FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is a trustworthy method for transferring files between your local computer and a server in a network. Configuring an FTP Server on your VPS server will make the process of transferring files easy and reliable. Here’s a step-by-step process of setting up an FTP server on a VPS running Ubuntu.
1. Update the System
Before you start, you should always update the system to the latest available packages. You can do this by running the following command: \`\`\` sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade \`\`\`1. Install the FTP Server
Next, install the FTP server software which is available from Ubuntu’s repositories. For this tutorial, we’ll use vsftpd, which stands for Very Secure FTP Daemon and is one of the most secure and fastest FTP daemons. \`\`\` sudo apt-get install vsftpd \`\`\`1. Configure vsftpd
After the installation, you need to configure the FTP Server for your requirement. Open the configuration file using nano or your favourite text editor. \`\`\` sudo nano /etc/vsftpd.conf \`\`\` Inside that file, uncomment following lines: \`\`\` write\_enable=YES local\_umask=022 chroot_local_user=YES user_sub_token=$USER local\_root=/home/$USER/ftp \`\`\` Save and close the file after you have made these changes. In this configuration, we have enabled FTP write commands (allowing transfer of files from the client to the server), defined the necessary umask value for file creation, restricted the FTP users to their home directories.1. Create an FTP User
Now we will create a dedicated FTP user on your server. \`\`\` sudo adduser ftpuser \`\`\` You’ll be asked to choose and confirm a new UNIX password. You can ignore other profiles info and keep pressing ENTER until it finishes.1. Create an FTP Directory
Now, you need to create an FTP directory for the user and change the permissions of that directory. \`\`\` sudo mkdir /home/ftpuser/ftp sudo chmod 550 /home/ftpuser/ftp \`\`\`1. Restart and Enable vsftpd
Finally, you can restart and enable vsftpd: \`\`\` sudo systemctl restart vsftpd sudo systemctl enable vsftpd \`\`\`That’s it. Your FTP server is ready. You can connect to the FTP server using the FTP user and the password.
However, remember that FTP is an inherently insecure protocol because it doesn’t encrypt data being transmitted between your server and client. Where security is a concern, SFTP (Secure FTP) should be used instead, which is inherently secure because it uses SSH protocol to encrypt all data.
