how can i change the password for ftp login of local users?

i don't want them to login "clear text" with the system passwords - thats too unsecure for me !!

i need different passwords for ssh and ftp login!

plz help with a description or howto! -> because i couldn't find any useful vsftp docs.!!

greetz
cosmonate

Well I don't think you need to worry about changing the ssh login passwords due to the fact that ssh is encrypted. VSFTP on the other hand is not encrypted. On the other hand there are tools that come with the OpenSSH package that allow encrypted file transfers. May I ask what the exact purpose of you ftp server is?

the purpose of my ftp server is that people can transfer their files onto the server and work on the server. the server also hosts a webserver and a database for testing, some dedicated nwn wolf and quake stuff and the backup of my workstation. so i don't want any newbie sniffer to get acces to my server, because of the clear text pwds that are used by ftp!
some of the people who work outside and need to transfer files to my server work under windows so they are not able, or too lazy to use ssh copy or something like that!

so a different ftp password would be of use! because if the ftp password gets hacked only the ftp account and the files there can be accessed
i know proftpd can do this! but proftpd sucks! i want vsftp because of its speed and scalability!

greetz
cosmonate

Look into the Vsftp tarball/docs for the PAM sample (/etc/pam.d/vsftp), it uses the PAM module pam_userdb.so which allows you to maintain a separate passwd list.

that was my first thought too!

hmm... i hoped that there is an easier way to do this, instead of handling those pam things! it's quite an involved thing to do so!
-> but i think this is the only way!
if anyone knows an easier way tell me please!

thx
cosmonate

If you follow the Vsftp readme it's actually a quite easy solution, but then you wouldn't know until you tried it.

Check out my setup . I think we have similar setups and I let my users use Winscp. Its secure and free. Read the tutorial and it will explain how to set it up.

that sounds good! best secure solution!
gonna try this and leave the ftp totaly out!

is there a unix scp frontend avaliable too?

greetz
cosmonate

I don't know of one offhand but I bet there is.