Virtual Hosting With PureFTPd And MySQL (Incl. Quota And Bandwidth Management) On OpenSUSE 11.3

Version 1.0
Author: Falko Timme <ft [at] falkotimme [dot] com>
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Last edited 09/13/2010

This document describes how to install a PureFTPd server that uses virtual users from a MySQL database instead of real system users. This is much more performant and allows to have thousands of ftp users on a single machine. In addition to that I will show the use of quota and upload/download bandwidth limits with this setup. Passwords will be stored encrypted as MD5 strings in the database.

For the administration of the MySQL database you can use web based tools like phpMyAdmin which will also be installed in this howto. phpMyAdmin is a comfortable graphical interface which means you do not have to mess around with the command line.

This tutorial is based on OpenSUSE 11.3. You should already have set up a basic OpenSUSE 11.3 system, for example as described in the first four chapters of this tutorial: http://www.howtoforge.com/perfect-server-opensuse-11.3-x86_64-ispconfig-2

This howto is meant as a practical guide; it does not cover the theoretical backgrounds. They are treated in a lot of other documents in the web.

This document comes without warranty of any kind! I want to say that this is not the only way of setting up such a system. There are many ways of achieving this goal but this is the way I take. I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

1 Preliminary Note

In this tutorial I use the hostname server1.example.com with the IP address 192.168.0.100. These settings might differ for you, so you have to replace them where appropriate.

2 Install MySQL, Apache2, And phpMyAdmin

MySQL, Apache and the PHP modules needed by phpMyAdmin can be installed as follows:

yast2 -i mysql mysql-client mysql-community-server apache2 apache2-mod_php5 php5-mysql php5-mcrypt php5-mbstring php5-gd

Then we create the system startup links for MySQL (so that MySQL starts automatically whenever the system boots) and start the MySQL server:

chkconfig --add mysql
/etc/init.d/mysql start

To secure the MySQL installation, run:

mysql_secure_installation

Now you will be asked several questions:

server1:~ # mysql_secure_installation




NOTE: RUNNING ALL PARTS OF THIS SCRIPT IS RECOMMENDED FOR ALL MySQL
      SERVERS IN PRODUCTION USE!  PLEASE READ EACH STEP CAREFULLY!


In order to log into MySQL to secure it, we'll need the current
password for the root user.  If you've just installed MySQL, and
you haven't set the root password yet, the password will be blank,
so you should just press enter here.

Enter current password for root (enter for none): <-- ENTER
OK, successfully used password, moving on...

Setting the root password ensures that nobody can log into the MySQL
root user without the proper authorisation.

Set root password? [Y/n] <-- Y
New password: <-- fill in your desired MySQL root password
Re-enter new password: <-- confirm that password
Password updated successfully!
Reloading privilege tables..
 ... Success!


By default, a MySQL installation has an anonymous user, allowing anyone
to log into MySQL without having to have a user account created for
them.  This is intended only for testing, and to make the installation
go a bit smoother.  You should remove them before moving into a
production environment.

Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] <-- Y
 ... Success!

Normally, root should only be allowed to connect from 'localhost'.  This
ensures that someone cannot guess at the root password from the network.

Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] <-- Y
 ... Success!

By default, MySQL comes with a database named 'test' that anyone can
access.  This is also intended only for testing, and should be removed
before moving into a production environment.

Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] <-- Y
 - Dropping test database...
 ... Success!
 - Removing privileges on test database...
 ... Success!

Reloading the privilege tables will ensure that all changes made so far
will take effect immediately.

Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] <-- Y
 ... Success!

Cleaning up...



All done!  If you've completed all of the above steps, your MySQL
installation should now be secure.

Thanks for using MySQL!


server1:~ #

Now your MySQL setup should be secured.

Then we create the system startup links for Apache (so that it starts automatically whenever the system boots) and start it:

chkconfig --add apache2
/etc/init.d/apache2 start

phpMyAdmin can be installed as follows:

zypper install http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/server:/php:/applications/openSUSE_11.3/noarch/phpMyAdmin-3.3.4-1.1.noarch.rpm

Afterwards, you can access phpMyAdmin under http://server1.example.com/phpMyAdmin/ or http://192.168.0.100/phpMyAdmin/.

