Jail users using vsFTPD (help)

carlodelmundo · 12-27-2009, 04:56 PM

Hi.

I've been messing with CentOs 5 (pure command line). I've managed to install vsftpd, as a FTP server, but now the next step is to jail users within their /home/ directory.

For example, if I useradd a user named 'newUser', I want this user to be sustained only in /home/newUser/ .

I've read something about chroot.... it's similar but I don't think this is the correct command.

What should I be looking at?

bathory · 12-27-2009, 05:24 PM

Edit vsftpd.conf and add or uncomment the following line:

Code:

chroot_local_user=YES

Or you can post the vsftpd.conf file, so we could help you better on this

Regards

carlodelmundo · 12-28-2009, 12:19 AM

Thanks!

What's the benefit for NOT chrooting the directory? I can imagine that FTP users don't need to see the / directory.

Also, where can I find the manual for vsftpd? I find the one provided in the vsftpd site is misleading and non-helpful.

bathory · 12-28-2009, 03:07 AM

Hi,

With chroot to his homedir, a user cannot read other users files, or the system files. So if an account is compromised, there will be little to no harm to the rest of a system.
You can read the redhat documentation for vsftpd, here

Regards

carlodelmundo · 12-28-2009, 08:03 AM

Thanks... but I was talking about the other case. Why would vsftpd leave a chroot_local_dir option to NO by default when this is a security NO NO?

Thank you for the link also! This is helpful!

bathory · 12-28-2009, 08:53 AM

Here is an explanation why the default setting is NO (quote from vsftpdrocks.org):

Quote:

Q) Help! What are the security implications referred to in the
"chroot_local_user" option?
A) Firstly note that other ftp daemons have the same implications. It is a
generic problem.
The problem isn't too severe, but it is this: Some people have FTP user
accounts which are not trusted to have full shell access. If these
accounts can also upload files, there is a small risk. A bad user now has
control of the filesystem root, which is their home directory. The ftp
daemon might cause some config file to be read - e.g. /etc/some_file. With
chroot(), this file is now under the control of the user. vsftpd is
careful in this area. But, the system's libc might want to open locale
config files or other settings...

carlodelmundo · 12-28-2009, 10:26 AM

Thanks man!