Configuring Vsftpd with MySQL: Enhanced FTP Security on Debian

Layers upon layers of security should make anyone feel warm and fuzzy about their secured application. I like the fact that if anyone is going to root me, they're going to have to WORK for it. FTP was always an area where I felt it could use a little more work in locking down its defenses. Enter Vsftpd along with a tag team partner of virtualization, and you've got a how-to of sandboxing your FTP server into a virtual environment.

Vsftpd is one of the most secure and fastest FTP servers for Linux. Usually vsftpd is configured to work with system users. This document describes how to install a vsftpd 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.

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