Hello Everyone,

This one is going to be a CentOS 3.x,CentOS 4.x vsftpd guide.

First you need to download CentOS 3.x CD1 or CentOS 4.x CD1 from www.centos.org.

Then once the computer is installed you do the

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yum update

Once the update has successfully finished, you issue the following command

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yum install vsftpd

Using your favorite text editor or using vi (your choice) you create a new vsftpd.conf file.
First you backup the old one like this.

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cd /etc/vsftpd mkdir backup mv vsftd.conf backup/vsftpd.conf vi vsftpd.conf

and add the following lines to the vsftpd.conf file

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chown_uploads=NO xferlog_enable=YES idle_session_timeout=600 data_connection_timeout=120 ascii_upload_enable=NO ascii_download_enable=NO background=YES listen=YES ls_recurse_enable=NO chroot_local_user=YES write_enable=YES anonymous_enable=NO anon_upload_enable=NO anon_mkdir_write_enable=NO userlist_enable=YES userlist_deny=YES local_enable=YES pam_service_name=vsftpd

the file vsftpd.user_list should contain atleast the following users
root,bin,daemon,adm,lp,sync,shutdown,halt,mail,news,uucp,operator,games,nobody ...
you may need to manually add some users if you install new services for example squid , etc...

next comes the add user part

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useradd myftpusername passwd myftpusername

then using your favorite text editor or with vi edit your /etc/passwd file like this
WRONG:

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myftpusername:x:501:501::/home/myftpusername:/bin/bash

CORRECT

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myftpusername:x:501:501::/home/myftpusername:/sbin/nologin

You will need to do this for each user you add and wish to use to access the ftp server.

Now all that is left, make sure vsftpd starts up by default

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chkconfig vsftpd on /etc/init.d/vsftpd start

Login with your test username , and that is all.

NOTE : each user will only be able to see it's own /home/username directory , and wont be able to get outside of that.

Sincerely
Robert B