OpenWrt 22.03 vsftpd not working

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Does vsftpd work in OpenWrt 22.03? If someone has this working please post your configuration file, /etc/vsftpd.conf here. I keep getting "access denied" no matter the setting.

background=YES
listen=YES
#listen_address=192.168.1.2
anonymous_enable=YES
local_enable=YES
write_enable=YES
local_umask=022
check_shell=NO
chroot_local_user=YES
passwd_chroot_enable=YES
local_root=/mnt/sdb1
#dirmessage_enable=YES
#ftpd_banner=Welcome to blah FTP service.
session_support=NO
syslog_enable=YES
userlist_enable=YES
userlist_deny=NO
userlist_file=/etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.userlist
#xferlog_enable=YES
#xferlog_file=/var/log/vsftpd.log
#xferlog_std_format=YES
###
### TLS/SSL options
### example key generation: openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd_privkey.pem -out /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd_cert.pem -subj /C="DE"/ST="Saxony"/L="Leipzig"/CN="OpenWrt"
#ssl_enable=YES
#allow_anon_ssl=NO
#force_local_data_ssl=NO
#force_local_logins_ssl=NO
#ssl_tlsv1=YES
#ssl_sslv2=NO
#ssl_sslv3=NO
#rsa_cert_file=/etc/vsftpd/vsftpd_cert.pem
#rsa_private_key_file=/etc/vsftpd/vsftpd_privkey.pem
pasv_enable=YES
pasv_max_port=30100
pasv_min_port=30000
seccomp_sandbox=NO
isolate_network=NO
2

Yes, it works just fine.

Load the default settings (posted below), restart the vsftpd service and try to connect from the LAN side using the root account.

/etc/vsftpd.conf 
background=YES
listen=YES
anonymous_enable=NO
local_enable=YES
write_enable=YES
local_umask=022
check_shell=NO
#dirmessage_enable=YES
#ftpd_banner=Welcome to blah FTP service.
session_support=NO
#syslog_enable=YES
#userlist_enable=YES
#userlist_deny=NO
#userlist_file=/etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.users
#xferlog_enable=YES
#xferlog_file=/var/log/vsftpd.log
#xferlog_std_format=YES
###
### TLS/SSL options
### example key generation: openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd_privkey.pem -out /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd_cert.pem -subj /C="DE"/ST="Saxony"/L="Leipzig"/CN="OpenWrt"
#ssl_enable=YES
#allow_anon_ssl=NO
#force_local_data_ssl=NO
#force_local_logins_ssl=NO
#ssl_tlsv1=YES
#ssl_sslv2=NO
#ssl_sslv3=NO
#rsa_cert_file=/etc/vsftpd/vsftpd_cert.pem
#rsa_private_key_file=/etc/vsftpd/vsftpd_privkey.pem

If it starts working, let us know what you're trying to achieve and we'll help you fine-tune the configuration.

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3

I'm still getting Access denied or Permission denied using your 8 lines of vsftpd.conf for my /etc/vsftpd.conf file with the username I setup. If I use root as the login, WinSCP responds with "Cannot initialize SFTP protocol.", Connection has been unexpectedly closed.

I have 3 HD, connected to my Linksys wrt3200 router shared via Samba, NTFS.

4

SFTP is a different protocol and requires a specific package to be installed.

You could use SCP, but now we want to test the FTP server.

image

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5

OK, root is successful with FTP. When I try a user, setup with Samba then vsftp error message is
CannotChangeDirectory

Ultimately, I want to login username, password and access drives on the LAN and from WAN side using vsftp, not using plain text login.

6

well, it can't access the dir you've set up as home (?) dir
that's not vsftp's fault ...

does the dir exist, and have proper permissions ?

7

If you don't want plain text then you shouldn't be using FTP. Use SFTP instead.

8

... or SCP using winscp.

9

I tried using scp using the command line but I got

user@machine ~ ❯ scp root@192.168.50.1:/etc/config/network .
ash: /usr/libexec/sftp-server: not found
scp: Connection closed

So maybe sftp-server is required before scp will work?

10

works fine here, from Windows though.

image
image714×502 6.92 KB

openwrt to openwrt works too, this was however 22.03 connecting to 19.07.

root@OpenWrt:~# scp root@192.168.10.240:/etc/config/firewall .
Host '192.168.10.240' is not in the trusted hosts file.
(ssh-rsa fingerprint SHA256:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Do you want to continue connecting? (y/n) y
root@192.168.10.240's password:
firewall                                      100% 2628     2.6KB/s   00:00
root@OpenWrt:~#
11

Worked for me openwrt to openwrt!

Ah looks like my machine is too up to date :laughing:

@richjoh : You could use scp instead. Its secure and widely supported. Could use keys to auth too I think.

12

I need to connect from the WAN side using sftp clients or something other than plain ftp. Maybe using VLC as the client, it has sftp and ftp.

All files in /mnt/sdxx are set rwx for the owner (root), group, and others. Was wondering if the problem is root owns the files, I haven't been able to change the owner, I've used the chown command multiple times. I do a ls -l on the /mnt/sdxx, root persistently is the owner after doing multiple chown commands or changing rights. The instructions for setting up the permission or chown are minimal when reading the OpenWrt instructions for FTP and/or Samba.

OK a few and I confirms that SCP works with vsftp, but does this work from the WAN side with port forwarding setup?

13

Scp doesn't rely on vsftp, you can uninstall it, and yes it'll work from the WAN side, if you open the port.

14

That is due to a too new scp in your PC. Newest scp versions use sftp as the protocol under the hood. I have run into that with Ubuntu 22.10.

You need

  • scp -O option (to enable the "Old" transfer method), or
  • install openssh-sftp-server in the router to enable sftp
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