vidibus-pureftpd

Vidibus::Pureftpd

Provides an ActiveModel-based abstraction of Pure-FTPd's virtual users. Pure-FTPd is a free, secure, production-quality and standard-conformant FTP server.

This gem is part of Vidibus, an open source toolset for building distributed (video) applications. It has been tested with Ruby 1.8.7 and 1.9.3.

Usage

Basic CRUD operations are available for Vidibus::Pureftpd::User:

user = Vidibus::Pureftpd::User.new(
  :login => 'my_user',
  :password => 'verysecret',
  :directory => '/home/my_user'
)
# => returns a new user instance

user = Vidibus::Pureftpd::User.create(
  :login => 'my_user',
  :password => 'verysecret',
  :directory => '/home/my_user'
)
# => creates a new user and returns the instance

user = Vidibus::Pureftpd::User.find_by_login('my_user')
# => reads user from database and returns an user instance

user.save
# => saves user to database and returns true

user.destroy
# => removes user from database

Additionally, some methods are provided for your convenience:

user.valid?
# => returns true if user is valid

user.persisted?
# => returns true if user has been saved to database

user.reload
# => reloads user from database

By default, Vidibus::Pureftpd will use these settings which you may override:

Vidibus::Pureftpd.settings[:sysuser]        # => 'pureftpd_user'
Vidibus::Pureftpd.settings[:sysgroup]       # => 'pureftpd_group'
Vidibus::Pureftpd.settings[:password_file]  # => '/etc/pure-ftpd/pureftpd.passwd'

Installation

Add the dependency to the Gemfile of your application: gem 'vidibus-pureftpd'. Then call bundle install on your console.

Installation of the Pure-FTPd server itself is quite simple:

Install Pure-FTPd on Debian Lenny

Get the package:

aptitude install pure-ftpd-common pure-ftpd

Add group pureftpd_group:

groupadd pureftpd_group

Add user pureftpd_user without permission to a home directory or any shell:

useradd -g pureftpd_group -d /dev/null -s /etc pureftpd_user

By default all user data will be saved in /etc/pure-ftpd/pureftpd.passwd, so make sure this file exists:

touch /etc/pure-ftpd/pureftpd.passwd

For fast access of user data, Pure-FTPd creates a "database", which is a binary file that is ordered and has an index for quick access. Let's create this database:

pure-pw mkdb

Set Pure-FTPd as a standalone server:

vim /etc/default/pure-ftpd-common

  # Replace this:
    STANDALONE_OR_INETD=inetd
  # With this:
    STANDALONE_OR_INETD=standalone

Ensure that Pure-FTPd server gets valid users from our pureftpd database file:

cd /etc/pure-ftpd/conf
vim PureDB

  # Check if the following line exists:
  /etc/pure-ftpd/pureftpd.pdb

Now you have point a symbolic link to the PureDB file:

cd /etc/pure-ftpd/auth
ln -s /etc/pure-ftpd/conf/PureDB 50pure

You should now see a new file "50pure" linking to ../conf/PureDB:

ls -ls

Finally, (re)start Pure-FTPd:

/etc/init.d/pure-ftpd restart

For more instructions, please check this resource.

Install Pure-FTPd on OSX (if you want to test this gem on OSX)

brew install pure-ftpd

In order to perform the tests, a certain user is required. Create the user pureftpd_user with ID 483:

sudo dscl . create /Users/pureftpd_user uid 483
sudo dscl . create /Users/pureftpd_user gid 483
sudo dscl . create /Users/pureftpd_user UserShell /etc/pure-ftpd
sudo dscl . create /Users/pureftpd_user NFSHomeDirectory /dev/null

Then create the group pureftpd_group, also with ID 483:

sudo dscl . create /Groups/pureftpd_group gid 483
sudo dscl . merge /Groups/pureftpd_group users pureftpd_user

Check if user and group exist:

dscacheutil -q user
dscacheutil -q group

Debugging

To start the server, e.g. for debugging the users you've created, type sudo /usr/local/sbin/pure-ftpd &

You should now be able to connect via ftp by entering ftp localhost. To shut it down, call sudo pkill pure-ftpd

In order to check which users have been created, call pure-pw list.

If you really want to use Pure-FTPd as FTP server on OSX, you should consider installing PureFTPd Manager.

Troubleshooting

When using this gem in a web application, it may happen that the execution of the pure-ftp command fails. A reason for that may be that your webserver is not able access the command.

I solved this issue by adding a symlink:

sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/pure-pw /usr/bin/pure-pw

TODO

Implement all user options offered by Pure-FTPd:

-t <download bandwidth>
-T <upload bandwidth>
-n <max number of files>
-N <max Mbytes>
-q <upload ratio>
-Q <download ratio>
-r <allow client host>
-R <deny client host>
-i <allow local host>
-I <deny local host>
-y <max number of concurrent sessions>
-z <hhmm>-<hhmm>

Copyright

Copyright (c) 2010-2012 Andre Pankratz. See LICENSE for details.