In this guide we are going to set up an sftp server on an Debian 11. We will also set up a form of chroot where users can only access sftp with the shared credentials.
The File Transfer Protocol is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network.
FTP isn’t popular today because it Lacks Security. When a file is sent using this protocol, the data, username, and password are all shared in plain text, which means a hacker can access this information with little to no effort. For data to be secure, you need to use an upgraded version of FTP like SFTP.
SFTP Secure File Transfer Protocol is a file transfer protocol that provide secure access to a remote computer to deliver secure communications. It leverages SSH - Secure Socket Shell and is frequently also referred to as ‘Secure Shell File Transfer Protocol’.
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# Prerequisites
To follow along this guide ensure you have the following:
- A Debian 11 Server
- Root access to the server or a user with root access
- Internet access from the server
# Ensuring that the server is up to date
Before proceeding, ensure your system is up to date. Use this command to refresh the system packages and update them.
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# Ensuring that the SSH service is installed
Verify that the ssh is installed:
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Now that it is installed, start the service
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Confirm its status
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# Creating users and groups and adding the necessary directories
Next we will ensure that the necessary users are present in the system. In my case, I would like to have the sftp users home as /srv/sftp
Let us create the home /srv/sftp
with this command:
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Then let us create an umbrella group for SFTP only
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Then create an sftp only user called citizix:
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The above options do the following:
-G sftpusers
: Create user, append tosftpusers
group-d /srv/sftp/citizix
: Set home dir as/srv/sftp/citizix
-s /sbin/nologin
: We do not want the user to login, so no ssh login shell- Finally, username as
citizix
Then add password to the created user using this command:
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# Configuring the ssh service
Now that we have installed the necessary software and created the users and groups, let us configure ssh.
Ensure password authentication is enabled for ssh. Edit the config file here /etc/ssh/sshd_config
:
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Then ensure this line is not commented:
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Next, we need to add rules for the users in the sftpusers
group to be considered as sftp. Edit the config file:
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Add this content at the bottom of the file:
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Then restart sshd to reload the config:
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Verify that sshd
is running as expected:
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# Verifying that the set up is working as expected
After successfully creating the user and adding sftp configurations, let is test the set up using the command:
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Now we have sftp server up and running with a user configured!
The users will be able to login to the server and access files and directories located in their home directory. If you want to give the user to other directories outside their own directory, just make sure the user has enough rights to access. These directories and files have to be within the sftp directory - /srv/sftp
.
Example: if i want user to access the directory /srv/sftp/paymentfiles
, do the following:
Create the directory
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Then assign the user(citizix
) access by making them own the directory:
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That is it. Users should now have access.
# Conclusion
We managed to set up sftp server in an Debian 11 in this guide.