Fedora Linux

Configuring an FTP Server

File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a long-established Internet protocol for downloading files. In Fedora, you can use the Very Safe FTP program, vsftp, to serve data via FTP.

How Do I Do That?

To serve content via FTP, just install the vsftpd package and place the content that you wish to make publicly available in the /var/ftp directory.

Tip

If you are using a firewall, you will need to open the FTP ports in the firewall.

To view the contents of /var/ftp with a browser, go to ftp://<hostname>/. To access files in a home directory, use the URL ftp://<user>@<hostname>/ (the browser will ask for your password) or ftp://<user>:<password>@<hostname>/.

To access the contents of /var/ftp using a command-line FTP client program, log in as anonymous and use your email address as your password:

$ ftp
ftp> open 
               
                  ftp.fedorabook.com
               
Connected to 172.16.97.100.
220 (vsFTPd 2.0.4)
530 Please login with USER and PASS.
530 Please login with USER and PASS.
KERBEROS_V4 rejected as an authentication type
Name (ftp.fedorabook.com:chris): 
                  anonymous
               
Password: 
                  [e-mail]
               
230 Login successful.
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files.
ftp> ls 227 Entering Passive Mode (172,16,97,100,237,192) 150 Here comes the directory listing. drwxr-xr-x 2 0 0 4096 Mar 09 16:41 fedora-core-5 drwxr-xr-x 2 0 0 4096 Mar 09 16:41 fedora-core-6 drwxr-xr-x 2 0 0 4096 Mar 09 16:41 fedora-linux drwxr-xr-x 2 0 0 4096 Mar 09 16:42 images drwxr-xr-x 2 0 0 4096 Mar 09 ...