In setting up VSFTP I would like to allow full public (read only) access. Public enough so that Windows users on the LAN can easier retreive files with IE without the need to type in a username or password. Security beyond that is of little concern since this sn isolated network w/o 'net access.

Here is my vsftpd.conf file. It works fine but requires a manual login with username of "anonymous". I would love to circumvent even that.


***
anonymous_enable=YES
local_enable=YES
write_enable=YES
local_umask=022
dirmessage_enable=YES
xferlog_enable=YES
connect_from_port_20=YES
xferlog_std_format=YES
pam_service_name=vsftpd
userlist_enable=NO
listen=YES
tcp_wrappers=YES
***


Any suggestions?

Thank you in advance for any assistance!


Chris

pretty sure that you can't just allow connections in without authenticating. If its on a LAN, samba may be a better option if typing 'anonymous' and a dummy email address is too much effort for your users...

Well, To allow LAN users on Windows OS to read-only access on linux VSFTP without providing username and password. You need to make certain changes in your /etc/vsftpd.conf file, as folows :


anonymous_enable=YES

Comment out these lines:-

local_enable=YES
write_enable=YES


and that's sit. you don't have to make other changes. after it, save and exit with "wq" and restart the service and make sure that firewall service is stop or configured to allow FTP access.

You can check firewall access to use "redhat-config-securitylevel" command or try to use "setup" command and choose firewall configuration option and from there, choose customize and allow FTP access.

Alternatively, You can just stop the service with "service iptables stop" command.

Then, run "service vsftpd restart" twice.

That's sit.

Go to any windows computer on LAN and go to IE. Type
"ftp://IPaddress_of_FTPserver" and you'll be in.

Bye......

With Warm Regards
Wadhwa, Gaurav

Thank you for the suggestion. However after making the edits, the results are the same. Perhaps SAMBA is the way to go. I was hoping to avoid that path for a few issues.

Nevertheless, I know that having unhindered (read-only) FTP access is possible. I just never thought it would be quite so difficult.


Chris

Ok, I found the problem. The firewall on my workstation did not have the Ethernet device selected as a trusted device. As a result, when a passive FTP connection was made, the necessary port was restricted by the firewall. Once the network device was identified as a trusted device, everything started working perfectly.

Gaurav, thanks for the suggestions in the vsftpd.conf file. They worked!



Chris

Try it...

anonymous_enable=YES
local_enable=YES
write_enable=YES
local_umask=022
dirmessage_enable=YES
xferlog_enable=YES
connect_from_port_20=YES
xferlog_std_format=YES
pam_service_name=vsftpd
userlist_enable=YES
listen=YES

good luck!!!!