ProFTPD (short for ''Pro
FTP daemon
Daimon or Daemon (Ancient Greek: , "god", "godlike", "power", "fate") originally referred to a lesser deity or guiding spirit such as the daimons of ancient Greek religion and mythology and of later Hellenistic religion and philosophy.
The wo ...
'') is an FTP server. ProFTPD is
Free and open-source software
Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...
, compatible with
Unix-like
A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...
systems and
Microsoft Windows (via
Cygwin
Cygwin ( ) is a POSIX-compatible programming and runtime environment that runs natively on Microsoft Windows. Under Cygwin, source code designed for Unix-like operating systems may be compiled with minimal modification and executed.
The Cygwin i ...
).
Along with
vsftpd
vsftpd, (or very secure FTP daemon), is an FTP server for Unix-like systems, including Linux. It is the default FTP server in the Ubuntu, CentOS, Fedora, NimbleX, Slackware and RHEL Linux distributions. It is licensed under the GNU General Publi ...
and
Pure-FTPd, ProFTPD is among the most popular FTP servers in Unix-like environments today. Compared to those, which focus e.g. on simplicity, speed or security, ProFTPD's primary design goal is to be a highly feature rich FTP server, exposing a large amount of configuration options to the user.
Supported platforms
* AIX
* BSD/OS
* DG/UX
* Digital Unix
* FreeBSD
* HP/UX
* IRIX
* Linux for IBM S/390, zSeries
* Linux
* Mac OS X
* NetBSD
* OpenBSD
* SCO
* Solaris
* SunOS
* Windows (via
Cygwin
Cygwin ( ) is a POSIX-compatible programming and runtime environment that runs natively on Microsoft Windows. Under Cygwin, source code designed for Unix-like operating systems may be compiled with minimal modification and executed.
The Cygwin i ...
)
Configuration and features
ProFTPD includes a number of options that are not available with many other FTP daemons. The configuration of ProFTPD is performed in a single main configuration file called
/etc/proftpd/proftpd.conf
. Due to its similarities to the configuration file of
Apache HTTP Server it is intuitively understandable to someone who uses this popular web server.
Some of the most noticeable features are:
[http://proftpd.org/features.html Features]
* Per directory ".ftpaccess" configuration similar to Apache's ".htaccess"
* Multiple virtual FTP servers and anonymous FTP services
* Runs either as a stand-alone server or from inetd/xinetd, depending on system load
* Anonymous FTP root directories do not require any specific directory structure, system binaries or other system files
* No SITE EXEC command, which in modern Internet environments represent a security issue
* Hidden directories and files, based on Unix-style permissions or user/group ownership
* Runs as a configurable non-privileged user in stand-alone mode in order to decrease chances of attacks which might exploit its "root" abilities
* Logging and utmp/wtmp support.
* Shadow password suite support, including support for expired accounts
* Modular design, allowing server to be extended easily with modules. Modules have been written for SQL databases, LDAP servers, SSL/TLS encryption, RADIUS support, etc.
* IPv6 support
Graphical user interface

ProFTPD comes with a
command-line interface (CLI) only, but there are several third-party
Graphical user interfaces (GUI) existing for ProFTP for users who prefer this to the CLI, or like to use a combination of both. Especially when it comes for example to real-time monitoring of current user actions and file transmissions, a GUI can be very helpful and superior to the CLI. Some existing GUIs for ProFTPD are (selection):
GAdmin-ProFTPD a GTK+ front end for
GNOME and
KDE
KDE is an international free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that allow collaborative work on this kind of software. Well-known products include the ...
, as a part of th
GAdmintoolscollection
ProFTPD AdminProFTPD PHP/MySQL administration toolProFTPD Administrator
See also
*
FTP server
*
Comparison of FTP server software
*
List of FTP server software
*
List of SFTP server software
References
{{Reflist
External links
Official websiteFrench tutorial for install ProFTPD with Debian Linux
FTP server software
Free server software
Free file transfer software
FTP server software for Linux
Unix Internet software
Free software programmed in C