Ubuntu Unleashed, Second Edition

more concurrent users and $129 for up to 50 concurrent users, but free to education insti-

tutions with a compliant domain name).

NOTE

Do not confuse the

ncftp client with ncftpd. The ncftp-3.1 package included with

Ubuntu is the client software, a replacement for

ftp-0.17, and includes the ncftpget

and ncftpput commands for transferring files via the command line or by using a

remote file uniform resource locator (URL) address.

ncftpd is the FTP server, which

can be downloaded from www.ncftpd.com.

Another FTP server package for Linux is ProFTPD, licensed under the GNU GPL. This

server works well with most Linux distributions and has been used by a number of Linux

sites, including ftp.kernel.org and ftp.sourceforge.net. ProFTPD is actively maintained and

updated for bug fixes and security enhancements. Its developers recommend that you use

the latest release (1.2.10 at the time of this writing) to avoid exposure to exploits and

vulnerabilities. Browse to http://www.proftpd.org to download a copy.

Yet another FTP server package is

Bsdftpd-ssl, which is based on the BSD ftpd (and

distributed under the BSD license).

Bsdftpd-ssl offers simultaneous standard and secure

access using security extensions; secure access requires a special client. For more details,

browse to http://bsdftpd-ssl.sc.ru.

Finally, another alternative is to use Apache (and the HTTP protocol) for serving files.

Using a web server to provide data downloads can reduce the need to monitor and main-

tain a separate software service (or directories) on your server. This approach to serving

files also reduces system resource requirements and gives remote users a bit more flexibil-

ity when downloading (such as enabling them to download multiple files at once). See

Chapter 20, “Apache Web Server Management,” for more information about using

Apache.

Installing FTP Software

As part of the standard installation, the client software for FTP is already installed. You

can verify that FTP-related software is installed on your system by using dpkg,

grep, and

sort commands in this query:

$ dpkg --get-selections | grep ftp | sort

The example results might differ, depending on what software packages are installed. In

your Ubuntu file system, you will find the file

/usr/bin/pftp symbolically linked to

/usr/bin/netkit-ftp as well as the vsftpd server under the /usr/sbin directory. Other

installed packages include additional text-based and graphical FTP clients.

If

vsftpd is not installed, you can install it through Synaptic.

CHAPTER 23 Remote File Serving with FTP

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