After being a dedicated Gentoo user, I’ve recently moved over to Debian.  Hoping to work more on productive tasks, than just administrating my servers.  In the switch I had to configure Pure-FTPD to use virtual users, and the config files are quite a bit different than Gentoo.

I thought I’d write up a quick how to on how to configure Pure-FTPD with virtual users in Debian, as sort of a personal reference, and in hope someone else will be able to put it to use.  And here we go..

Enable PureDB authentication:

# cd /etc/pure-ftpd/auth

# ln -s ../conf/PureDB 50pure

To disable PAM authentication and UNIX authentication so you only have virtual users:
# echo no > /etc/pure-ftpd/conf/PAMAuthentication

# echo no > /etc/pure-ftpd/conf/UnixAuthentication

That’s it.  Simple, but when coming from a single config file, this isn’t at all intuitive – at least to me.

I’ve always recommended Pure-FTPD for it’s security, features, and simplicity.  You can find out more information at the official Pure-FTPD projects website: www.Pure-FTPD.org