ProFTPD

ProFTPD
Developer(s)	John Morrissey, Michael Renner, Daniel Roesen, TJ Saunders, et al.
Stable release	1.3.8b / 19 December 2023; 12 months ago
Preview release	1.3.9rc2 / 19 December 2023; 12 months ago
Repository	github.com/proftpd/proftpd ;
Operating system	Unix-like systems
Type	FTP daemon
License	GPL-2.0-or-later
Website	[1]

ProFTPD (short for Pro FTP daemon) is an FTP server. ProFTPD is Free and open-source software, compatible with Unix-like systems and Microsoft Windows (via Cygwin). Along with vsftpd and Pure-FTPd, ProFTPD is among the most popular FTP servers in Unix-like environments today. Compared to those, which focus e.g. on simplicity, speed or security, ProFTPD's primary design goal is to be a highly feature rich FTP server, exposing a large amount of configuration options to the user.^[2]^[3]

Supported platforms

AIX
BSD/OS
DG/UX
Digital Unix
FreeBSD
HP/UX
IRIX
Linux for IBM S/390, zSeries
Linux
Mac OS X
NetBSD
OpenBSD
SCO
Solaris
SunOS
Windows (via Cygwin)

Configuration and features

ProFTPD includes a number of options that are not available with many other FTP daemons.^[4] The configuration of ProFTPD is performed in a single main configuration file called /etc/proftpd/proftpd.conf. Due to its similarities to the configuration file of Apache HTTP Server it is intuitively understandable to someone who uses this popular web server.

Some of the most noticeable features are:^[5]

Per directory ".ftpaccess" configuration similar to Apache's ".htaccess"
Multiple virtual FTP servers and anonymous FTP services
Runs either as a stand-alone server or from inetd/xinetd, depending on system load
Anonymous FTP root directories do not require any specific directory structure, system binaries or other system files
No SITE EXEC command, which in modern Internet environments represent a security issue
Hidden directories and files, based on Unix-style permissions or user/group ownership
Runs as a configurable non-privileged user in stand-alone mode in order to decrease chances of attacks which might exploit its "root" abilities
Logging and utmp/wtmp support.
Shadow password suite support, including support for expired accounts
Modular design, allowing server to be extended easily with modules. Modules have been written for SQL databases, LDAP servers, SSL/TLS encryption, RADIUS support, etc.
IPv6 support

Graphical user interface

Screenshot of GAdmin-ProFTPD showing the user administration tab.

ProFTPD comes with a command-line interface (CLI) only, but there are several third-party Graphical user interfaces (GUI) existing for ProFTP for users who prefer this to the CLI, or like to use a combination of both. Especially when it comes for example to real-time monitoring of current user actions and file transmissions, a GUI can be very helpful and superior to the CLI. Some existing GUIs for ProFTPD are (selection):

GAdmin-ProFTPD, a GTK+ front end for GNOME and KDE, as a part of the GAdmintools collection
ProFTPD Admin
ProFTPD PHP/MySQL administration tool
ProFTPD Administrator

References

^ "Release 1.3.8b". 19 December 2023. Retrieved 19 January 2024.
^ FTP Server Software for Linux
^ A glance at the common Linux ftp servers
^ Lockhart, Andrew (2006), Network Security Hacks: Tips & Tools for Protecting Your Privacy, O'Reilly Hacks Series (2nd ed.), O'Reilly Media, Inc., p. 23, ISBN 0596527632
^ http://proftpd.org/features.html Features

External links

[wikidata-2213a25edae55e69c1ce36e91f7a73f4b008a7f8-v18-1] "Release 1.3.8b". 19 December 2023. Retrieved 19 January 2024.

[2] FTP Server Software for Linux

[3] A glance at the common Linux ftp servers

[4] Lockhart, Andrew (2006), Network Security Hacks: Tips & Tools for Protecting Your Privacy, O'Reilly Hacks Series (2nd ed.), O'Reilly Media, Inc., p. 23, ISBN 0596527632

[5] ttp://proftpd.org/features.html Features

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