Ubuntu 12.04 500 OOPS: vsftpd: refusing to run with writable root inside chroot() Keep user jailed

Question

Before you close this out to repetition, I have been researching all of the proposed solutions to this bug and so far I have been unable to keep a FTP user jailed to their website directory. While I am not a ubuntu server expert, I wanted to reach out to the community to see if anyone has found a solution that both fixes this bug and keeps the user jailed to their directory.

My vsftpd settings that I changed:

listen_port=9000
Set: anonymous_enable=NO 
Uncomment: local_enable=YES 
Uncomment: write_enable=YES 
Uncomment: local_umask=022 
Set: connect_from_port_20=NO 
Uncomment: idle_session_timeout=600
Uncomment: data_connection_timeout=120 
Comment out: #ftpd_banner=Welcome to blah FTP service. [should be on line 104]
Added: banner_file=/etc/issue.net 
Uncomment: chroot_local_user=YES
Uncomment: chroot_local_user=YES 
Uncomment: chroot_list_enable=YES 
Uncomment : chroot_list_file=/etc/vsftpd.chroot_list

At the end of the file I added:

# Show hidden files and the "." and ".." folders.
# Useful to not write over hidden files:
force_dot_files=YES

# Hide the info about the owner (user and group) of the files.
hide_ids=YES

# Connection limit for each IP:
max_per_ip=10

# Maximum number of clients:
max_clients=5

# FTP Passive Settings
pasv_enable=YES
#If your listen_port is 9000 set this range to 7500 and 8500
pasv_min_port=[port range min]
pasv_max_port=[port range max]

The user in question mybloguser is jailed to her website directory under /srv/www/myblog and this user is not part of the nano /etc/vsftpd.chroot_list file. The user’s home directory is also /srv/www/myblog which used to work in the past.

I tried the allow_writeable_chroot=YES solution which did not work, and actually broke vsftpd completely.

I have tried:

http://www.benscobie.com/fixing-500-oops-vsftpd-refusing-to-run-with-writable-root-inside-chroot

VSFTPd stopped working after update

http://programster.blogspot.com/2012/12/ubuntu-1204-setting-up-ftp-server-with.html

http://imbuzu.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/fixing-500-oops-vsftpd-refusing-to-run-with-writable-root-inside-chroot-on-vsftpd/

How can we both fix this error and keep the user jailed to their home directory?

Answer 1

After further review of this post, in the comments a package was posted that fixed my issue. You can search for it by either my name or "Marks" Documentation: http://www.benscobie.com/fixing-500-oops-vsftpd-refusing-to-run-with-writable-root-inside-chroot/. Here are my details of how I fixed this further.

USERS ARE STILL JAILED TO THEIR HOME DIRECTORIES!!!

# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# SETUP FTP USERS --------------------------------------------------------------
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

# create the ftp users and lock them to the website directories
useradd -d /srv/www/[website/appname] -m [ftp user name]

# set the ftp account passwords
passwd [ftp user name]

# add the ftp users to the www-data user/group
adduser [ftp user name] www-data

# BUG FIX: 500 OOPS: vsftpd: refusing to run with writable root inside chroot()
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:thefrontiergroup/vsftpd
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install vsftpd

# Edit the vsftpd.conf and append this setting to the end of the file to keep users' jailed!
nano /etc/vsftpd.conf

# add all of the text between the starting [[ and ending ]]
# [[

# Keep non-chroot listed users jailed
allow_writeable_chroot=YES

# ]]

# restart the service for changes to take effect
sudo service vsftpd restart

#test ftp via secondary terminal window:
ftp [ftp user name]@[server ipaddress] [ftp port]