[Proftpd-user] ProFTPd - virtual users + single ftp location

Hi all,

I haven't used ProFTPd in more than a decade, and things seem to have 
changed a lot, or maybe I have forgotten most of what I learned back 
then! Hoping that someone can help me out here!

I started with a plain vanilla setup on Ubuntu, with a PAM user with a 
shell, and that worked well, as expected. Then I configured it for 
virtual user and a single FTP location, and I was getting a bunch of 
errors. I used several websites as reference, but some seem to be 
outdated. And I used Reddit's AI, and it gave me more weird advice, but 
it made me think that maybe some things may have changed in the past few 
years.

Anyway, this is the main website I used as reference: 
https://www.mybluelinux.com/proftpd-server-with-virtual-users-and-in-sftp-mode/ 
(but I was not interested in the SFTP part)

This is what I have:

OS: Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS

proFTPd version: 1.3.8b

This is what I did:

1. Install proftpd : sudo apt install proftpd-core

2. Modified proftpd.conf

DefaultRoot /srv/ftp
RequireValidShell off
AuthUserFile /etc/proftpd/ftpd.passwd
AuthGroupFile /etc/proftpd/ftpd.group <https://ftpd.group>
AuthOrder mod_auth_file.c

3. Create user using ftpasswd:
ftpasswd --passwd --file=/etc/proftpd/conf.d/ftpd.passwd --name=user1 
--uid=105 --gid=65534 --shell=/bin/false

4. Start proftpd: systemctl start proftpd

===

Starting up gives me the following errors:"fatal: unknown configuration 
directive" followed by the first line in the virtual users password file 
(/etc/proftpd/ftpd.passwd). This error occurs twice, but the weird thing 
is I am still able to login as user1. I tried using a wrong password, 
and it blocked me, so proftpd is accepting the format of the users 
password file. Reddit's AI says that proftpd is looking for a format in 
Apache format <User>....</User>

The main problem though, is that after logging in successfully, I can 
download files from /srv/ftp, but I cannot upload ("Permission denied"). 
The directory ownership of /srv/ftp is the same as the user running 
proftpd (ftp:nogroup), but I suspect that I am missing some directive in 
proftpd.conf, but I have no idea. Am I missing a step perhaps?

Thanks in advance!!

pascal chong





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