How to use vsftpd to set up an FTP server and how to access that server from another computer? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate:
GUI FTP Server Recommendation

This is my first attempt at using any Linux based system. This is also my first attempt at setting up an FTP server. I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 on a 10 year old desktop that I hope to use as a server for transferring files between myself and my friends who use both Windows and Mac sytems.

I've vsftpd installed and I think I've configured my /etc/vsftpd.config file to require users to log on (meaning no anonymous users) and have it set up to require SSL (whatever that means, everyone just says to do it to prevent people from sniffing your password since FTP isn't encrypted by itself). However, It would be great if someone could give me a set of layman's instructions on how to configure the server to require a user name and password to access it, since I have no idea if the configuration I have setup right now will work.

Now comes the part that I really don't understand. How do I now turn vsftpd on and make the server start working? How do I know that it IS on? (The lack of a GUI makes all this very difficult for me.) How do I connect to the server from another computer? Is it possible to use a web browser or do I have to use a program like Filezilla to access the server?

2 Answers

You need a few things to get an ftp server to work...

Configuration - I suggest you read the man pages for the software you are going to use:
```
man vsftpd
man vsftpd.conf
```
Firewall - outside computers must be allowed to talk to your server: you must allow incoming connections on port 21. Have a look at "firestarter" for a nice program to manage that.
If you want to access the computer from the outside world you may need to tell your router to pass incoming connection on port 21 on to your server as well. Look into the configuration of the router, usually a local address like 192.168.1.254 (on my router).
vsftp is started for you when you install it, but you can use the program "bum" to manage services, or stop/start it from the command line like so:
```
sudo service vsftpd stop
sudo service vsftpd start
```
After this you should be able to connect to your server from an ftp client or use a web browser: ftp://yourserver/

Hope that helps :)

You can use SFTP over SSH.

Just connect to your home IP address on port 22 with your Ubuntu username and password. You only need to install SSH: