As i would like to turn an Macbook OS El-Capitain as a ftp server for media exchange on my network with pure-ftpd
Replacing the build in ftp Server from OSX 10.11 with a more powerful pure-ftpd
There are many how-to for Linux user but rarely none for Mac user. The build in ftp use the System users to login in there respective home place . We want independent ftp user on a other drive for ftp use. These is more a Log-blog on a long path of fails.
Since El Captain have his own Ftp Server we must disable it to not get in conflict with pure-ftpd
Deactivate Standard FTP-Server
sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ftp.plist
brew install pure-ftpd
brew services start pure-ftpd
sudo /usr/local/sbin/pure-ftpd
Setup ftp client to connect to ftp server on local:
brew install tnftp
Configure
/usr/local/etc/pure-ftpd.conf
After installing the Server and setting up the pure-ftpd.config i was on a hunt for some GUI Admin interface to manage the ftp user. A Solution not to old that run on these system .
Very good looks the webadmin Interface , with that you can
Make Folders for our FTP Server
mkdir /Volumes/www/FTPshare
chmod 777 /Volumes/www/FTPshare
How to setup virtual user for ftp and group
We create a new User ftpuser and a new group ftpgroup where we add our user ftpuser
sudo dscl . -create /Users/ftpuser
sudo dscl . -create /Users/ftpuser UserShell /bin/bash
sudo dscl . -create /Users/ftpuser RealName "FTP User"
sudo dscl . -create /Users/ftpuser UniqueID "1001"
sudo dscl . -create /Users/ftpuser PrimaryGroupID 20
sudo dscl . -create /Users/ftpuser NFSHomeDirectory /Users/ftpuser
sudo dscl . -passwd /Users/ftpuser mypassword
dscl . -append /Groups/ftpgroup GroupMembership ftpuser
Dont forget to reboot to see the user in your OSx user setting to take effect
We user pure-DB for the first user Managment
PureDB user database (see README.Virtual-Users
# uncomment in pure-ftp.cpnfig following line
PureDB /etc/pureftpd.pdb
Make db: sudo pure-pw mkdb
Restart ftp server sudo brew services restart pure-ftpd
How to change pure-ftpd user directory path?
pure-pw usermod ftpuser -d /home/ftpuser pure-pw mkdb
Pure-PW : Manual
Get User info sudo pure-pw show ftpuser
To find a user’s UID or GID in OSX, use the id command. To find a specific user’s UID, at the terminal prompt, enter:
id -u username
Replace username with the appropriate user’s username. To find a user’s GID, at the Unix prompt, enter:
id -g username
If you wish to find out all the groups a user belongs to, instead enter:
id -G username
If you wish to see the UID and all groups associated with a user, enter id without any options, as follows:
id username
User manager for PureFTPd
A Nice Gui Web Interface for PureFTPd from 2017 you can find here Github
Typical Problems that can occur
Permission Errors
550 Could not delete test.jpg: Permission denied
FTP Connection Errors
550
553
Sharing & Permissions always “fetching…”?
That generally means there is an Access Control List (ACL) or POSIX permission set for a user that doesn’t exist on that system. The UID doesn’t match any of the users. Custom permissions means you have ACLs set for that item.