How To Install Pure-FTPd on CentOS 6 Via Yum

Pure-FTPd is a free (BSD), secure, production-quality and standard-conformant FTP server. It doesn’t provide useless bells and whistles, but focuses on efficiency and ease of use. It provides simple answers to common needs, plus unique useful features for personal users as well as hosting providers. In this article, I’ll show you How do I install Pure-FTPd on CentOS 6.3 via yum command.

Install the extra repositories

The first step requires downloading some RPM files that contain the additional YUM repository definitions.

# rpm -Uvh http://mirror-fpt-telecom.fpt.net/fedora/epel/6/i386/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm

Sample output

Retrieving http://mirror-fpt-telecom.fpt.net/fedora/epel/6/i386/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
        package epel-release-6-8.noarch is already installed

Installing Pure-FTPd

To install pure-ftpd type the following command

# yum install pure-ftpd -y

Sample output

Setting up Install Process
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package pure-ftpd.x86_64 0:1.0.36-1.el6.rf will be installed
--> Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

================================================================================
 Package          Arch          Version                   Repository       Size
================================================================================
Installing:
 pure-ftpd        x86_64        1.0.36-1.el6.rf           rpmforge        446 k

Transaction Summary
================================================================================
Install       1 Package(s)

Total download size: 446 k
Installed size: 1.4 M
Downloading Packages:
pure-ftpd-1.0.36-1.el6.rf.x86_64.rpm                     | 446 kB     00:00
Running rpm_check_debug
Running Transaction Test
Transaction Test Succeeded
Running Transaction
  Installing : pure-ftpd-1.0.36-1.el6.rf.x86_64                             1/1
  Verifying  : pure-ftpd-1.0.36-1.el6.rf.x86_64                             1/1

Installed:
  pure-ftpd.x86_64 0:1.0.36-1.el6.rf

Complete!

Configuring the Pure-FTPd server

Type the following command to edit Pure-FTPd configuration file

# vi /etc/pure-ftpd/pure-ftpd.conf

Make sure you have these options enabled

# If you want simple Unix (/etc/passwd) authentication, uncomment this
UnixAuthentication            yes

To secure Pure-FTPd, make sure follow these options

# Cage in every user in his home directory
ChrootEveryone              yes

# If you want to log all client commands, set this to "yes".
# This directive can be duplicated to also log server responses.
VerboseLog                  yes

# Disallow anonymous connections. Only allow authenticated users.
NoAnonymous                 yes

Turn on and save pure-ftpd

Type the following two commands to turn on pure-ftpd:

# chkconfig pure-ftpd on
# service pure-ftpd start

Iptables open FTP Port 21 and 20

FTP server use both port 21 and 20 (port 21 for the command port and port 20 for the data). To open two port 20 & 21 on Iptables let’s do step by step.

The first, type the following command to load two iptables modules

# modprobe ip_conntrack
# modprobe ip_conntrack_ftp

Type the following commands to add the iptables rules for incoming request on port 20 & 21

# iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport  20 -j ACCEPT
# iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport  21 -j ACCEPT