Linux FTP Server with a Graphical User Interface (GUI)

March 27, 2008

Linux is a great Operating System which can give small businesses access to enterprise quality products normally only available for the big boys. The downside to going down the Linux and Open Source route compare to a Windows based solution, is the configuration can be less user friendly. This was highlighted recently when I needed a FTP Server with a graphical user interface which a Windows end user would be happy using.

Don’t get me wrong the open source movement is improving all the time, you need only take a look at Ubuntu and compare it to Windows Vista or Mac OSX, you’d be surprised. Although most comments on Linux forums when this question is asked, is why do you need GUI for FTP Server?

Simple, not all businesses have an IT department and 99% of people would run scared if you showed them command shell, "I want Windows" would probably be the cry!

Back to the topic in hand, a Linux FTP Server with a graphical user interface (GUI). Well, I struggled to find any all in one solutions which seem to be abundant on the Windows platform, Xlightftpd, Cerberusftp, Filezilla Server etc. The solution so far seems to be add on programs that provide GUI to existing FTP software on the Linux platform. Which kind of makes sense given the maturity of FTP Server software on Linux, why re-invent the wheel?

The List

I’ve not had chance to test any as yet but will report back when I find a suitable solution, in the meantime he is what I have found so far…

GPROFTPD- Proftpd FTP server

GPROFTPD is an easy to use GTK+ administration tool for the proftpd standalone server. GProftpd and Proftpd gives admins access to virtual hosting, 8 layers of security including chrooted users and encrypted transfers on both the data and/or control channels. It is ideal for both standard ftp serving and webhotels.

http://freshmeat.net/projects/gproftpd/

PureAdmin - Graphical FTP Server Management Utility

PureAdmin is a graphical tool used to make the management of PureFTPd a little easier. It uses the GTK+2.x widgets for its GUI and thus are not dependent on a specific desktop environment such as GNOME or KDE. It is, however, designed with the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines in mind so it should integrate nicely with at least GNOME.

http://purify.sourceforge.net/index.php

KcmPureftpd - KDE Admin Pure-ftpd

KcmPureftpd is an KDE KControl module for configuring pure-ftpd FTP server. The goal is to have medium users to configure their server securely and conveniently, without the burden of knowing tons of command line switches.

kproftpd - KDE Frontend for configuring ProFTPD

http://freshmeat.net/projects/kcmpureftpd/

Kproftpd is a graphical Qt and KDE libs based frontend to the ProFTPD ftp-server. The target is to build a easy to use application, to configure the proftpd. its designed with the help of KDevelop.

Webmin

Webmin is browser based product that allows you to manage a wide range of services running on your Linux box, including FTP servers.

http://www.webmin.com/

ProMA - Web Based admin tool for ProFTPd

ProMA is a PHP-based system for administrating a ProFTPd server that stores users in a MySQL database. Its features include support for multiple administrators, mail notifications when new users register and when accounts are approved, closing of accounts temporarily, and a notepad per user for the admins.

http://freshmeat.net/projects/proma/

JProftpd

A very simple Java based admin tool for use with ProFTPd.

http://www.cli.di.unipi.it/~checchi/

PPMy - Web based ProFTPd Manager

PPMy is a simple Web-based administration utility to administer users and groups to a ProFTPD server, storing users and groups in a MySQL database.

http://ppmy.sourceforge.net/

GADMIN-ProFTPd - Gnome Admin

GAdmin-ProFTPD is a GTK+ frontend for the ProFTPD standalone server. It gives admins access to virtual hosting and eight layers of security, including chrooted users and encrypted transfers on both the data and/or control channels.

http://mange.dynalias.org/linux.html

ProFTPd Admin - Another Web Base Admin Tool

A web-based tool written in PHP aimed at managing users and groups for a ftp-server called "proFTPd".

http://proftpd-adm.sourceforge.net/

Others?

Missed any worth mentioning? Leave a comment and we’ll update the post.

Author: Jamie @ 11:56 pm

Tags: free, ftp, graphical, gui, linux, Open Source, server

Category: Geeky Stuff, Open Source

Comments (11)

Setting up an FTP connecting using FileZilla

March 13, 2008

FTP or File Transfer Protocol is a method for transferring files between two computers on a network. This can be between two computers on your local business network or a computer the other side of the world. Dating as far back as 1971, FTP is still widely used today from a web developer updating a website or company distributing files that are too large to be sent via email.

Back in the day using FTP was bit of chore. You needed to type in commands like FTP, BYE, MKDIR, GET, PUT, MPUT and MGET at the command line to navigate the file system. Far too geeky!

Luckily you can use graphical user interface to make using FTP less of a chore. Windows users can simply need to open up Windows Explorer or My Computer, doesn’t matter which, just type in ftp://<IP address or computer> into the address bar. For example ftp://ftpservername.com or ftp://123.456.789.123. It will then prompt you for a username and password. Once logged in, click on the Folders icon on the address bar and simply use it as if you’re moving files around locally on your PC.

Mac people check out this page, Using FTP in Finder.

Power Users

If you use FTP on daily basis you will probably benefit from a dedicated FTP client. FTP clients like FileZilla provide a wealth of features from account management for handling multiple FTP logins, transfer resumes, intelligent file over writes and configurable speed limits.

So here is quick overview to getting started with FileZilla, an open source product (free) which is available for Windows, Mac and Linux users.

Firstly head over to FileZilla website, download (client version) and install
Once installed, load it up and click on Site Manager icon (above host)
This will launch Site Manager. Click on New Site > in the Host field enter the address of the web server and select Logontype as Normal > enter User and Password.
On the next tab labelled Advanced, click on Browse and select the local directory you typically transfer files to and from on your computer. If you know the directory on the FTP server you can also enter this under Default remote directory. Once finished, click on OK.
Now that FileZilla has your FTP login details, which are hopefully correct (double check them!) simply click on the drop icon next to the Site Icon you click on before. This will connect you to your FTP server. On the left hand side you have your local files and on the right the remote files on the FTP server. You can either drag and drop, double click on them or right click on them to transfer them between the two locations.