Tag Archives: WebDAV

FTP on Raspberry Pi. An easy way to make shared folders

Linux, Raspberry Pi, Raspberry Pi Server, Server, , , , , , , , ,

The idea with FTP is to have folders that can be reachable between Linux and Windows, locally and remotely and easily. FTP is not secure, but it can be made secure, that info can be found on the web. For now I am covering the basics of FTP here.

For most things that I need to do, I don’t need the files to be secure anyways, 90% of the time nothing critical is going back and forth across remotely. If it is I would use a secure method of sending files via SSH via SFTP or an SSHFS.

FTP is an old protocol but it just plain works and is compatible with Windows, Linux and Mac. I have tried WebDAV in the past but it is compatible to only a degree with various Windows operating systems. I have had a hard time getting it working correctly on versions of Windows beyond XP, resorting in installing patches to Windows and etc. Generally not easy to implement.

I was also looking at FTP as a native tool typical of server installs. I have experimented with cloud setups such as OwnCloud and Sparkleshare, but with FTP I was looking for something simple and quick to setup, no special software, no mySQL databases running on the Raspberry Pi, no special software on client PCs, that sort of thing.

vsFTP

sudo apt-get install vsftpd

Edit the configuration file

Back it up first then do an edit.

sudo cp /etc/vsftpd.conf /etc/vsftpd.orig
sudo nano /etc/vsftpd.conf

uncomment local_enable = YES

uncomment write_enable = YES

Find this and check that it is set this way…

local_umask=022

Enabling PASV

I have read online that enabling the PASV capability for FTP is a good idea. Frequently when I have FTP’d to various ISP’s sites I have seen them operate in PASV mode. So it stands to reason that if the pro’s are have it set up that way it may have it’s advantages.

Add the following lines to the /etc/vsftp.conf file.

pasv_enable= Yes
pasv_min_port=40000
pasv_max_port=40100

There is nothing magic about the numbers of the port range other than they should be unused by anything else that your setup might require and generally I have seen high numbers used commonly. To work out side of your local network you must enable port forwarding of the range of port numbers through your router configuration.

Changes to vsFTP

With the newer versions of vsFTP there is a change that has occurred since I wrote my previous post about vsFTP (  http://oils-of-life.com/blog/linux/server/additional-utilities-for-a-linux-server/ )

The change has to do with the fact that the root directory of the user has to be non-writable and I have read online that it is best to make it owned by root as well. This is covered below, after the section on adding a user. You need to have a user first before modifying their permissions!

FTP User

To create an FTP user, create it in a way that it does not have a login shell. So that someone who can log in to the FTP account can’t execute shell commands. The line /sbin/nologin may not be in the /etc/shell file and in that case it needs to be added in there. The user basically has to be jailed in their directory and has to have no login shell.

sudo useradd -m -s /sbin/nologin -d /home/user user

I added Documents, public_html directories to the /home/user as well. Then made the users root folder /home/user, owned by root and nonwritable.

cd /home/user
chown user:user Documents
chown user:user public_html

chown root:root /home/user
Make Root of user non writable
sudo chmod a-w /home/user

FTPing on the PC

Now that ftp is set up on the server you will want to be able to connect to it!

Options for connecting…

Command Line, WIndows and Linux

ftp yoursite.com

That gets you into FTP via the command line. The command prompt will now start with ftp> ,that is how you know that you are within the ftp command shell.

It is archaic, but worth knowing when you have to stick a file up or pull it down right at the command line. The commands the ftp prompt accepts are basic, but good enough to get most work done. Type help at the prompt to get a list of commands.

Via Folders

Linux

Just enter the location of the ftp server right into the top of the directory folder and you will be prompted for a password and taken there.

Windows
Windows7/Vista:
  1. Open Computer by clicking the “Start” button, and then clicking Computer.
  2. Right-click anywhere in the folder, and then click Add a Network Location.
  3. In the wizard, select Choose a custom network location, and then click Next.
  4. To use a name and password, clear the Log on anonymously check box.

From: https://www.google.com/search?q=connect+to+ftp+windows+7&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

 

 

Simple WebDAV

Linux, Raspberry Pi Server, Server, , , , , ,

WebDAV, the DAV stands for Distributed Authoring and Version. In its simplest form would be a folder that can be accessed from the web that has a username and password to keep the content locked. There are two versions basically, plain and SSL which is secure in that the data that flows in and out of the folder is encrypted as it moves through the web. In this post I am covering the simple non-SSL form for starters.

This post assumes that Apache is installed, if you need to install it do…

sudo apt-get install apache2

Then load the Apache modules for DAV…

sudo a2enmod dav
sudo a2enmod dav_fs

Create a folder for WebDAV

I created a directory at…

/srv/homes/webdav

…the command…

mkdir -p /srv/homes/webdav

…will allow the folders above webdav, such as homes be created if they do not exist.

Edit the Apache default file

The WebDAV folder access is simply controlled by the sites-available/default file. To edit it run…

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/default

Towards the bottom of the file right above the section that has the ScriptAlias for the /cgi-bin/ directory, I placed the following code…

Alias /webdav  /srv/homes/webdav
<Location /webdav>
 Options Indexes
 DAV On
 AuthType Basic
 AuthName "webdav"
 AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/webdav.password
 Require valid-user
 </Location>

Adding the Password

Use the htpasswd command to add a password to a webdav.password file. it will prompt you for a password. The file will contain hashed passwords which are not readable.

sudo htpasswd -c /etc/apache2/webdav.password username

For an extra level of protection you can change ownership of the file to root with the group of www-data, so no regular users can access the file. Setting the permission to read-write for owner root and read only for the www-data group…

sudo chown root:www-data /etc/apache2/webdav.password
sudo chmod 640 /etc/apache2/webdav.password

Access the Folder

With everything setup the folder will now appear at http://your-url-here.com/webdav, you can browse to it to test it out. You will be prompted for the user-name and password created earlier in the adding the password step.

Further Potential for WebDAV

  • Setup multiple WebDAV folders.
  • Put a web folder on expanded storage on a Raspberry Pi, such as use a bind mount to point to a USB stick plugged into the Pi for extra storage space.
  • It is possible to set up WebDAV with SSL to secure it in a way that the data flowing in and out of the folder will be secured from prying eyes. With my non-SSL WebDAV folder, I don’t put anything up there that is critical or really private data.
  • It is possible to use DAV for support of calendars across devices, something I will explore in the future.
  • There is an app for the iPhone that I have tried that allows easy uploading and downloading to the WebDAV folder. It is easy to drop attachments from email and etc. to the folder for access on a PC.

Resources

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-configure-webdav-access-with-apache-on-ubuntu-12-04 

WebDAV Resources