Solaris – configure ftp server


SUN Solaris FTP

SUN Solaris comes with ftp daemon based on WU-FTPd Washington University project. While not being very enthusiastic about its vulnerabilities discovered over the years and being rather abandoned by its developers ,still, it comes installed by default and as long as Sun ok with that it is ok with me too. Below I will shortly introduce configuring it for local user access as well as anonymous one.
By default FTP daemon (in.ftpd) is disabled. Here is the initial state you have it :

root@Solaris# svcs ftp

    STATE          STIME    FMRI
    disabled        7:21:44 svc:/network/ftp:default

As ftpd is the inet managed daemon more information can be queried from inetadm:

root@Solaris# inetadm -l svc:/network/ftp:default

    SCOPE    NAME=VALUE
             name="ftp"
             endpoint_type="stream"
             proto="tcp6"
             isrpc=FALSE
             wait=FALSE
             exec="/usr/sbin/in.ftpd -a"
             user="root"
    default  bind_addr=""
    default  bind_fail_max=-1
    default  bind_fail_interval=-1
    default  max_con_rate=-1
    default  max_copies=-1
    default  con_rate_offline=-1
    default  failrate_cnt=40
    default  failrate_interval=60
    default  inherit_env=TRUE
    default  tcp_trace=FALSE
    default  tcp_wrappers=FALSE
    default  connection_backlog=10

Insecure you say , well , you are right – let’s sharpen it a bit. Enable more detailed logging:

root@Solaris# inetadm -m svc:/network/ftp:default tcp_trace=TRUE
root@Solaris# inetadm -l svc:/network/ftp

    SCOPE    NAME=VALUE
             name="ftp"
             endpoint_type="stream"
             proto="tcp6"
             isrpc=FALSE
             wait=FALSE
             exec="/usr/sbin/in.ftpd -a"
             user="root"
    default  bind_addr=""
    default  bind_fail_max=-1
    default  bind_fail_interval=-1
    default  max_con_rate=-1
    default  max_copies=-1
    default  con_rate_offline=-1
    default  failrate_cnt=40
    default  failrate_interval=60
    default  inherit_env=TRUE
             tcp_trace=TRUE
    default  tcp_wrappers=FALSE
    default  connection_backlog=10

When option –a is given (and it is by default) then ftpd will consult /etc/ftpd/ftpaccess file for additional restrictions and tweaks. Here are the few that are worth enabling. Uncomment following lines to have more verbose logging available:

    log            transfers       real,guest,anonymous    inbound,outbound
    xferlog        format  %T %Xt %R %Xn %XP %Xy %Xf %Xd %Xm %U ftp %Xa %u %Xc %Xs %Xr

Make sure these changes are applied:

root@Solaris# svcadm refresh svc:/network/ftp:default

Configure anonymous access.

All the configs done so far will allow only local valid users to connect by ftp and be automatically placed in their respective home directories. To allow anonymous ftp access with dedicated chrooted for that folder there is a special set of tools to use. Actually it is just one script that does all the hard work behind the scenes – creates ftp user, creates directory tree , sets up needed permissions, and sets up chrooted environment for the anonymous ftp user.

root@Solaris# ftpconfig /export/home/ftp_pub

    Updating user ftp
    Creating directory /export/home/ftp_pub
    Updating directory /export/home/ftp_pub

That is all, now you can login anonymously and download anything from /export/home/ftp_pub/pub directory. To also allow upload there , change the upload option in /etc/ftpd/ftpaccess and set accordingly permissions on the Solaris level for the directory pub (777):

    upload          class=anonusers    *    /pub      yes
    #upload         class=anonusers    *    *         no  nodirs

And finally enable it:

root@Solaris# svcadm enable ftp

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