When transferring files to a remote server, File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is still one of the easiest ways to do it. However, when using FTP, it’s better to add some encryptions by using SSL/TLS protocols. The reasons you may want SSL/TLS enabled on FTP is that FTP communicates over an insecure channel, and someone with the right tool could intercept data between the server and the client reading it. With SSL/TLS, even if the data is intercepted, they may still be unable to read the content, and that’s because of the extra security.
How to Install ProFTPD on Ubuntu Linux
First, you’ll want to install ProFTPD. To do that in Ubuntu Linux, run the commands below. During the installation, you should get a prompt with the message below: Select standalone After installing ProFTPD, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable the server service to always start up when the server boots.
How to create a self-signed SSL/TLS certificate
Now that ProFTPD is installed, run the commands below to generate a self-signed SSL/TLS certificate for the server. The commands create a server key called proftpdserverkey. pem and store it in /etc/SSL/private and a certificate file called proftpdcertificate. pem in the /etc/SSL/certs. After running the commands above, you’ll be prompted to answer a few questions about the certificate you’re generating… answer them and complete the process. VSFTP server will use the key and certificate created above.
How to configure ProFTPD to use SSL/TLS certificate
Now that you’ve generated the server private key and certificate files, go and configure ProFTPD to use the SSL/TLS certificate created above. To do that, run the commands below to open the ProFTPD default tls configuration file. Then make the highlighted changes below so that the server can communicate over SSL/TLS. Save your changes and restart the server. Next, open the ProFTPD default configuration file and comment out this line to include the tls.conf configurations. uncomment the line as shown below: Save the file exit After adding the highlighted lines to the file, save it. Then run the commands below to restart the ProFTPD server. Now grab your favorite FTP client (FileZilla) and set up a new site in your site management and use FTP protocol with encryption with explicit FTP over TLS. Type your username and password and connect. You should be prompted with a certificate. accept the certificate and continue. You may check the box at the bottom of the page to trust the certificate so you don’t get prompted in the future. You should now be transferring files securely via SSL/TLS. Enjoy! Conclusion: This post showed you how to install ProFTPD on Ubuntu Linux with SSL/TLS. If you find any error above or have something to add, please use the comment form below.
