------------------------ MYSQL/MARIADB SUPPORT ------------------------ When MySQL is enabled, all account info is fetched from a central MySQL or MariaDB database. To compile the server with MySQL/MariaDB support, you first have to build and install the MySQL client libraries. MariaDB is freely available from https://mariadb.org/ and binary packages are included in many major distributions. But if you choose a binary form, don't forget to also install the development packages if they are available separately. For example, on Debian/Ubuntu systems, the package to install is called libmariadb-client-lgpl-dev. Then, configure Pure-FTPd with --with-mysql and your favorite extra gadgets: ./configure --with-mysql --with-everything If your MySQL libraries are installed in a special path, you can specify it like this: ./configure --with-mysql=/opt/mysql In this example, headers (like mysql.h) will be searched in /opt/mysql/include and /opt/mysql/include/mysql, while related libraries will be searched in /opt/mysql/lib and /opt/mysql/lib/mysql . Then, install the server as usual: make install ------------------------ MYSQL CONFIGURATION FILE ------------------------ Before running the server, you have to create a configuration file. Why a configuration file instead of simple command-line options? you may ask. For security reasons, you may want to hide how to connect to your MySQL server. And as command-line options can be discovered by local users (with 'ps auxwww' for instance), it's more secure to use a configuration file for sensitive data. Keep it readable only by root (chmod 600) . Here's a sample configuration file: #MYSQLServer localhost #MYSQLPort 3306 MYSQLSocket /tmp/mysql.sock MYSQLUser root MYSQLPassword rootpw MYSQLDatabase pureftpd MYSQLCrypt cleartext MYSQLGetPW SELECT Password FROM users WHERE User="\L" MYSQLGetUID SELECT Uid FROM users WHERE User="\L" MYSQLGetGID SELECT Gid FROM users WHERE User="\L" MYSQLGetDir SELECT Dir FROM users WHERE User="\L" Have a look at the sample pureftpd-mysql.conf configuration file for explanations of every keyword. Save the configuration file anywhere. Let's say /etc/pureftpd-mysql.conf . Then, you have to run the pure-ftpd command with '-l mysql:' (it's an 'ell' not a 'one') followed by the path of that configuration file. Example: pure-ftpd -l mysql:/etc/pureftpd-mysql.conf -B You can mix different authentication methods. For instance, if you want to use system (/etc/passwd) accounts when an account is not found in a MySQL database, use -l mysql:/etc/pureftpd-mysql.conf -l unix ------------------------ TABLES STRUCTURES ------------------------ Pure-FTPd is very flexible and users can be stored in any way in SQL tables. You just have to have fields with the following info: - The user's login. - The user's password, hashed using argon2 (argon2id or argon2i), scrypt or crypt(3). SHA1, MD5, and MySQL's password() format are supported for legacy reasons, but shouldn't be used any more. Pure-FTPd also accepts the "any" value for the MySQLCrypt field. With "any", all hash functions are sequentially tried. * RECOMMENDATION: Do not use SHA1, MD5, or, obviously, plaintext. Unless your system provides a decent crypt() function, use a MySQL function to verify the hashed password or use argon2/scrypt. - The system uid to map the user to. This can be a numeric id or a user name, looked up at run-time. - The system gid (numeric or not) . - The home directory. Here's a dump of a simple table to handle this: CREATE TABLE users ( User VARCHAR(255) BINARY NOT NULL, Password VARCHAR(255) BINARY NOT NULL, Uid INT NOT NULL default '-1', Gid INT NOT NULL default '-1', Dir VARCHAR(255) BINARY NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (User) ); Uid and Gid can be char() instead of int() if you want to use names instead of values. Then, in the pureftpd-mysql.conf configuration file, you have to provide SQL templates to fetch the needed info. Let's take the previous example: MYSQLGetPW SELECT Password FROM users WHERE User="\L" MYSQLGetUID SELECT Uid FROM users WHERE User="\L" MYSQLGetGID SELECT Gid FROM users WHERE User="\L" MYSQLGetDir SELECT Dir FROM users WHERE User="\L" For each query: \L is replaced by the login of a user trying to authenticate. \I is replaced by the IP address the client connected to. \P is replaced by the port number the client connected to. \R is replaced by the remote IP address the client connected