vsftpd

The vsftpd is a server for the File Transfer Protocol. As an acronym, its name stands for Very Secure File Transfer Protocol Daemon.

The designation as a very secure ( German: very safe) reflects the fact that the protection against unauthorized use is at the center of development. For this purpose, the vsftpd has a software architecture of modules and components as compact as possible programming that communicate with each other as separate processes. As a side effect, excellent performance was under heavy load. Complicated functions are available when vsftpd on rather behind. Without vulnerabilities of vsftpd did not remain, of course.

Functions and scope

Vsftpd can be adjusted using a single configuration file (usually / etc / vsftpd.conf ) and allows in its initial configuration, only anonymous FTP. vsftpd makes excessive use of chroot jails, so that in the event of a security leak, the risk of compromise of the entire system is minimized because of the outbreak of a Unix chroot is usually impossible. Like most daemons need vsftpd under any circumstances root privileges.

In previous versions, vsftpd, like many other FTP servers, exclusively designed as inetd application so that at each FTP connection request, a new instance is started. This brings significant safety benefits, since the vsftpd server works only with the minimum necessary privileges. In addition, as the emphasis was placed on keeping the program size of vsftpd as small as possible to increase the performance in many new connections. Since newer versions of vsftpd also provides the ability to run as a standalone daemon in the background.

Vsftpd is a complete FTP server its popular competitors like PureFTPd or ProFTPd principle into nothing after. However, the configuration is constructed spartan, so about the FTP authentication, which can be enable in vsftpd with Pluggable Authentication Modules, in most cases requires at least fundamental knowledge of Unix.

Vsftpd is well suited for computers with limited resources due to its small program size, but is used because of its speed even on very large FTP servers, which usually only allow anonymous access and deliver it as a download server thousands of files every hour.