How To Install FTP Server on Linux Mint 20

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install FTP Server on Linux Mint 20. For those of you who didn’t know, FTP stands for “file transfer protocol”, and it allows you to transfer files to a remote computer. The most common FTP server software for Ubuntu is the vsftpd package, which stands for “very secure FTP daemon.” It’s the default FTP package for Ubuntu, and most other Linux distributions as well.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the FTP Server on a Linux Mint 20 (Ulyana).

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Linux Mint 20.
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues
• A network connection or internet access.
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install FTP Server on Linux Mint 20 Ulyana

Step 1. Before running the tutorial below, it’s important to make sure your system is up to date by running the following apt commands in the terminal:

sudo apt update

Step 2. Installing the FTP server on Linux Mint systems.

Run the following commands to install the VSFTP server on the Linux Mint 20:

sudo apt install vsftpd

Step 3. Configure the FTP server.

Once installed successfully, we go ahead to configure VSFTPD. The configuration file is located at /etc/vsftpd.conf:

sudo nano /etc/vsftpd.conf

Add or uncomment the following lines if already added:

listen=NO 
anonymous_enable=NO 
local_enable=YES 
write_enable=YES 
local_umask=022 
dirmessage_enable=YES 
use_localtime=YES 
xferlog_enable=YES 
connect_from_port_20=YES 
chroot_local_user=YES 
secure_chroot_dir=/var/run/vsftpd/empty 
pam_service_name=vsftpd 
user_sub_token=$USER
pasv_enable=Yes 
pasv_min_port=30000 
pasv_max_port=30100 
allow_writeable_chroot=YES 
userlist_enable=YES
userlist_file=/etc/vsftpd.user_list
userlist_deny=NO
ssl_tlsv1=YES 
ssl_sslv2=NO

Save and close the file when done then restart vsftpd service:

sudo systemctl restart vsftpd.service

Step 4. Secure FTP Server with SSL.

Run the following command to generate a self-signed SSL certificate:

sudo openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 3650 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout /etc/ssl/private/vsftpd.pem -out /etc/ssl/private/vsftpd.pem

Then, open the FTP config file and add the SSL path:

sudo nano /etc/vsftpd.conf

Add the lines:

rsa_cert_file=/etc/ssl/private/vsftpd.pem
rsa_private_key_file=/etc/ssl/private/vsftpd.pem
ssl_enable=YES

Step 5. Configure Firewall.

To open port 21 (FTP command port), port 20 (FTP data port) and 30000-31000 (Passive ports range), run the following commands:

sudo ufw allow 20:21/tcp
sudo ufw allow 30000:31000/tcp

Reload the UFW rules by disabling and re-enabling UFW:

sudo ufw disable
sudo ufw enable

Step 6. Create FTP User.

We will now create a new user that we will use to log into FTP. In this example, we will create a new user called meilana:

$ sudo useradd -m meilana
$ sudo passwd maria
New password: 
Retype new password: 
passwd: password updated successfully

In order to verify that everything’s working properly, you should store at least one file in meilana’s home directory. This file should be visible when we log in to FTP in the next steps:

sudo bash -c "echo FTP TESTING > /home/ftpuser/FTP-TEST"

Step 7. Test the FTP server on Linux Mint 20.

To test the FTP connection, you will need to install an FTP client in the same or a separate system from where you want to access the FTP server. In our case, we are using FileZilla as an FTP client.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed the FTP Server. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing the latest version of the FTP Server on the Linux Mint system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official vsftpd website.