ELA_30_VSFTPD (Very Secure File Transfer Protocol Daemon) Configuration

Very Secure File Transfer Protocol Daemon (VSFTPD) Configuration:

About vsftpd
vsftpd is a GPL licensed FTP server for UNIX systems, including Linux. It is secure and extremely fast. It is stable. Don't take my word for it, though. Below, we will see evidence supporting all three assertions. We will also see a list of a few important sites which are happily using vsftpd. This demonstrates vsftpd is a mature and trusted solution.
Features
Despite being small for purposes of speed and security, many more complicated FTP setups are achievable with vsftpd! By no means an exclusive list, vsftpd will handle:

    Virtual IP configurations
    Virtual users
    Standalone or inetd operation
    Powerful per-user configurability
    Bandwidth throttling
    Per-source-IP configurability
    Per-source-IP limits
    IPv6
    Ananymous (default) and user-based FTP sessions
    SSL support (provided by SSH) no need for VSFTPD
    Does not permit 'root' or 'service accounts' access by default
    Does not currently support IPv4 & IPv6 simultaneously with the same daemon
    Encryption support through SSL integration  etc...

Online source / docs
Browse vsftpd's online source tree - including documentation. In particular, note the content of the EXAMPLE subdirectory. Also, here is an HTML version of the manual page which lists all vsftpd config options.

Steps:
1. Install vsftpd
yum install vsftpd

2. Enable vsftpd service
chkconfig vsftpd on

3. Start vsftpd service
service vsftpd start

4. Check ftp port
netstat -ntl | grep 21

5. Test ftp server access
FTP server is running and anonymous access is enabled by default

6. Disable anonymous access
Edit /etc/vsftd/vsftpd.conf
anonymous_enable=NO

7. Enable dual logging
dual_log_enable=YES
It created /var/log/vsftpd.log file which uses vsftpd log format

8. Enable server time for display of files and directories
use_localtime=YES

Tasks:
 1. Install using 'yum'
 2. Enable vsftpd in multi-user runlevels
  a. 'chkconfig vsftpd on'
 3. 'service vsftpd start'
 4. Disable Anonymous access
 5. Test local user access and update SELinux configuration
  a. 'getsebool -a | grep ftp' - dumps FTP-related SELinux booleans
  b. 'setsebool -P ftp_home_dir=1'
Note: RHEL6 enables SELinux in 'enforcing' mode, requiring a slight change to the booleans to permit VSFTPD or any FTPD daemon to transition user into their: $HOME directory

 6. Enable Dual-Logging
  a. 'dual_log_enable=YES'
 7. Enable server time for display of files/directories
  a. 'use_localtime=YES'
Note: 'man vsftpd.conf' for useful directives that apply to your application