Default: ftp
- ftpd_banner
-
This string option allows you to override the greeting banner displayed
by vsftpd when a connection first comes in.
Default: (none - default vsftpd banner is displayed)
- listen_address
-
If vsftpd is in standalone mode, the default listen address (of all local
interfaces) may be overridden by this setting. Provide a numeric IP address.
Default: (none)
- listen_address6
-
Like listen_address, but specifies a default listen address for the IPv6
listener (which is used if listen_ipv6 is set). Format is standard IPv6
address format.
Default: (none)
- local_root
-
This option represents a directory which vsftpd will try to change into
after a local (i.e. non-anonymous) login. Failure is silently ignored.
Default: (none)
- message_file
-
This option is the name of the file we look for when a new directory is
entered. The contents are displayed to the remote user. This option is
only relevant if the option
dirmessage_enable
is enabled.
Default: .message
- nopriv_user
-
This is the name of the user that is used by vsftpd when it want to be
totally unprivileged. Note that this should be a dedicated user, rather
than nobody. The user nobody tends to be used for rather a lot of important
things on most machines.
Default: nobody
- pam_service_name
-
This string is the name of the PAM service vsftpd will use.
Default: ftp
- pasv_address
-
Use this option to override the IP address that vsftpd will advertise in
response to the PASV command. Provide a numeric IP address.
Default: (none - the address is taken from the incoming connected socket)
- secure_chroot_dir
-
This option should be the name of a directory which is empty. Also, the
directory should not be writable by the ftp user. This directory is used
as a secure chroot() jail at times vsftpd does not require filesystem access.
Default: /usr/share/empty
- user_config_dir
-
This powerful option allows the override of any config option specified in
the manual page, on a per-user basis. Usage is simple, and is best illustrated
with an example. If you set
user_config_dir
to be
/etc/vsftpd_user_conf
and then log on as the user "chris", then vsftpd will apply the settings in
the file
/etc/vsftpd_user_conf/chris
for the duration of the session. The format of this file is as detailed in
this manual page!
Default: (none)
- userlist_file
-
This option is the name of the file loaded when the
userlist_enable
option is active.
Default: /etc/vsftpd.user_list
vsftpd_log_file
This option is the name of the file to which we write the vsftpd style
log file. This log is only written if the option
xferlog_enable
is set, and
xferlog_std_format
is NOT set. Alternatively, it is written if you have set the option
dual_log_enable .
One further complication - if you have set
syslog_enable ,
then this file is not written and output is sent to the system log instead.
Default: /var/log/vsftpd.log
- xferlog_file
-
This option is the name of the file to which we write the wu-ftpd style
transfer log. The transfer log is only written if the option
xferlog_enable
is set, along with
xferlog_std_format .
Alternatively, it is written if you have set the option
dual_log_enable .
Default: /var/log/xferlog
- AUTHOR
- chris@scary.beasts.org