Re: [orca-list] FTP server: I'm obviously doing something wrong, although probably am on the right track.

[Andy Borka <sonfire11 gmail com>]

You may need to seek other resources to get your ftp server up and 
running. As a slight hint though, try adding your ftp users to the ftpd 
group. Much the same way multiuser webservers add the approved web 
server users to the www-data group.


On 2/2/19 11:14 PM, Christopher Gilland via orca-list wrote:
> So, my gut feeling on this is, I'm probably very very close to having 
> this correctly working. I just have one issue, but don't exactly know 
> where I'm going wrong, and after reading the docs, I'm still not able 
> to get things properly configured, and therefore would like to seek 
> some help from one of you who're way more experienced with Linux than 
> I am at this point.
>
>
> So, I did an apt-get, and installed in Ubuntu, VSFTPD.
>
>
> I set local users to not be able to log in, but did set the directoive 
> in vsftpd.conf to allow anonymous users.
>
>
> I noticed that the
>
>
> anon_root
>
>
> directive, IE, anon_root=/var/ftp wasn't present in the conf file. I 
> therefore went ahead and inserted it.
>
>
> Also, this directory wasn't created when installing the pkg, although 
> according to the docs I've read online, it should a been, unless I 
> misunderstood.
>
>
> /home/ftp wasn't created either, which I've seen references to.
>
>
> Anyway, I figured, my home user isn't going to have write access 
> permissions to the /var directory, therefore, I did:
>
>
> sudo mkdir /var/ftp
>
>
> Then I declared that in the conf file as the anon_root.
>
>
> Now, that worked perfectly. Here however is where I'm getting really 
> stuck.
>
>
> In my home directory, /home/chris
>
>
> I have the subdirectory which comes already created upon installing 
> Ubuntu called Music. So, /home/chris/Music.
>
>
> What the ultimate goal is here is, I'm a professional musician who 
> writes my own music. I'd like to give anonymous access for people to 
> download my music. No, I'm not distributing illegal music; I'm not 
> stupid!
>
>
> Right now, the only thing in /home/chris/Music is my own material. 
> Nothing more.
>
>
> So, again, I figured, I don't have permissions to write to anything as 
> the chris user in /var. Therefore, I figured I'm going to need super 
> user rights to do this.
>
>
> Therefore I did the following after creating the /var/ftp directory 
> with sudo:
>
>
> sudo ln -s /home/chris/Music Music
>
>
> My thought was, create a soft link, since hard links cannot link to 
> directories. And, I figured do this with sudo, as again, I probably 
> otherwise wouldn't have permissions to do anything with modifying the 
> /var directory, let alone the /var/ftp directory. That might partially 
> be where I went wrong, I'm not totally sure. I'm still really not 
> fully getting how ownership and permissions totally work in Linux, so 
> forgive me.
>
>
> Now, without sudo, if I do:
>
>
> cd /var/ftp/Music
>
>
> That does work, and if I then do an ls on that, I do show all the 
> stuff which is actually in /home/chris/Music. So, I know my soft link 
> definitely did work.
>
>
> However now, if I go to Filezilla on my Windows machine, log in 
> anonymously to the server, I do see that one thing... "Music", but as 
> soon as I try to open up the ddirectory by hitting enter on it from 
> the list view, I get a toast notification that states that 1 transfer 
> failed, but it doesn't really give any detail as to why! it failed.
>
>
> I suspect, though not positive, that this has something to do with the 
> fact that chris owns /home/chris/Music, and not the user who is needed 
> for the ftp server, let alone the anonymous user logging in.
>
>
> I have the vsftpd.conf set to not croot users in their home 
> directories, and I also have it set to allow access to local 
> directories on the machine.
>
>
> I know this isn't really secure doing this, but just to see if it was 
> a permissions thing, I decided I'd change the permissions on the 
> /home/chris/Music directory just for giggles, to see if that would 
> help. I had no intentions of keeping it this way.
>
>
> chmod 755 /home/chris/Music
>
>
> The only thing I can think is, to open the directory, you'd need 
> execute, therefore that should a been 777 not 755.
>
>
> Doing this though isn't helping.
>
>
> Was I wrong in creating the soft link in /var/ftp to 
> /home/chris/Music? And further, were there places I used sudo where it 
> really wasn't necessary?
>
>
> Basically, all I'm wanting is, when the anonymous user logs in, I want 
> them to see a folder called Music. When they go there, I actually in 
> all actulality want it taking them to /home/chris/Music, and I only 
> want them to  be able to download, but not upload.
>
>
> I feel I'm on the right track, as far as my theories on the 
> permissions/ownerships, but I just don't quite know enough to 
> understand where I went wrong. Reading docs online about file and 
> directory permissions is only confusing me more than it is helping.
>
>
> I do suffer from a mild learning disability, and have been classified 
> on the spectrum of being incredibly mildly mentally challenged in some 
> areas, so please be patient with me. I really do want to learn this. I 
> love Ubuntu, and feel I'm so dang close to having this. I'm actually 
> very very proud of myself for what so far I have! learned all on my 
> own. I never suspected I'd do as well with this as I have.
>
>
> Chris.
>
> _______________________________________________
> orca-list mailing list
> orca-list gnome org
> https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
> Orca wiki: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Orca
> Orca documentation: https://help.gnome.org/users/orca/stable/
> GNOME Universal Access guide: 
> https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/a11y.html
> Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org