ProFTPD on Cygwin

Cygwin is a UNIX-like environment framework for Microsoft Windows 98/NT/2000/XP operating systems. Most programs that you are used to using can compile and behave exacttly the same way as on your favorite Unix system. However, there are some minor differences and compatibility issues.

Configuring and Compiling

In standard Cygwin setup, there's no such username as "root". By default, the configure script assigns 'Administrator' as the installation username. Should you want to change this, then specify a username in the install_user environment variable:

install_user=MyUserHere ./configure ...

The rest of the installation process is as usual:

./configure
make
make install

Note that Cygwin does not currently support large files (e.g. files larger than 2 GB). Also, Cygwin 1.3.22 or later should be installed. Earlier versions of Cygwin would result in error messages like:

  426 Transfer aborted.  Socket operation on non-socket

Installing as Windows service

Create a shell script and put it somewhere, with the following contents:

#!/bin/sh
# File: proftpd-config.sh
# Purpose: Installs ProFTPD daemon as a Windows service

cygrunsrv --install proftpd \
          --path /usr/local/sbin/proftpd.exe \
          --args "--nodaemon" \
          --type manual \
          --disp "Cygwin proftpd" \
          --desc "ProFTPD FTP daemon"

The --nodaemon option is important. It prevents the process from detaching. Thus you can always shut it down with net stop proftpd command.

After running this script, you may run the daemon with net start proftpd command. Or, change the type from manual to auto, and it will run on the system startup.

You can remove the service with the command:

cygrunsrv --remove proftpd

Installing as inetd service

Edit the corresponding line in /etc/inetd.conf:

  ftp stream tcp nowait root /usr/local/sbin/in.proftpd in.proftpd

You can specify an alternative configuration file with -c option.

Configuration File

The default configuration file resides in /usr/local/etc/proftpd.conf. However, the default version of the proftpd.conf created by the installation script is unusable within the Cygwin environment.

Some configuration directives need to be changed as follows:

  ServerType standalone|inetd

Needs to be set correctly. Having standalone when running from inetd produces daemon processes which are difficult or impossible to kill.

User  System
Group Administrators

By default, a Windows service runs as the SYSTEM user, and if User directive specifies some other user, ProFTPD fails to change to that user. Also, if no User directive given, the daemon tries to change the UID to the SYSTEM user ID.

Using a less privileged user and/or group will result in errors when users attempt to login.

<Anonymous directory_name>

The user specified in User directive should exist as a Windows account. In Windows User Manager, this login can be even disabled. As usual, make sure you have this entry in the Cygwin /etc/passwd file (produced by mkpasswd.exe).

UserPassword username encrypted_passwd

The encrypted password can be produced with the openssl passwd command.

When a user logs in, the following non-fatal warnings will appear in the ProFTPD logs:

  error setting write fd IP_TOS: Invalid argument
  error setting read fd IP_TOS: Invalid argument
  error setting write fd TCP_NOPUSH: Protocol not available
  error setting read fd TCP_NOPUSH: Protocol not available

Author

Stanislav Sinyagin CCIE #5478 ssinyagin@yahoo.com

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