How do I set up FTP on localhost?

Question

On my old machine (back on Lucid!) I used XAMPP for local dev work. XAMPP installed everything for you, including setting up FTP to your localhost (/var/www) directory, since permissions don't allow you to write directly to it.

I have a new machine running Precise, and decided to do things the grown-up way. I installed everything using tasksel, and got apache, php, mysql, and phpmyadmin up and running. But it's kind of a pain to have to create and edit all my files via gksudo gedit on the command line, and sooner or later I'm going to have to upload images.

How can I set up FTP so that I can "upload" files to my localhost server?

Edit to add

Followed the first video, but when I got to the point where he was creating files (around 7:25 in), I get hung up. Here's what my terminal looks like when I try to get into the /srv directory (which I verified does exist in Nautilus):

What do I need to do to get past this?

Answer 1

Well, I was just trying to do this exact same thing...

I looked it up on Youtube, he explains how to do it with a GUI. It is basically the same thing with a CLI, if that's what you are using, just all with text- obviously.

Here is part one editing the .conf file for vsftpd:

Configuring FTP in Ubuntu - Part 1

And part two, where he finishes adding permissions and access control:

Configuring FTP in Ubuntu - Part 2

Best of luck...