I have been scouring the internet for almost an hour now and I can't find how to stop this darn thing.

I simply want to stop the pure-ftpd service that I started with $ pure-ftpd &

Is there a tutorial on the internet for this product in laymans' terms anywhere? I'm trying to get an ftp server up, but I have no idea where to start.

Stephen

i'm using proftpd, and i don't know the specifics of pure-ftpd. but for a quick fix, you could ps ax, then kill the PID (should be a number next to the program listing). or, you could try "killall pure-ftpd" as root.

other suggestions: man pure-ftpd, pure-ftpd --help, or even:

1. # updatedb (to update your database)
2. # locate pure-ftpd (to locate the program)
3 # /path/to/pure-ftpd stop (or whatever command shuts it off -- again, try the man pages or --help)

p.s. try proFTPD, it rocks!

Thanks for quick reply, your suggestion of "killall pure-ftpd" worked. I'm still a fairly new user so I don't know what ps ax is, or killing the PID file, but I'll google them a bit later.

Earlier I was Looking through the help files and manual but wasn't able to find a stop command, that's what frustrated me so much in the first place.

I will look up the ProFTPD program also. I just sort of stumbled across the pure-ftp because it was one of the few ftp programs to come up in my install packages search.

I'm still still quite inexperienced at the command line so tutorials and examples are my biggest concern when choosing a program.

Stephen

glad you made some progress.

ps ax or ps aux just lists the processes you have running. then there'll will be a number next to each one, called the PID (process ID). so for example if pure-ftpd is listed as 325, you could do:

kill 325

and it will kill that process. you might need to be root depending on the process and how it started.

hth

On Debian Woody;
I use:
/etc/init.d/pure-ftpd stop
/etc/init.d/pure-ftpd start
for halts or restarts.
The command to start pure-ftpd on boot is in /etc/inetd.conf. You add all the options you want here, command line style. 'man pure-ftpd' has the down and dirty, the pure-ftpd website has more. Adding virtual ftp users took me a while. Info on that is also at the pure-ftpd page.
Good Luck.

That does help, thanks.

I followed up on your suggestion to look into ProFTPD and I think I like it better than Pure-FTPD. Working with the .conf file is easier for me to understand than a bunch of shell commands.

I'm a bit confused with the Virtual Host users. In fact, it might not be what I'm looking for; here's what I'm trying to do...

I have a webforum setup for my friends so we can communicate. I would like for my friends to be able to FTP into my server and upload pictures and files for me to host.
(Example http://mywebsite.com/users/friendname)

I don't need them to be browsing through the rest of my documents so I would "chroot" them to keep them in their directory, correct? Later I can worry about give them access elsewhere.

Now I also go to school and work on assignments there, so remote access would be great. (I like to host all my work so I don't have to carry disks around with me.) As it is now, if I work on a paper at home and make and then make some changes at school, I have to email it back to my house or take it home on a disk and copy it back to my server there to save those changes. I'd like to be able to upload and overwrite files from any location.

Will VirtualHosts allow me to do all this?

Lastly, the password thing is confusing me. I created a test user, but I don't know how to set his initial password. I also assume that I would have to create folders for all my friends?

Stephen

i think i can answer at least some of your questions.

first about virtual hosts, yes that allows you to set up multiple accounts on one server.

you can access your server anywhere you have an ftp client and internet access. just set it up how you want it, with which port/s you want to use, etc.

for the password issue, what i do is first create the user with:

useradd <user> -d /path/to/directory

the -d option will set the home directory wherever you tell it to (edit: you'll have to create the directory), or you can leave that off and let it create the default directories, which will be in the /home directory.

set the password with

passwd <user>

and it will prompt you twice for the password. you could also probably set up an anonymous login, but i don't know much about that yet. but that sounds like it might be good for what you want, because you could set up a single folder for your friends to upload to with anonymous login on a private port, and not have to deal with individual accounts.