Proftpd on amazon ec2

Installing proftpd on an amazon ec2 instance is not rocket science, but after installing you need to configure it to work correct.Because amazon ec2 instances use an internal IP address as their ethernet interface address, proftpd needs to be configured for passive FTP.

First, you need to apply for an Elastic IP address which you will allocate to your instance. This will be the IP address that will be show to the world.

Second step is to configure the firewall properly for that instance. Go to the “Security group” assigned to the instance and add the following rules:

• Connection Method: Custom
• Protocol: TCP
• From Port: 20
• To Port: 21
• Source (IP or group): 0.0.0.0/0 (that is, if you want to permit to the whole internet to access your ftp server; if not, replace this with the IP address or class that you want to give access to your ftp server)

We need to add another rule for the passive ports that will be used by proftpd:

• Connection Method: Custom
• Protocol: TCP
• From Port: 49152
• To Port: 65535
• Source (IP or group): 0.0.0.0/0

Now, go to your machine end edit /etc/proftpd/proftpd.conf and add the following lines:

PassivePorts 49152 65535

MasqueradeAddress  your_elastic_ip_address

Restart proftpd and enjoy:

/etc/init.d/proftpd restart