How to replace ProFTPD with vsftpd on a Debian or Ubuntu

[Spheerys]

Hi,

I have found this on the official doc : http://vestacp.com/docs/#how-to-replace ... ian-ubuntu
But I need to do the opposite : I have installed proftpd on VestaCP install but I can't easily get SSL/ secure connexion for my customer which don't know what is a ssh key for SFTP

I tried to reinsall vsftpd but I had error and I don't want to broke anithing more.

Can you please help me to insatll vsftpd properly ?

[dreiggy]

Hi,
I have changed proftpd to vsftpd on centos 7. I think you may try to do some reverse steps for debian/ubuntu...

1) Disable proftpd

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service proftpd stop
update-rc.d -f proftpd remove

2) Install software package

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apt-get install vsftpd

3) Download configuration (I'm not sure if configuration location on debian/ubuntu is correct)

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wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/serghey-rodin/vesta/master/install/debian/9/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf -O /etc/vsftpd.conf

4) Change vesta settings

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sed -i "s/proftpd/vsftpd/" /usr/local/vesta/conf/vesta.conf

5) Restart vsftpd and vesta

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service vsftpd restart && service vesta restart

I've not tested this on debian/ubuntu. So you should try it by yourself ;) Good luck!

Additional bonus SSL/TLS enable tutorial: /viewtopic.php?f=44&t=18559

[Spheerys]

Thanks it's look pretty good !
The point is I have a relativly undocumented error on the web during vsftpd insatllation :

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mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/srv/ftp’: Permission denied

And effectively, I can't create this directory even with root user.
I'm blocked and this point :(

I'm running Ubuntu 18.04

[Spheerys]

OK I finally install with succes by cleaning package and reinstall it :

cd /var/cache/apt/archives/
rm vsftpd_*.deb
apt-get clean
apt-get autoremove
apt-get update
apt-get install vsftpd

The service was masked :

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Failed to start vsftpd.service: Unit vsftpd.service is masked.

I unmask it :

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systemctl unmask vsftpd.service

and start it :

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systemctl start vsftpd.service

the status looks good :

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● vsftpd.service - LSB: Very secure FTP server
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/vsftpd; generated)
   Active: active (exited) since Wed 2019-04-10 16:08:32 CEST; 14s ago
     Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)
  Process: 2790 ExecStart=/etc/init.d/vsftpd start (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

avril 10 16:08:32 peace systemd[1]: Starting LSB: Very secure FTP server...
avril 10 16:08:32 peace systemd[1]: Started LSB: Very secure FTP server.

But on vestacp admin panel, the vsftpd service looks not started (it's in grey).

The command "lsof -i -n -P | grep ':21'" give me no result

If I restart vsftpd, on the syslog file I have :

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Apr 10 16:27:56 peace systemd[1]: Stopping LSB: Very secure FTP server...
Apr 10 16:27:56 peace systemd[1]: Stopped LSB: Very secure FTP server.
Apr 10 16:27:56 peace systemd[1]: Starting LSB: Very secure FTP server...
Apr 10 16:27:56 peace systemd[1]: Started LSB: Very secure FTP server.

Something going wrong, but what ???

[dreiggy]

Have you changed proftpd to vsftpd in vesta.conf?

Try check with this commands:

# netstat -tulpn | grep ':21'
# ps aux | grep vsftpd

[Spheerys]

Yes I changed it :

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cat /usr/local/vesta/conf/vesta.conf
WEB_SYSTEM='apache2'
WEB_RGROUPS='www-data'
WEB_PORT='8080'
WEB_SSL_PORT='8443'
WEB_SSL='mod_ssl'
PROXY_SYSTEM='nginx'
PROXY_PORT='80'
PROXY_SSL_PORT='443'
STATS_SYSTEM='webalizer,awstats'
FTP_SYSTEM='vsftpd'
MAIL_SYSTEM='exim4'
IMAP_SYSTEM='dovecot'
CRON_SYSTEM='cron'
FIREWALL_SYSTEM='iptables'
FIREWALL_EXTENSION='fail2ban'
BACKUP_SYSTEM='local'
LANGUAGE='fr'
VERSION='0.9.8'
DB_SYSTEM='mysql'
DISK_QUOTA='no'
BACKUP='/backups/vestacp'

The ps and the netstat give me no answer
Strange didn't it ?

[dreiggy]

Try check vsftpd.log file in /var/log directory. Maybe here will be some errors.

[Spheerys]

This log stay empty even with good parameters on the conf file.
It is another clue about the problem...

[dreiggy]

This log stay empty even with good parameters on the conf file.
It is another clue about the problem...

Seems here is needed deeper debuging. Try use strace when starting up vsftpd service.

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strace -s1000 service vsftpd start

(PS. you should have installed strace package)