Need your suggestions on Apache and VSFTPD

Hello all:

I'm experimenting with SUSE Linus 10.1 to create a LAN web server.

My primary goal is to have Apache running so that we can build and test web
pages.

Currently I've got Apache up and running. I can copy files locally into
www/htdocs and they can be read locally (http://127.0.0.1) and over the LAN
(http://192.168.1.133).

I now want to upload files into the www/htdocs subdirectory from the LAN.

Questions:

1. I assume that I'll need an FTP package to upload web pages into
www/htdocs. Am I right?
2. Can I use VSFTPD as the FTP package to upload web pages into
www/htdocs?

If the answers to both these questions are "Yes" then I'll need a bit of
coaching on VSFTPD configuration.

1. Should I create a user so that LAN users can upload files into the
www/htdocs subdirectory?
2. What kind of permissions shoud the new user have?
3. How do I configure VSFTPD to upload files from this user into
www/htdocs as the default directory?

Any other comments or pointers on this situation would be appreciated.

David wrote:

> Hello all:
>
> I'm experimenting with SUSE Linus 10.1 to create a LAN web server.
>
> My primary goal is to have Apache running so that we can build and test
> web pages.
>
> Currently I've got Apache up and running. I can copy files locally into
> www/htdocs and they can be read locally (http://127.0.0.1) and over the
> LAN (http://192.168.1.133).
>
> I now want to upload files into the www/htdocs subdirectory from the LAN.
>
> Questions:
>
> 1. I assume that I'll need an FTP package to upload web pages into
> www/htdocs. Am I right?
> 2. Can I use VSFTPD as the FTP package to upload web pages into
> www/htdocs?
>
> If the answers to both these questions are "Yes" then I'll need a bit of
> coaching on VSFTPD configuration.
>
> 1. Should I create a user so that LAN users can upload files into the
> www/htdocs subdirectory?
> 2. What kind of permissions shoud the new user have?
> 3. How do I configure VSFTPD to upload files from this user into
> www/htdocs as the default directory?
>
> Any other comments or pointers on this situation would be appreciated.

David

A more secure (even though it is on a LAN) is to use the sftp server that is
part of the ssh package. Most modern FTP clients have a SFTP option to
allow connections.

The server is included and started with the default ssh configuration but
the firewall configuration needs to be modified.

Let me know if you need more details and I will check up on the
configuration used here.

Jim

--
Pye, James Pye, chmod 007
The Ultimate Open Source

Hello Jim:

I'd appreciate any help or pointers you could provide.

Thanks.

David wrote:

> Hello Jim:
>
> I'd appreciate any help or pointers you could provide.
>
> Thanks.

David

ssh is the secure shell, It runs as a daemon on the server and has client
components the run on the client.

ssh is the preferred replacement for telnet as it uses encryption which
telnet does not.

The ssh daemon has several additional features which allow it to perform he
functionality of other client/server functions, one of these is FTP (SFTP
to be exact)

To configure this we need to confirm a few things.

First off we need to check that sshd has been loaded and enabled on the
webserver. For SuSE this is the default, but you may have disabled it
during installation or not enabled the firewall port etc.

As root on the box running the webserver if you run the command:

chkconfig -l sshd

(the switch is a el for lima)

it should report:

sshd 0ff 1ff 2ff 3n 4ff 5n 6ff

If not, we need to get sshd running at boot up. Run:

insserv sshd

which should take care of this.

Next we need to confirm that the sftp server is configured to start when
sshd does.

less /etc/ssh/ssd_config

and look for the lines:

# override default of no subsystems
Subsystem sftp /usr/lib/ssh/sftp-server

If this line exists then the sftp server should be run when the correct call
is made to the sshd daemon.

If the sshd is not running, either reboot the server to make the start
script activate due to the insserv command above or run:

/etc/init.d/sshd

Now from an FTP client (I have only configured FileZilla on a windows box,
long story, but any client that supports sftp will work)

Setup an account that uses SFTP Using SSH2 to connect to the server.

Note that if this server is going to be available to the outside world it
pays to change the default ssh port. In the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file the
Port line allows this to be changed from the default 22 to some other
value. Change the client port in the account to match.

HTH

Let me know if more details are required.

Jim

--
Pye, James Pye, chmod 007
The Ultimate Open Source

Whoops that config file should have been:

/etc/ssh/sshd_config

J
--
Pye, James Pye, chmod 007
The Ultimate Open Source