jordanthompson's picture

I am trying to configure my ftp server to allow anonymous connections.  I have it working for users to ftp in (username and password) and I have the samba shares working the way I want, but anonymous ftp is killing me.

There is no ftp user or group either (sounds a little strange.)

Everything I have read discusses vsftp, but from what I can figure out, the appliance uses plane jane ftp (and I don't know where to find the configuration file.

Forum: 
Tags: 
Jeremy Davis's picture

It does include SFTP (FTP over SSH) but that is provided by OpenSSH.

If you want to use plain FTP then you'll need to install an FTP server. vsftpd is one popular option. It's pretty easy to configure too. Another option is ProFTPd, which also has a Webmin module (which would be a bonus if you're that way inclined...

Both of those can be installed with apt-get:

apt-get install vsftpd

or

apt-get install proftpd webmin-proftpd

There should be plenty of info available on how to configure. Actually IIRC it is pretty intuitive...

jordanthompson's picture

I'm a little confused: I have authorized ftp working pretty much out of the box.  In fact it supports connections over both ports 21 (FTP) and 22 (SFTP).

I just don't have anonymous ftp working.  I need another ftp sever just to support anonymous ftp?

Jeremy Davis's picture

I just double checked the Fileserver appliance manifest and there is definitely no FTP server pre-installed. It does have OpenSSH (which supplies SFTP) but not specific FTP server (such as vsftpd or ProFTPd). I also had a quick look over the appliance build code and I'm 99.99% sure that there is no vanilla FTP server included by default.

So I have no idea where the FTP component of your server came from... Someone must have installed it at some point... If you have ProFTPd (or vsftpd) installed then I'm sure that it could be (re)configured to provide anon FTP access. But I'm not sure how to do it. There should be plenty of info online. Just keep in mind that TurnKey is Debian under the hood (v13 = Debian Wheezy) and there should be tons of info.

jordanthompson's picture

We are talking about Tunkey Linux Fileserver from here:

http://mirror.turnkeylinux.org/turnkeylinux/images/vmdk/turnkey-fileserv...

right?  I just installed it, let it update itself and I can use Filezilla to access it via sftp on port 22.  Note that this is a correction - I thought I was connecting via ftp earlier but filezilla was prepending sftp:// to the IP address and I didn't notice.

So does this mean it is using sftp over http?

Jeremy Davis's picture

Like I said (in a couple of my posts above); SFTP (FTP over SSH) is installed and configured (ready to use) by default. It is provided by the OpenSSH package.

As you discovered SFTP will work for any user that exists on the system (so long as they are allowed SSH login - which by default will be any new user that you add). However because SFTP is provided via SSH there is no facility within it to provide anonymous connection.

This leaves you with 2 options:

1) Install and configure an FTP server (as I suggested above); or

2) Do a bit of a workaround and add a new user called anonymous (or whatever you want the 'anonymous' user to be called) and configure that account to not require a password.

Personally I think that option 1 would be the preferable one, but the choice is yours. If you wish to go option 2 then google turned up a couple of links that are probably useful: here and here. I can't confirm that they are ideal, but they should get you going...

Also either way you go I would highly recommend chroot jailing your SFTP/FTP users. Additional config is especially important if you decide to stick with SFTP because by default SFTP access also means SSH access and the ability to run commands on your server! Probably not something that you want!

Add new comment