ProFTPD Configuration for Host Access Control

Overview

This document provides an example of how to configure ProFTPd to utilize the Host Access Control feature from the command line to restrict access by IP address to FTP. The information in this document applies to systems that run cPanel & WHM in CentOS 7, CloudLinux™ 7, and Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 7 and earlier.

ProFTPD does not automatically reference the /etc/hosts.allow or /etc/hosts.deny files to restrict access to the FTP service.

CentOS 8, AlmaLinux 8, and CloudLinux 8 systems

System Requirements:

To configure ProFTPD, the following software must run on your server:

• ProFTPD version 1.3.3 and later.
• The mod_wrap module.

As the root user, run the following command to confirm that you have the correct version of ProFTPD and mod_wrap installed on your server:

proftpd -V | awk '/Version/ {print $0}; /mod_wrap/ {print "mod_wrap is installed"}'

The output will resemble the following example:

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root@testserver [~]# proftpd -V | awk '/Version/ {print $0}; /mod_wrap/ {print "mod_wrap is installed"}'
  Version: 1.3.5rc1 (devel)
mod_wrap is installed
root@testserver [~]#

Create a VirtualHost container

To configure ProFTPD, create a Virtual Host container. To do this, perform the following steps as the root user:

1. Open the /etc/proftpd.conf file with a text editor and add the following lines after the comments:

   1 2	TCPAccessFiles /etc/hosts.allow /etc/hosts.deny TCPServiceName ftp

   Warning:

   • Each Virtual Host that requires Host Access Control needs this entry in the /etc/proftpd.conf file.
   • You must specify both /etc/hosts.allow and /etc/hosts.deny or you will receive an error.
     

2. Run the /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/restartsrv_proftpd script to restart ProFTPD.

3. Add access deny rules to the /etc/ftpusers file. This file lists of all of the users for whom to deny FTP access.

4. Log in to your FTP server to test the new configuration.

   Note:

   If ProFTPD rejects connections due to Host Access Control configuration, the system will report those failures as authentication failures. For example:

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   root@testserver [~]# ftp 10.1.1.1 Connected to 10.1.1.1. 220 ProFTPD 1.3.5rc1 Server (ProFTPD) [::ffff:10.1.1.1] Name (10.1.1.1:root): cptest 331 Password required for cptest Password: 530 Access denied ftp: Login failed ftp> quit 221 Goodbye.

VirtualHost container example

The following example resembles a complete VirtualHost container.

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<VirtualHost 10.1.1.1>
 ServerName ftp.testserver.tld
 AuthUserFile /etc/proftpd/wcraft
 MaxClients 3 "Sorry, this ftp server has reached its maximum user count (%m). Please try again later"
 DirFakeGroup On ftpgroup
 DirFakeUser On ftpuser
 DefaultRoot ~
TCPAccessFiles /etc/hosts.allow /etc/hosts.deny
 TCPServiceName ftp
[truncated]