from. \D is replaced by the remote IPv4 address, as a long decimal number. You can mix all of these to store info in various tables. For instance, with \I, you can have a different table for every domain, so that joe@domain1 won't be the same account as joe@domain2 . And with \R, you can restrict one account to one specific address. Multiple statements can be used using a semicolon (";") as a delimiter. Please note that a login can only contain common characters: A...Z, a...z, 0...9, -, ., _, space, :, @ and ' . For security purposes, other characters are forbidden. You can also remove uid and gid fields in your tables and use default values instead (thus saving useless lookups) . Two directives are useful to serve that purpose: MYSQLDefaultUID and MYSQLDefaultGID. Obvious example: MYSQLDefaultUID 1000 MYSQLDefaultGID 1000 Using these directives overrides MYSQLGetUID and MYSQLGetGID. ------------------------ ARGON2 ------------------------ Password hashed with argon2i and argon2id can be used, provided that pure-ftpd was linked to libsodium. They are expected to be provided as a string, as returned by the crypto_pwhash_str() function or by its bindings. ------------------------ SCRYPT ------------------------ Password hashed with scrypt can be used, provided that pure-ftpd was linked to libsodium. They are expected to be provided in escrypt format, as returned by the crypto_pwhash_scryptsalsa208sha256_str() function or by its bindings. For example, the string $7$C6..../....YzvCLmJDYJpH76BxlZB9fCpCEj2AbGQHoLiG9I/VRO1$/enQ.o1BNtmxjxNc/8hbZq8W0JAqR5YpufJXGAdzmf3 would verify the password "test". ------------------------ PER-USER SETTINGS ------------------------ Individual settings can be set for every user, using optional queries. - MySQLGetQTAFS is the maximal number of files a user can store in his home directory. Example: MySQLGetQTAFS SELECT QuotaFiles FROM users WHERE User="\L" - MySQLGetQTASZ is the maximal disk usage, in Megabytes. Example: MySQLGetQTASZ SELECT QuotaSize FROM users WHERE User="\L" - MySQLGetRatioUL and MySQLGetRatioDL are optional ratios. Example: MySQLGetRatioUL SELECT ULRatio FROM users WHERE User="\L" MySQLGetRatioDL SELECT DLRatio FROM users WHERE User="\L" - MySQLGetBandwidthUL and MySQLGetBandwidthDL are optional upload and download bandwidth restrictions. Returned values should be in KB/s. Example: MySQLGetBandwidthUL SELECT ULBandwidth FROM users WHERE User="\L" MySQLGetBandwidthDL SELECT DLBandwidth FROM users WHERE User="\L" - MySQLForceTildeExpansion is yet another optional feature, to enable "~" expansion in paths. 0 disables it (default), 1 enables it. Only enable this if real (system) users and virtual (MySQL) users match. In all other cases, don't enable it blindly. ------------------------ TRANSACTIONS ------------------------ If you upgraded your tables to transaction-enabled tables, you can configure Pure-FTPd to take advantage of transactions. That way, you can be sure that all info parsed by the server is complete even if you're updating it at the same time. To enable transactions, add this line: MySQLTransactions On Don't enable transactions on tables that still are in ISAM or MyISAM formats. Transactions are only working with newer backends (Gemini, InnoDB, BerkeleyDB...) and in recent MySQL versions. ------------------------ STORED PROCEDURES ------------------------ Mike Goins says: To get pure-ftp to use a MySQL 5 stored procedure, use statements like: MYSQLGetDir CALL get_path_from_name("\L") instead of MYSQLGetDir SELECT user_dir FROM user WHERE user_name="\L" Note that this requires the type of Stored Procedure that returns a result set in a single call as opposed to the two call method: CALL sp('value', @a); SELECT @a ------------------------ ANONYMOUS USERS ------------------------ If you want to accept anonymous users on your FTP server, you don't need to have any 'ftp' user in the MySQL directory. But you need to have a system 'ftp' account on the FTP server. ------------------------ ROOT USERS ------------------------ If a MySQL user entry has a root (0) uid and/or gid, Pure-FTPd will refuse to log them in. Without this preventive restriction, if your MySQL server ever gets compromised, the attacker could also easily compromise the FTP server. Security barriers are also implemented to avoid bad implications if wrong data types (eg. binary blobs instead of plain text) are fetched with SQL queries.