How to Change Your FTP Port

The default port for most FTP servers is 21, and that is how most system administrators will leave it. The majority of FTP clients are configured to use it, and some will not even ask you to change it unless you dig through the configuration. There are, however, a few situations where you might want to change the FTP port for your dedicated server or VPS.

If you do not have other users accessing your server and want to add a little security by making your FTP port something no one would guess, you can easily change the port in ProFTPD or Vsftpd.

To change the port in ProFTPD, edit the configuration file, /etc/proftpd.conf and change the following line:

Port 21

Replace “21″ with whatever port number you want.

To change the port in Vsftpd, edit /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf and change the line:

listen_port=21

When you are finished, you should restart your FTP server to force the changes to take effect.

There are a few issues you should note. Before changing the port, make sure the port you want to use is available and not used by another service. Also, after you free up port 21, you should close it in your firewall settings and open whatever port you have opened to replace it.

How to disable hidden files in ProFTPD

Question: How do I disable the viewing of hidden files in ProFTPD so that my clients can’t see them?

Answer: It is fairly easy to conceal hidden files in ProFTPD, but before you do, you should be aware of the consequences. Users will not be able to see their own .htaccess and .htpasswd files, which may be necessary if they install content management systems or want to enable any number of other Apache features.

If you insist on proceeding despite the consequences, open your /etc/proftpd.conf file and edit the following line:

IgnoreHidden on

With this feature turned on, ProFTPD will ignore any hidden files completely. Most will find the price of hiding .htaccess from users too great, and there truthfully is no harm in having users see their hidden files, provided you have properly chrooted their accounts. Furthermore, if the hidden files bother users, they can disable viewing them in their FTP clients.

Source: webhostingtalk.com

How to install and configure ProFTPD in RHEL/CentOS/Fedora Linux

ProFTPD is one of the most widely used and trust Linux-based FTP servers. When installed on a dedicated server, ProFTPD can act as a virtual ftp server host to multiple user accounts. It also allows anonymous FTP, if needed, chroot jail support, SSL/TLS encryption, and much more.

nixCraft has an excellent tutorial for installation and configuration of ProFTPD in CentOS, Redhat Enterprise Linux, and Fedora.

To install ProfFTPD, type the following as root:

# yum install proftpd

To make ProFTPD start whenever the system boots, enter:

# chkconfig --level 3 proftpd on

To start it immediately, type:

# service proftpd start

Read the rest of the nixCraft article.