3 Install PureFTPd With MySQL Support

OpenSUSE's PureFTPd package supports various backends, such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, LDAP, etc. Therefore, all we have to do is install the normal PureFTPd package:

yast2 -i pure-ftpd

Then we create an ftp group (ftpgroup) and user (ftpuser) that all our virtual users will be mapped to. Replace the group- and userid 2001 with a number that is free on your system:

groupadd -g 2001 ftpgroup
useradd -u 2001 -s /bin/false -d /bin/null -c "pureftpd user" -g ftpgroup ftpuser

4 Create The MySQL Database For PureFTPd

Now we create a database called pureftpd and a MySQL user named pureftpd which the PureFTPd daemon will use later on to connect to the pureftpd database:

mysql -u root -p

CREATE DATABASE pureftpd;
GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP ON pureftpd.* TO 'pureftpd'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'ftpdpass';
GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP ON pureftpd.* TO 'pureftpd'@'localhost.localdomain' IDENTIFIED BY 'ftpdpass';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Replace the string ftpdpass with whatever password you want to use for the MySQL user pureftpd. Still on the MySQL shell, we create the database table we need (yes, there is only one table!):

USE pureftpd;

CREATE TABLE ftpd (
User varchar(16) NOT NULL default '',
status enum('0','1') NOT NULL default '0',
Password varchar(64) NOT NULL default '',
Uid varchar(11) NOT NULL default '-1',
Gid varchar(11) NOT NULL default '-1',
Dir varchar(128) NOT NULL default '',
ULBandwidth smallint(5) NOT NULL default '0',
DLBandwidth smallint(5) NOT NULL default '0',
comment tinytext NOT NULL,
ipaccess varchar(15) NOT NULL default '*',
QuotaSize smallint(5) NOT NULL default '0',
QuotaFiles int(11) NOT NULL default 0,
PRIMARY KEY (User),
UNIQUE KEY User (User)
) TYPE=MyISAM;

quit;

As you may have noticed, with the quit; command we have left the MySQL shell and are back on the Linux shell.

You can now access phpMyAdmin under http://server1.example.com/phpMyAdmin/ (you can also use the IP address instead of server1.example.com) in a browser and log in as the user pureftpd. Then you can have a look at the database. Later on you can use phpMyAdmin to administrate your PureFTPd server.

5 Configure PureFTPd

Edit /etc/pure-ftpd/pure-ftpd.conf and make sure that the ChrootEveryone, AnonymousOnly, MySQLConfigFile, and CreateHomeDir lines are enabled and look like this:

vi /etc/pure-ftpd/pure-ftpd.conf

[...]
ChrootEveryone              yes
[...]
AnonymousOnly               no
[...]
MySQLConfigFile               /etc/pure-ftpd/pureftpd-mysql.conf
[...]
CreateHomeDir               yes
[...]

The ChrootEveryone setting will make PureFTPd chroot every virtual user in his home directory so he will not be able to browse directories and files outside his home directory. The CreateHomeDir line will make PureFTPd create a user's home directory when the user logs in and the home directory does not exist yet. AnonymousOnly must be set to no because otherwise only anonymous FTP sessions will be allowed.

Then we create/edit /etc/pure-ftpd/pureftpd-mysql.conf. It should look like this:

vi /etc/pure-ftpd/pureftpd-mysql.conf

MYSQLSocket      /var/run/mysql/mysql.sock
#MYSQLServer     localhost
#MYSQLPort       3306
MYSQLUser       pureftpd
MYSQLPassword   ftpdpass
MYSQLDatabase   pureftpd
#MYSQLCrypt md5, cleartext, crypt() or password() - md5 is VERY RECOMMENDABLE uppon cleartext
MYSQLCrypt      md5
MYSQLGetPW      SELECT Password FROM ftpd WHERE User="\L" AND status="1" AND (ipaccess = "*" OR ipaccess LIKE "\R")
MYSQLGetUID     SELECT Uid FROM ftpd WHERE User="\L" AND status="1" AND (ipaccess = "*" OR ipaccess LIKE "\R")
MYSQLGetGID     SELECT Gid FROM ftpd WHERE User="\L"AND status="1" AND (ipaccess = "*" OR ipaccess LIKE "\R")
MYSQLGetDir     SELECT Dir FROM ftpd WHERE User="\L"AND status="1" AND (ipaccess = "*" OR ipaccess LIKE "\R")
MySQLGetBandwidthUL SELECT ULBandwidth FROM ftpd WHERE User="\L"AND status="1" AND (ipaccess = "*" OR ipaccess LIKE "\R")
MySQLGetBandwidthDL SELECT DLBandwidth FROM ftpd WHERE User="\L"AND status="1" AND (ipaccess = "*" OR ipaccess LIKE "\R")
MySQLGetQTASZ   SELECT QuotaSize FROM ftpd WHERE User="\L"AND status="1" AND (ipaccess = "*" OR ipaccess LIKE "\R")
MySQLGetQTAFS   SELECT QuotaFiles FROM ftpd WHERE User="\L"AND status="1" AND (ipaccess = "*" OR ipaccess LIKE "\R")

Make sure that you replace the string ftpdpass with the real password for the MySQL user pureftpd in the line MYSQLPassword! Please note that we use md5 as MYSQLCrypt method, which means we will store the users' passwords as an MD5 string in the database which is far more secure than using plain text passwords!

Now we create the system startup links for PureFTPd and start it:

chkconfig --add pure-ftpd
/etc/init.d/pure-ftpd start