OpenWrt-based FTP server

Mar 12, 2020

This document describes how to build a simple FTP server on top of OpenWrt. We assume you already have a working OpenWrt installation and that you have configured basic networking (/etc/config/network) and the host’s name (/etc/config/system).

  1. Install the following packages:
  • zlib
  • libopenssl
  • vsftpd-tls
  • openssh-keygen
  • openssh-server
  • openssl-util
  1. Remove the dropbear package
  2. Take care to set the root password.
  3. Create the directory /home/ftp.
  4. Add a new user to the system, setting his home directory to /home/ftp and his shell to /bin/false.
  5. Set the new user’s password.
  6. Configure cleartext FTP: write the following to /etc/vsftpd.conf:
background=YES
listen=YES
anonymous_enable=YES
write_enable=NO
local_umask=022
check_shell=NO
local_root=/home/ftp
session_support=NO
  1. Configure ciphertext SFTP: write the following to /etc/ssh/sshd_config:
AuthorizedKeysFile     .ssh/authorized_keys
UsePrivilegeSeparation        sandbox
Subsystem             sftp internal-sftp

Match User *
      ChrootDirectory         %h
      AllowTCPForwarding      no
      X11Forwarding           no
      ForceCommand            internal-sftp